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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (technical).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

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Module tracking of template parameter's raw content

How do I track the raw content of an template's parameter? In this case, I'm wanting to track the parameter |WrittenBy= in the {{Episode list}} template.

For example, the Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! article uses |WrittenBy=''Story by'': Ken Daly and John Matta<br />''Teleplay by'': Ken Daly, John Matta and Jon Colton Barry, when it should be using |WrittenBy={{StoryTeleplay|s=Ken Daly and John Matta|t=Ken Daly, John Matta and Jon Colton Barry}}. I'm wanting to track the cases where the former format is used instead of the latter templated format.

Now, here I attempted to add tracking to Module:Episode list by checking if the parameter included ''Story or ''Teleplay. However, I remembered that templates are parsed from the inside out, so this tracking would automatically include parameters that already use {{StoryTeleplay}}, as the template gives the same output (i.e. ''Story and ''Teleplay), just formatted elsewhere differently.

So, can I track the value of |WrittenBy= by its raw value, before the value (and thus any templates the value contains) is parsed? -- /Alex/21 21:21, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

{{StoryTeleplay}} does call {{Italics colon}} which calls {{hair space}} which includes &#8202; in the final rendering:
{{StoryTeleplay|s=Greg Berlanti & Andrew Kreisberg}}
<i>Story by</i>&hairsp;: Greg Berlanti & Andrew Kreisberg → Story by : Greg Berlanti & Andrew Kreisberg
So, perhaps looking for the specific string: ''&#8202;: in |WrittenBy= will get you most of the way there.
You can also have the module read the unparsed page content 
local content = mw.title.getCurrentTitle():getContent(); -- get unparsed wikitext of current page
local written_by = content:find ('|%s*WrittenBy%s*=%s*{{%s*StoryTeleplay');   -- look for |WrittenBy= parameter with {{StoryTeleplay}}
if not written_by then
--do something appropriate here
else
--do something else appropriate here
end
—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:16, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply! I was thinking I'd have to check for the hair space, but I thought I'd check to see if I could check the parameter's raw content first; I guess not! So I've implemented the following. Thanks again. -- /Alex/21 23:38, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Graph:Chart issues

The showSymbols parameter in {{Graph:Chart}} doesn't respect opacity values. Here's a clearer/simpler example. The lines conform to the opacity of #40FF0000 (#FF0000 at 25% opacity); the symbols do not (they display as #FF0000 at 100% opacity).

Any comments as to how this can be fixed? -- /Alex/21 23:40, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Novel form of vandalism???

When I open Einstein Papers Project in the Wikipedia App on my iPhone, I see "Nahom is Physicist" immediately below the subject line, as seen in the following screen capture: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Dre17ZwAEm1VoC3toxRWqPRyWLnuAHCU

These words do not appear on the Desktop nor on the Mobile versions of the article. I do not see these words anywhere in the source text. Does anybody know how these words could have been introduced to the Wikipedia App version of the article? Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 02:32, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

It's a Wikidata thing,[1] now reverted. -- zzuuzz (talk) 02:34, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 02:39, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-43

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

  • Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. The API sandbox and help pages now show more clearly when API modules are marked as internal. API modules marked as internal were probably internal before. It was easier to miss. You should look for non-internal alternatives. [2]

Problems

  • There is a translation tool we use on wikis with more than one language. For a few days it did not create pages for new languages when someone translated a page. The languages did not show in the language bar. This has been fixed. [3]
  • The history and diffs can show wrong content. This is because of a cache problem. It will soon be fixed. [4]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 October. It will be on all wikis from 24 October (calendar).
  • Reference Previews will be a beta feature on all Wikipedias and some Wikivoyages. It shows you a preview of the footnote when you hover over or click on the number. It has been a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia since April.

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 October. See how to join.

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

14:18, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

A little help with significant figures and rounding needed at Module:Math

I could use a little help at Module Talk:Math to figure out why rounding precision is apparently not working as documented (or why my brain is not interpreting the documentation correctly). Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:50, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Help for programmers with modules: a debug module

Because I'm improving a fairly complex module (more than two thousand lines of code). I created a module to make easy the debugging of any other module, because I found nothing similar in this wiki.

Justification: Although many times with an error() to see a variable is more than enough, but sometimes you want to see what happens with more than one variable and/or in several points. Module:SimpleDebug solved this problem easily.

I make publicity of this module in Help:Lua#Debugging modules.

--Jmarchn (talk) 14:36, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

The use of ASCII hyphens (U+002D) as separators is disgusting. Better to separate by a character which may unlikely be found in strings on Wikipedia. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:02, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for this useful work! I think Incnis Mrsi meant to say that it might be better to use • as a separator (you can copy that character into the module to replace the hyphen). Also see Module:Dump which I have used. The built-in mw.log and mw.logObject functions are also useful, and mw.dumpObject can be used with error() although dump usually gives a prettier result. This might also be discussed at WT:LUA. Johnuniq (talk) 00:39, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi, @Incnis Mrsi and Johnuniq:!. I already changed "-" for "•". Also I added a new chapter: Help:Lua_debugging#How_debug, and added this information to WT:LUA (I did not know this place because I usually do not write in the English Wikipedia.) Thanks!. Jmarchn (talk) 21:17, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

pct |sigfig=

I found no way I could input the output of Template:Pct into Template:Sigfig, so asked in Template talk:Percentage to add |sigfig= as an option, as it currently already exists in Template:Convert. What's the best way to go about this? Guarapiranga (talk) 21:59, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Resolved
Here.
Thanks to Frietjes. Guarapiranga (talk) 08:55, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2020

So the meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2020 is open, and all the things we've told people "try getting it on the wishlist" would normally be championed.....but they are explicitly excluding all "Wikipedia" or "Global" (including wikidata and commons) related wishes this year. But if you've been waiting to get some attention to some Wikivoyage or other small project feature, now is your chance. — xaosflux Talk 23:17, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Worth putting as a watchlist notice? Nosebagbear (talk) 09:10, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
@Nosebagbear: I'd say no, as it will have no impact on Wikipedia. — xaosflux Talk 11:16, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Title of Ross School of Business is in italics

The title of Ross School of Business is in italics and it shouldn't be. I can't figure out what is making it that way. Ideas? Thanks, SchreiberBike | ⌨  03:55, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

It's because of the {{Infobox journal}} template that's used about halfway down to make an infobox for the Journal of Business section. Not sure if a tech workaround is possible. —Soap— 04:08, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
OK I figured it out. The journal template allows the suppression of the italicization of the title, and yet we can still have an italic title in the midsection after all by just using the standard method of enclosing it in apostrophes. (Also, MarnetteD (talk · contribs) got there just a bit before me, it seems.) —Soap— 04:13, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. If the talk page is to be believed, this has been a problem for at least 2 years, 3 months, 28 days. It was fixed by you guys in minutes. Keep up the good work. SchreiberBike | ⌨  04:25, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
I've fixed those a couple times over the years. The specific command can vary between infobox templates but it is usually noted in the documentation for each infobox - fingers crossed anyway :-) MarnetteD|Talk 04:29, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
The doc for {{Infobox journal}} has a box right at the top showing how to do this. So so several other infoboxes concerning published works, like {{infobox book}}. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:46, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Beta feature "Reference Previews"

A new beta feature will soon be deployed to your wiki: Reference Previews. As you might guess from the name, this feature gives you a preview of references in the article text. That means, you can look up a reference without jumping down to the bottom of the page.

Reference Previews have already been a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia since April. Now they will become available on more wikis. Deployment is planned for October 24. More information can be found on the project page.

As always, feedback is highly appreciated. If you want to test Reference Previews, please activate the beta feature in your user preferences and let us know what you think. The best place for feedback is the central talk page. We hope the feature will serve you well in your work. Thank you from Wikimedia Deutschland's Technical Wishes project.

-- Johanna Strodt (WMDE) 09:47, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

How does this differ from the existing mw:Reference Tooltips gadget, other than being larger and having more whitespace? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:26, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
@Ahecht: that question is already posed at meta:talk:WMDE_Technical Wishes/ReferencePreviews. Nthep (talk) 15:34, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
I can be biased as a person who has worked on the gadget a lot, but I consider the beta feature inferior in many ways. Nevertheless, this feature may have some advantages over the gadget such as the ability to see the reference type (Web reference, Journal reference) quickly. I think of holding a RfC to find out if the gadget needs some refinement, specifically in places where (and if) the beta feature has its good sides. Jack who built the house (talk) 17:29, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Ahecht, I think those questions are answered by the project page, it has all the relevant information. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:52, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

CommonsDelinker behavior

I'm not sure where I should post this exactly, but by chance, I happened to see this edit by CommonsDelinker. In addition to removing the file link, it also munged the section header (breaking the subsequent sectioning in the archive), even though that was just a bare text string with the name of the file. If nothing else, I thought I'd let folks here know in case someone thinks it should be reported elsewhere, or if someone wants to look through for other kinds of breaking edits like this. Thanks, –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 23:16, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

@Deacon Vorbis: Magnus Manske is the bot operator, you should report problems to them on BitBucket. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 00:32, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

User script for watching pages temporarily

New user scripts are not usually announced here but I think this one is sort of epic. Seeing that watchlist expiry was #7 on last year's Community Tech wishlist, I have recently created a new user script that enables watching pages temporarily - see User:SD0001/T-Watch. Being a user script, of course, the implementation is quite different than how the WMF is going to implement it. But until such a feature becomes a part of core MediaWiki - which I guess is going to take quite a while, I think this script would be useful. Any feedback is welcome. Enjoy! SD0001 (talk) 18:16, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Now updated to provide elegant menus for vector and monobook skins, to avoid the watch links from cluttering the "more" dropdown (in vector) or the p-cactions toolbar (in monobook). SD0001 (talk) 12:06, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Interesting, I'll definitely give this a go and let you know of anything odd. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:31, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Is there a way to specify an expiration in "number of consecutive edits by users other than you" rather than units of time? ―cobaltcigs 06:12, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

mediawiki.RegExp scripts not wokring

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T218339

The following threads all appear to be related to phab:T218339 and will need to be updated by their respective owners. — xaosflux Talk 21:03, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

XfD closer has disappeared

I came to close an XfD today, and the tabs have disappeared from the top of my screen, and the quick-close options have disappeared from next to the title of the XfD itself. Have I missed something, or is that a bug? Black Kite (talk) 18:24, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I just noticed the same. --RL0919 (talk) 18:27, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
"XFD Closer" appears to be someone else's personal user script, please follow up at User talk:Evad37. — xaosflux Talk 18:28, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Even odder, though; I last used it about 10 days ago, and it's not in my common.js (which was last edited in 2015). I've just added it back into common.js, and that's made no difference. XfDcloser itself doesn't appear to have been edited since May. So what's changed? Is it Twinkle related? (Edit: not a browser issue - tried two others - still the same). Black Kite (talk) 18:31, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
You have User:Mr.Z-man/closeAFD.js installed in your vector.js page, that script redirects to the XFDcloser. SD0001 (talk) 18:49, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Black Kite: You're looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. I see that User:Black Kite/modern.js, User:Black Kite/monobook.js and User:Black Kite/vector.js all contain the line 
importScript('User:Mr.Z-man/closeAFD.js');
and if we look at the page User:Mr.Z-man/closeAFD.js, we see the single line 
importScript('User:Evad37/XFDcloser.js'); // Linkback: [[User:Evad37/XFDcloser.js]]
It's not a good idea to have it in both User:Black Kite/common.js and a skin-specific .js page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
It isn't just Black Kite, though. I'm experiencing the same issue, and I am importing the script directly and only in my common.js. I've raised the question at User talk:Evad37/XFDcloser.js#Stopped working?. --RL0919 (talk) 19:05, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
At least one other script by Evad37 has broken, see below. Others may have broken too, but may not have been noticed yet. Probably some change in the code underpinning the interface or the Wiki itself wrecked Evad's scripts.Captain Eek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:14, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Not working for me either. The actual User:Evad37/XFDcloser.js page (and the page that it redirects to: User:Evad37/XFDcloser/v3.js) have not been edited recently. Unless there were changes made to some other code that that script depends on? ‑Scottywong| [spout] || 21:01, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

With apologies to Evad37, I've gone and fixed this as it's an important tool that's (clearly) causing disruption for a lot of folks. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:33, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, Amorymeltzer. --RL0919 (talk) 23:06, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

What was the fix? RoySmith-Mobile (talk) 16:18, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Issues with Evad37 - Rater.js

Greetings, This morning Rater javascript stopped working. Details of error here. Another user reports that this js also disappeared from drop-down menu. Also "Move to draft" missing from drop-down menu. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 18:43, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I have dropped a note to User:Evad37, although it appears they may be on a Wikibreak at the moment. Captain Eek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:09, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
@CaptainEek: - Yes, this might be a JS problem. I just copied old version 1.2.1 of Rater into my scripts, logged off,on & still not running. So something else must have changed/stopped causing the JS to not run. JoeHebda (talk) 19:24, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 Done Evand37 updated their script. — xaosflux Talk 23:15, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Two User scripts not loading

I suspect this as the same issue as the previous two.

I have two scripts in my common.js: User:Evad37/XFDcloser and User:DannyS712/SATG. Both stopped working this morning after working fine last night. I've tried purging my local cache and switching browsers (Chrome to Safari) with no luck. -- Scott Burley (talk) 19:44, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: regarding yours. — xaosflux Talk 19:46, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Just FYI, my own user scripts seem to be working. — xaosflux Talk 19:47, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Thanks for the ping - @Scott Burley:  fixed - @Evad37: you have a mw.loader.using call for 'mediawiki.RegExp' that is likely the issue, see phab:T218339 - it was removed DannyS712 (talk) 20:28, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
This diff fixes rater.js. At least basic functionality seems to be working. Maybe an admin can apply the fix? --MarioGom (talk) 21:28, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
MarioGom Ah! Many thanks for the diff - just what I came here looking for. Philip Trueman (talk) 03:48, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
cc Amorymeltzer, I see you fixed XFDCloser. --MarioGom (talk) 21:35, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Preventing this in the future

I think it would be possible to mitigate breakage like this in the future. The WMF, before deploying a new MediaWiki version, could deliver notices to user script authors affected by the change. Is there any way we can propose the WMF to collaborate with us to coordinate API changes? In this case, it looks to me that the fix could have been even applied automatically by a bot before deploying the change. --MarioGom (talk) 22:00, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I think the better solution is simply to not rely on other people's personal user scripts for each person's workflows. Pushing Gadget 2.0 forward may be a good way, perhaps we can jump on the wishlist about it this year. — xaosflux Talk 23:07, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Fine by me, although XFDCloser was proposed as a gadget just last month and it was shot down. --RL0919 (talk) 23:14, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
@RL0919: thanks for the note, can you provide a link to the 'shoot down'? — xaosflux Talk 23:16, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive_176#Likelihood of User:Evad37/XFDcloser.js becoming a gadget?. Looking at the discussion again, perhaps "got nowhere" is a more apt summary than "shot down", but same result. --RL0919 (talk) 23:24, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
We can be somewhat flexible on the "Testing and Development" train of gadgets. For these specifically, they have a regular maintainer (User:Evad37)) - and of course we could fork them, but it would be nice to get buy in from the primary maintainer first. Evad37 any thoughts on this? — xaosflux Talk 23:36, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
I think this (and gadget-ification of the more critical scripts) are the right way forwards. I've got some ideas for some local surveillance work/notifications, but in the end this went kind of how it should: a thing people relied upon broke, people reported it, and it was fixed fairly quickly after those reports. Ideally we'd skip the breaking part, but that's life in a wiki! ~ Amory (u • t • c) 23:44, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Gadget-ification is something I was looking at earlier in the year - Evad37 [talk] 00:30, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of this and would happily support gadget-ification (if Evad was in favour) of it. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:49, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Find and replace

Is there tool like "find and replace" which would let me automatize some edits? Eurohunter (talk) 19:00, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

In the wikitext editor, click Advanced then click the quizzing glass at far right. Search and replace; even has regex.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:02, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
@Trappist the monk: I use old toolbar and I would like to have easy access to it. Eurohunter (talk) 19:05, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and check 'Enable the editing toolbar'. I guess that's not the 'old' old tool bar but it ain't that abomination that is ve.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:10, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
@Trappist the monk: But its bad toolbar. It increases space beetwen characters so it make text unreadable for me and takes too much space in editor and all tools are hidden (for what?). Eurohunter (talk) 19:20, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
That is not my experience. If you see that across several browsers, perhaps you should report it as a bug.
You might just have to resort to copying the text into a plain-text text editor and do search-and-replace that way. I have used Notepad++ successfully for that.
Or, there is a different editor for modules / javascript, etc so you might edit Module:Sandbox/Eurohunter paste your text there, search and replace (crtl-f, the + in the search box gets you into replace) copy it all back to the source page. You might have to click the <> button at far left to get the non-toolbar editor.
I'm out of suggestions.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:31, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
@Trappist the monk: This feature is avaiable at PLWiki so it should be here too. Eurohunter (talk) 21:23, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Eurohunter, which of the many mw:Editors are you using? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): Legacy 2006 JavaScript editor. Eurohunter (talk) 18:19, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
@Trappist the monk: @Whatamidoing (WMF): pl:Wikipedia:Narzędzia/Wyszukiwanie i zamiana on PLWiki works with Legacy 2006 JavaScript editor. Can we have it here? Eurohunter (talk) 20:50, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
So the Polish gadget can theoretically be imported with mw.loader.load("https://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-searchbox.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript");, but I forgot how to install the 2006 editor so I didn't test it. Enterprisey (talk!) 19:23, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Actually, the correct way to import a gadget is by using mw.loader.load("https://pl.wikipedia.org/w/load.php?debug=false&modules=ext.gadget.searchbox&lang=en") , so that the CSS and dependencies (if any) are also loaded. (Though I also haven't tested this.) SD0001 (talk) 16:38, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
@Enterprisey: @SD0001: Should I add it to common.js? It doesn't works then. Eurohunter (talk) 17:20, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Highlighted diffs in watchlist?

I get highlighted entries in my watchlist when some filter suspects they might be vandalism. They have a tooltip of, "Highlighted: Likely have problems". I've long since forgotten if this is the default behavior, or it's some option I turned on somewhere. For example, this diff. At first glace, it sure looks like it might be vandalism; an IP deleted over 6k of text. But, upon closer inspection, the edit summary explains that it's a copyvio, and I confirmed that it is indeed.

So, my question is, is there some way for me to mark this change as "verified legit"? I imagine many people with this on their watchlist is doing the same thing I did; seeing a big IP text deletion, downloading the referenced pdf, and verifying the copyvio. If the change could be marked as clean (patrolled?), then only one person would have to do that.

And while we're on that topic, what does "Preferences / Watchlist / Changes shown / Hide categorization of pages" do? I've tried turning it off and on and don't see anything that happens differently.

-- RoySmith (talk) 19:48, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

See Help:Watchlist#page categorization. If a category page is on your watchlist then "Hide categorization of pages" (enabled by default) will not show pages being added to or removed from the category. Try to disable it and add an active category like Category:Living people to your watchlist. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:30, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
The first issue that you're talking about is mw:ORES scores and you have turned it on with the options at "Revision scoring on Watchlist" section in the watchlist tab of your preferences. And on how to report that the edit is nondamaging see the ORES FAQ. – Ammarpad (talk) 01:02, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. Maybe it would be a good idea for the tool-tip to include mw:ORES link? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:42, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Ctrl + J in Wikipedia

Hi! :), is there any form to apply "Ctrl + J" for the texts in the English Wiki. I don't know the word in English, but in Spanish is to "justificar" a text. If you used WordPad or Word you know what I refer to. :) I cannot explain myself further, hope to have beeen clear. :) --CoryGlee (talk) 19:48, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

You are talking about justification. I'm not aware of any way to do that. You could check in Wikipedia:Tutorial/Formatting, but I didn't see anything that that fits your description. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:01, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
What text do you want to justify? In the article display or in the editing box? Nardog (talk) 20:06, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
At one time there was a user preference at Preferences → Appearance → Advanced options called "Justify paragraphs". This operated on the rendered text, not the edit box. It was removed about six years ago in a general purge of little-used options. You can still justify the rendered text, but using a CSS rule instead of a preference: 
.mw-parser-output p { text-align: justify; }
This operates on text formatted as paragraphs, not lists or tables. It goes in either Special:MyPage/common.css or Special:MyPage/skin.css, whichever you normally use. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:09, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
It's still available as a gadget: Preferences → Gadgets → Appearance "Justify paragraphs" SD0001 (talk) 20:41, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Number that is not an integer but is stated as an integer

In wp:numeral, regarding spelling out numbers or expressing them as digits, it says that an integer less than 10 should be spelled out. What if the number is a measurement, not an exact integer, but is stated as a small integer? For example, "The two cities are 5 miles apart", or "The two cities are five miles apart". Five/5 is not an exact integer - it us rounded off from a measurement. Should it be spelled out or use digits? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 22:50, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

That's a style, not a technical issue. Please ask at WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers. IMHO "five" is good, otherwise it would never be possible to write "five miles" because it is very unlikely that two things are exactly five miles apart. Johnuniq (talk) 23:04, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm taking it over there. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 23:10, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

The hyphen template

Why is the {{hyphen}} template showing as &#45 when it should be showing -? see this edit in the footnotes. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 04:57, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I think you needed an en dash there, per MOS:DASH, but it also looks like a rendering bug. I have opened a discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:12, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
The template documentation for {{cite}} states that "If hyphenated, use {{hyphen}} to indicate this is intentional (e.g. |page=3{{hyphen}}12), otherwise several editors and semi-automated tools will assume this was a misuse of the parameter to indicate a page range and will convert |page=3-12 to |pages=3{{ndash}}12.". - Chris.sherlock (talk) 05:35, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
I commented at the link given by Jonesey95 to say that wrapping the page numbers (|pages=... parameter) with double parentheses gives the expected output. Johnuniq (talk) 06:46, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
from a Wikimedia dev:
If you mean for example in citation 7 of Antimatter, the issue is apparently with Module:Citation/CS1 line 926
local list = mw.text.split (str, '%s*[,;]%s*'); -- split str at comma or semicolon separators if there are any
- Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:57, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that's the same conclusion I reached at Help talk:Citation Style 1. I fixed Antimatter with double-parens in this edit. Johnuniq (talk) 08:26, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Page broken on some browsers.

Hey all. Sorry if this is the incorrect place to post this - I'm not sure what I did. I tried to make a page for the list of Bryum species a la List of Sphagnum species. It seemed straightforward and I posted it as List of Bryum species. However, this page crashes Google Chrome on both Windows and Android. Microsoft Edge can load it properly. This might be a localized issue, but could someone check this out and maybe help me troubleshoot? Thanks, Mbdfar (talk) 06:04, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't crash for me, so I can't test it, but it could be lack of using {{div col end}} with {{div col}}. As a result you have a lot of unclosed div elements. The Sphagnum page closes the list in each alphabetic heading.   Jts1882 | talk  07:23, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Solved. Thanks! Mbdfar (talk) 15:48, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Random article

Do we know how often Special:Random/Random article is clicked? I'm trying to figure out if some of the obscure moth articles I work on are viewed by anyone. I took a nonrandom sample and they were visited roughly once every four days. If Special:Random is clicked 1.5 million times per day, that would account for all the visits. If Special:Random is clicked less than that, it might indicate someone is actually looking at those moths on purpose. That doesn't feel very clear, but my question is: How often is Special:Random used? Thank you, SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:04, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Multiyear ranking of most viewed pages#Top-100 list claims 7900 million views December 1, 2007 – October 1, 2019. That would be 1.8 million daily on average but it has claimed 7900 million since the 2016 creation [5] so something is wrong. See also Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical#Is the "random article" feature really random? PrimeHunter (talk) 01:39, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
I've personally encountered at least a dozen of them, lol. ―cobaltcigs 17:26, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Visual Editor problems

Hi, I have used VE (to add inline cites) without problem for a few years and now for the last few weeks, I cannot load the VE interface. The blue progress bar quickly moves to about the 75% mark and then freezes until I press <esc>. The problem appears to be specific to my browser (Chrome) as other browsers (eg. MS Edge) will work. I have cleared the cache, waited for an hour to see if it unfreezes, ensured windows and Chrome are updated. I have tried safe mode, but to no avail. I am happy to edit solely in source mode, but do prefer the automatic references in VE. Any other things I should try? Loopy30 (talk) 22:05, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

@Loopy30: Could you try mw:Help:Locating broken scripts and take a look at the potential output in your browser? --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:16, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi AKlapper (WMF), VE is now working on Chrome. It wasn't a few hours ago, or for the last few weeks, so I'm not really sure what changed. Thanks for your suggestion though. Loopy30 (talk) 19:54, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Searching text of pages (ever) edited by a specified user

Is there any built-in way to apply such a filter? Or maybe something on the toolserver that would help? Or any easier strategy than parsing database dumps? (Probably two of them: one to search page history data and generate a list of titles, and one to search content of titles on that list—because any dump containing both types of information would obviously be too damn big to store and take too damn long to parse.) ―cobaltcigs 17:26, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

mw:API:usercontribs will get you the list of all pages edited by a user (it gives 500 pages in go, but you can use the continue parameter to run another query to get the next 500 pages, and so on). Next, mw:API:revisions gets you the text of these pages (again, it fetches the text of only upto 50 pages per query, you may have to run multiple iterations). SD0001 (talk) 22:17, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Is it possible to force display of plaintext instead of emojis in articles?

Someone wrote two years ago at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_158#Some_mathematical_etc._symbols_replaced_by_emoji that emojis were popping up in all sorts of places, like mathematical equations. And we seemed to think that Chrome, Apple, etc were going to do something about it. That obviously didnt happen. But is it possible that we can somehow make it so that symbols that are potentially going to be rendered as emojis will instead show up in an old-school font that doesnt have them? Does the browser automatically replace all such symbols with colored emojis in all fonts? e.g. right now, in the edit window, ↗ and ↘ have their classical appearance: two thin diagonal black lines with arrowheads at the end. But on Romanian_phonology#Intonation they are large, colorful emojis that break up the flow of the text. Is there any way that we can get the edit-window style appearance to show up in the article? Thanks for any answers, —Soap— 04:13, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

It shows up normal for me with chrome and edge on Windows 10. What device and browser are you using? Someguy1221 (talk) 04:17, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
I don't see any emoji either both on the page and in edit window using Chrome on Mac. Possibly has to do with your browser/system. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:00, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I suspect so too, but .... I also suspect it's coming to all of us whether we want it or not. I only noticed it on that page today after I updated Chrome ... and that happens automatically for most users.
Sorry, I should reply fully .... I'm on Windows 7 on a fairly old computer. But the browser is up to date, because I never turned off auto-update on this computer (and in my experience it's pretty hard to stop Chrome from updating when it really wants to.) I cant say for sure if the browser update is the reason for the change, but it's my best hunch. —Soap— 05:54, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Here is the text copied from the article: [ai stins lu↗mi↘na]. What do you see here? I see "lu" then a north-east arrow, then "mi", then a south-east arrow, then "na". Try editing this section and replacing "mi" with "xyz". What do you see on preview? What do you see in the history of this page (I pasted the text in my edit summary)? Johnuniq (talk) 06:41, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm now on a Windows 7 machine using the newest version of chrome, looks normal to me. Firefox's latest version is also displaying it just fine. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:30, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. The edit history now has the emojis too. Im pretty sure that copypaste works normally so long as the user sees the classical glyphs. Your paste worked just fine ... but my browser sees those glyphs as emojis, and there's nothing you can do on your end that will make them appear normal.
Everything in the edit window still appears with its classical form, which leads me to believe that — if the time ever comes when the emoji appearance becomes default and if other people complain — we might be able to work out a solution on our end to make it appear that way all over. Because I dont think we can count on Google and Apple. But you just reminded me of something else ... when the glyphs appear in their emoji form, I cannot copy/paste them ... so there may be more to this than just an aesthetic preference, and I think I won't be alone at wanting it back the way it used to be. This, again, assumes that I'm right that the change is coming, one way or another, and we will all soon see what I see. Thanks again for your replies. —Soap— 07:42, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Well, one more thing, .... again I apologize for the many small edits .... I used a hotspot for nearly 3 years and totally lost the habit of using Preview .... but it's possible the broken copy/paste is a WikEd bug, since I was able to paste them normally into a Word document as images, and into Notepad as text. It's still not ideal, if things are going to turn into images, but perhaps copypaste isn't totally broken. —Soap— 07:47, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
I see the emoji too, on Edge 44 with Windows 10 version 1903. See screenshot. The characters appear as non-emoji in Chrome 77 on the same system. This, that and the other (talk) 10:36, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
I too see the emoji while using Edge on Windows 10 (but not on Chrome) - I see them in both reading and editing views, which is surprisingly because I use the plain simple monospaced edit font. These characters can be forced to render in non-emoji form (in reading view) by appending the unicode control character U+FE0E just after the character. @Soap: I guess this text would look normal to you: [ai stins lu↗︎mi↘︎na]. SD0001 (talk) 11:15, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Unfortunately not (for me) on Chrome 77/Windows 10. --Izno (talk) 11:57, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Looks like U+FE0E fails to do its magic in certain fonts, including the one used by the Timeless skin. You're using Timeless, right? You should see the non-emoji form in any other skin. On my end, with Timeless skin, I see one of those two characters as emoji and the other as non-emoji (whether or not appended by U+FE0E). Weird. SD0001 (talk) 12:19, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
For me, logged in on all three. I see black thin lines making arrows UR and DR on IE and Chrome and in Edge, I see arrows (in the same direction as before) that are white on blue backgrounds with the box outlined in black.198.202.241.81 (talk) 16:47, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
The first style in the list below is used in the Timeless skin, along with some other fonts after that. Maybe the order of the 'Segoe UI Emoji' & 'Segoe UI Symbol' need switching in the Timeless skin? -- WOSlinker (talk) 18:17, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Style Result
font-family:'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Emoji','Segoe UI Symbol' lu↗mi↘na
font-family:'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Symbol','Segoe UI Emoji' lu↗mi↘na
font-family:'Segoe UI' lu↗mi↘na
font-family:'Segoe UI Symbol' lu↗mi↘na
font-family:'Segoe UI Emoji' lu↗mi↘na

I'm on monobook .... never really tried anything else ... but maybe monobook behaves the same. I think your solution might just be the answer, assuming the browser obeys the code. Also, I'm on a different computer right now and oddly enough, the emojis are not showing up here, even though the OS and browser are the same as on the other computer. I'm stumped as to what's going on under the hood, but .... it seems that most people posting here are in favor of having the symbols show up with their classical appearance at least as an option for math equations and such, so if there is a way forward, I hope we can find it. —Soap— 19:46, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Have you looked at a page logged out, either for reals or just in incognito mode, to make sure it's the browser and not a user setting? Someguy1221 (talk) 23:25, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Ah I forgot to check today when I was visiting ... the computer I made the original post from is at my parents' house, and I usually only visit on weekends. I did visit them today too but forgot to go online. I'll have to wait until Saturday to answer this question, although I can say that on my phone, the emojis appear whether I am logged in or not. —Soap— 21:15, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Okay. On incognito mode, on this computer, the emojis do not appear. But, when I view the same page logged in but with &useskin=vector, they do appear. So, I'm still stumped as to what's going on. There may be variables overriding other variables here. —Soap— 02:15, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Transclusion error

I've added transclusion markup to the List of countries and dependencies by population and am getting odd results, can't figure out why.

If I call

{{:List of countries and dependencies by population|transcludesection=Indonesia}}

I get

[erased]

What gives? Guarapiranga (talk) 09:00, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't know the exact why but the reason for the problem is that the article has three rows where all the flaglist parameters were copied to the transcludesection but only the first parameter should have been copied. The numbers shown in the following extract are included in the result:
|<onlyinclude>{{#ifeq:{{{transcludesection|Transnistria|state}}}|Transnistria|state
|469,000
}}</onlyinclude>

|<onlyinclude>{{#ifeq:{{{transcludesection|Saint Barthélemy|local}}}|Saint Barthélemy|local
|9,793
}}</onlyinclude>

|<onlyinclude>{{#ifeq:{{{transcludesection|Saint Pierre and Miquelon|local}}}|Saint Pierre and Miquelon|local
|6,008
}}</onlyinclude>
The "|state" and "|local" parameters should be deleted. Johnuniq (talk) 09:37, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes! That fixed it. Thanks Guarapiranga (talk) 13:33, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
You are using a poor transclusion method which easily goes wrong. Use Help:Labeled section transclusion instead. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:32, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Just tried that, and while it did work directly, it didn't work through a dedicated template such as:

{{Country population | IDN}} = 284,287,342

I guess it's bc it cannot be placed by a transclusion, but instead must be present on the page as saved in the database. — Guarapiranga (talk) 14:07, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
I think it should work. The quote applies to the section marker and not the page transcluding it. If [6] was your test then there is a pipe too much before {{{1}}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:18, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Damn pipes! Yes, that fixed it. Cheers. — Guarapiranga (talk) 14:25, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Now, what's with those extra LFs? I trimmed it already! — Guarapiranga (talk) 14:29, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Start noinclude on the same line the output ends.[7] PrimeHunter (talk) 18:53, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, PrimeHunter. Ok, so today I tried plugging the hole left by the cells in List of countries and dependencies by population themselves fed by transclusion via Template:Poptoday 1 with:

{{trim | {{#ifexist: {{data {{{1}}} }} | {{data {{{1}}} |poptoday|formatnum}} | {{#section:List of countries and dependencies by population | {{{1}}} }} }} }}

It's still working for the countries it worked before, but not the ones I wanted to include (the template returns empty handed, e.g. here). What gives? Is this a tech limitation (bc Template:Poptoday is a calc) or another oversight on my part? Cheers. Guarapiranga (talk) 04:11, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
Did you add the section markers like [8] in any of your tests? It works for me but I only did China. {{data China|poptoday 1}} returns three cells for the table so I used {{first word}} in {{Country population}} [9] to only retrieve the population. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:44, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
@Guarapiranga: - You don't need to transclude the output of the data templates from List of countries and dependencies by population because you can use them directly. e.g. {{data China|poptoday|formatnum}} results in 1,426,380,000. If you only want the population and not the other information you should be using {{poptoday}}, not {{poptoday 1}}. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:53, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
That's only available for a handful of countries, AussieLegend.
I hadn't, PrimeHunter; I didn't want to meddle with that metal (and didn't know Template:first word). Now I did. And it works! But… then I wanted to standardise it all, replacing the country names in the tags with their ISO 3-letter codes (that took some doing as Template:ISO 3166 code-3 invokes a Lua module, requiring 2 subst's, and kept timing out), and now Template:Country population times out too.[10] Any suggestions? Guarapiranga (talk) 21:23, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
It's true that the data templates are only available for a few countries but {{poptoday}} can be used anywhere. As for the timeouts, it's probably because you're transcluding the contents of one article 170 times. --AussieLegend (✉) 04:33, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
How do you mean, AussieLegend? Yes, {{poptoday}} can be used anywhere but only for those few countries. {{Data Indonesia|poptoday}}, for instance, works nowhere. That's why I thought I'd pull the info from that page (otherwise, the updating of that page itself would all be templated as it already is for China, India, Brazil, US, Before I converted the tags to ISO, and using {{ISO 3166 code-3}} in the template, it didn't time out. This leads me to believe that is the culprit. I read it heresomewhere I can no longer find (and thus can't confirm) that, while Lua is more efficient than the legacy Wikimedia scripting language, the process of calling it adds some overhead. That would explain {{Country population}} starting to time out after including the call to {{ISO 3166 code-3}}. Guarapiranga (talk) 07:33, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
@Johnuniq: The "onlyinclude" tags above are causing Wikipedia:Village pump (all)#Technical to only show "statelocallocal", ignoring everything else. To fix this problem, you should replace instances of <onlyinclude> and </onlyinclude> with &lt;onlyinclude&gt; and &lt;/onlyinclude&gt; respectively. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 15:54, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
It's enough to encode < as &lt;. I have done it. This is clearly a case where it's fine to edit a post by somebody else. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:18, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
That's interesting. I naively thought the <pre> block would block onlyinclude but on reflection that's very optimistic. Johnuniq (talk) 22:20, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
@Johnuniq: For samples of Wikimarkup, <source lang=moin>...</source> is preferred to <pre>...</pre> - between the source tags the MediaWiki parser will convert all <...> to &lt;...&gt; before passing it through to the next stage, it doesn't do that with pre. Same goes for examples of HTML, except that you would use lang=html. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:15, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikidata

I can't login autoatically to Wikidata after I login from Wikipedia while there is no problem with Commons or other versions of Wikipedia. This situation exists since probably last month. It's not the first time this situation occurs even it quite long time ago. Eurohunter (talk) 09:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

@Eurohunter: Try a WP:BYPASS. If that fails, you may have a corrupt login cookie. To fix that, return to a site that shows you as logged in, and then use the log out link which will invalidate all your login cookies server-side, and then log in again to create a fresh clean cookie. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:20, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
@Redrose64: I tried to re-login, clean my cache, cookies and other browser data few times already and it didn't helped. It must be Wikipedia problem (not the first time of course). Between cleaning browser it even worked few times without cleaning these data but now it doesn't works at all. Eurohunter (talk) 15:05, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Did you explicitly log out, or did you simply delete the cookies at your end? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:55, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
@Redrose64: Yes I'm login and logout every time I come here. Eurohunter (talk) 17:12, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Some unresolved tasks regarding failing SUL: phab:T217519, phab:T226797, phab:T225814. There are more I believe. – Ammarpad (talk) 23:48, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Image display problem

I can't figure out what the problem is, but several editors have commented on their inability to see this image in the List of battleships of France (though curiously, one of them has said that it displays just fine in the French battleship Bouvet article). The image displays correctly for me in both locations. But what is probably the same issue, this image in Greek battleship Kilkis doesn't work for me. I wondered if it had to do with the fact that both are .tif files, but so far no one has mentioned this one, which is also in the French battleship list and it's also a .tif. Anyone have any ideas what might be causing these problems? Parsecboy (talk) 12:05, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't see it in the list article, but do if I add "|300px" after "thumb". The infobox probably sets the width in the Bouvet article. I haven't made the change in case there is a more fundamental issue that someone can resolve.   Jts1882 | talk  12:40, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
MediaWiki fails to render File:French battleship Bouvet NH 64442.tif at some sizes. If a page says |thumb with no specifed px size then the size can depend on both Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering and the browser so some may see it while others don't. I see it at 200px and 300px but not 220px or unspecified. 200px and 300px work but not 220px. Setting a fixed size might make it display for everybody but Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Size is against it. I don't know a reliable way to fix the rendering but in my experience it often works later. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:43, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Huh, that's odd - I wonder if those editors have their preferences set (I have mine set at 300px, so that could be why it works for me). I couldn't get the Mississippi photo to render at any size, so I re-uploaded it as a jpeg and that's working just fine now. Parsecboy (talk) 13:59, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
@Parsecboy: Please consider filing a bug report in Phabricator with the "Thumbor" project tag, so developers could get aware of this problem. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:15, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

When Wikimedia switched presentation of TIFFs from JPEG to PNG? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 16:23, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Incnis Mrsi, we only ever rendered/shown tiffs as png and jpeg, because the tiff format can be hugely inefficient with data usage (by design for archival purposes) and because browser support for the many different variants of tiff differs immensely. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:12, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Sorry i misread your question. Tiff is rendered as either png or jpeg, depending on if the originals is in a tiff variant that supports transparency. There is also a lossy param to the file inclusion syntax, which allows u to flip between these two render formats. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:23, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Interesting… where is this parameter documented? Does it affect TIFF only or PDF with DjVu as well? Technically it would be no harder because rendering in PNG is already implemented in mw:Extension:PdfHandler – all the remaining job is to provide <img src="⋯.png"/>. I currently use a script against filthy JPEG thumbnails of PDFs. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:25, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Incnis Mrsi, that parameter is documented on mw:Extension:PagedTiffHandler and it only affects tiffs —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:02, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

action=unwatch url behavior

So I have an old script which adds an action=unwatch link to every item on Special:Watchlist. The idea is to middle-click several recently-edited pages in a row to unfollow (each in some other tab that I don't have to actually look at). Unfortunately this action now has an annoying confirmation screen (same with &action=purge actually). So I added another function to automatically click the "Yes" when one is detected. But I've found that sometimes, when too many tabs are open, the auto-click-yes script does not begin executing until I actually look at the tab, which due to volume I'd rather not have to do.

So is there something additional that can be added to the url to skip the confirmation page and enjoy the old behavior of performing such actions immediately? ―cobaltcigs 06:35, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Heh. This may not be helpful, but I was using User:Anomie/unwatch.js, which uses the API rather than opening urls, until I decided I wanted a confirmation dialog, so "forked" it to User:Begoon/unWatch.js in order to add one. It was certainly working without confirmation up until 21 June, which is the date I forked it. I just tested removing my confirmation "add-in" and it still works without confirmation for me in that state. Now I don't know if Anomie's raw script would do exactly what you want in your "many-tabbed" scenario (or if your "many tabs" are just being opened for the "unwatch" to happen in - this script doesn't do that - it works in your current window), or if you can make minor adjustments to make it work - but I thought I'd share anyway, in case any of it helps. It's not a "middle-click" as it stands; it adds a little <unw> link to each entry which you can click to unwatch. Possibly you could "borrow" its methodology to update your "old" script? -- Begoon 07:06, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Okay, first one works well. I've made a few changes to my version, to spell out the word "unwatch" and move it to the beginning of the line (so it looks like the one I was using), and also remove the href so that even middle-clicking (out of previous habit) is intercepted by the onclick API function rather than opening a tab. I like how it also deletes the list item from the watchlist screen. ―cobaltcigs 07:55, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Yeah - the 'live removal' is a nice touch. Glad it works for you - Anomie's scripts are always well designed and written.
For 'purge' if you need the code you might take a look at the code for mw:MediaWiki:Gadget-UTCLiveClock.js (or just use the clock, from your Preferences) - that does a purge without confirmation when you click the clock - very handy. -- Begoon 09:02, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
The preference loads that exact gadget, so there's no reason to load it manually as opposed to using the preferences option. I also have a forked version at User:Ahecht/Scripts/UTCLiveClock.js that does a recursive update in addition to a purge. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:46, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I know that, and that's how I use it, hence my suggestion cobaltcigs could "just" do the same. Being unclear, though, as to whether they were actually looking for some confirmation-free 'purge' code for another purpose, I also linked the gadget code. Your "fork" sounds useful, I think that might be even better - sometimes just 'purging' isn't enough - I'll try it out - thanks. -- Begoon 02:41, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
@Cobaltcigs and Begoon: There's no need to use a script for this. Just check "Add direct unwatch/watch markers (×/+) to watched pages with changes" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist. Hitting the × will remove it from your watchlist, crossing it out, but if you clicked it by mistake you can click it again (the × turns into a +) to add it back. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:46, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
Meh. Just tried it and don't like it. The script is neater and works nicely for me. The 'live removal' cobaltcigs mentions is the nicest part - no need for visually jarring "crossing outs" across the screen - things I want to unwatch just disappear from my watchlist as I unwatch them - "poof". I usually have confirmation 'switched on' for misclicks, but I can easily disable it if I want to unwatch lots of things easily and quickly in a session. I don't have any of the javascript watchlist preference things activated - I like the old-school watchlist - with NavPops, this unwatch script and my personalised version of User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/inlineDiffDocs (the best thing since sliced bread) it's pretty perfect for me like that. -- Begoon 16:00, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

This is particularly helpful because I consistently get Fatal exception of type "WMFTimeoutException" when I try to use Special:EditWatchlist. ―cobaltcigs 13:33, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-44

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

Recent changes

  • You can post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
  • Mobile users now have a specific design for their Watchlist. [11][12]
  • You can share feedback and ideas on the Desktop Improvements project. The goal is to make the interface easier to use for readers and editors without removing any functionality. The Foundation's Readers Web team will work on this over the next two years.
  • Advanced item OOUI now allows using px (pixels) instead of em (em) for some specific cases. [13][14]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 October. It will be on all wikis from 31 October (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • There will be no software changes from 19 December to 2 January. The first MediaWiki version next year will come the week of 6 January. [15]
  • Advanced item Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015, this information was moved from global variables named wg* to mw.config. The old global variables will be removed later this year. You can know more about it and tell the developers if you want to try this out on your wiki first.

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16:09, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

reFill 2

Just reaching out again to see if one or more editors are willing and able to take over maintenance of the much-used refill 2 tool for expanding bare references. Its creator/maintainer seems to have retired months ago, and bug reports seem to have gone unresolved for even longer. Thanks.— TAnthonyTalk 16:22, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

What's this thing and how do you turn it off?

This started appearing on random articles about 3-4 days ago. It's very annoying. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:30, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

@Headbomb: that is the page curation hoverbar. Try: (1) click the very top button to collapse it to the right, then (2) click the little "x" at the top of that. See if it stays off after you do that. — xaosflux Talk 18:34, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I'll give that a go, thanks. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:36, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
@Headbomb: It's the Page Curation toolbar. MediaWiki:Gadget-Hide-curationtools was recently disabled because it isn't needed anymore. Just hit the minimize button at the top of the toolbar, then the X, and you should never see it again unless you click the "Open Page Curation" link until Tools. — MusikAnimal talk 18:39, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
At least we hope it's not needed anymore :) If it does keep coming back without you purposefully enabling it, please let us know! — xaosflux Talk 18:51, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I want to find external links that point inside the wiki, but my searches can never seem to find anything with Special:Linksearch.

This is for for wikispecies, to find instances of an outdated style of formatting. What am I doing wrong? Am I running into some undocumented limitations of the software? Circéus (talk) 18:07, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Using linksearch, the protocol matters i.e. http!=https. Since that is the case, I prefer always to use Special:Search, like so. --Izno (talk) 18:24, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
At one time, Special:Linksearch worked for this, but at some point during the transition to HTTPS-only URLs, they modified the LinkSearch code to prevent searches for WMF-owned URLs, whether HTTP or HTTPS. On this page, I asked why it had been done, and was fobbed off. It's somewhere in the archives of this page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:10, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia backup on archive.is

This help desk question isn't actually a question and I'm not sure what the person wants. The person seems to know a lot about what is going on and is informing us, but I'm not sure what the right place is to post this information.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Considering that archive.today is blocked in several countries too, I'm not sure that having a more recent full Wikipedia copy up there, even if it was possible (wouldn't the new data cap prevent it, unless an exception is explicitly provided?), is really useful, at least for the stated purpose of circumventing Internet censorship. ---Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:29, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I sent the IP a link to this question.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:00, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

tried to amend the <nl> interwiki link on article De Baandert from 'Baandert' to 'De Baandert (stadion)' but got error 'Site link nlwiki:De Baandert (stadion) is already used by item Q16070306.' Any ideas? Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 23:37, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that means that nl link was on another Wikidata item. I've merged the two. You may want to take a look at De Baandert (Q2336192) to see if everything is correct--I see some conflicts... --Izno (talk) 23:45, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

"The" logic in Template:Europe topic replicated in Template:flagg

I had suggested over in Template talk:Flag data to include a pthe field to use as default by Template:Flagg, and Jonesey95 pointed out to me that's already implemented in Template:Europe topic where by default all links include the article "the" for countries like the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. I couldn't figure out how that's implemented just by looking at the code there. How can that logic be replicated in Module:Flagg? Cheers. Guarapiranga (talk) 23:42, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: It seems to be handled in {{Iso2country/article}}. For a module you need a table of those same countries (or codes) and to check it to determine when to automatically add the article.   Jts1882 | talk  12:40, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Jts1882. I see, the table there {{iso2country/article}} is (in case a good soul feels like incorporating it into {{flagg}})

AE | AN | AX | BS | CC | CD | CF | CG | CK | CZ | DO | FK | FM | FO | GB | IE | IM | IO | KM | KY | MH | MP | MV | NL | PH | PN | PS | SB | TC | TF | UM | US | VA | VG | VI

Cheers. Guarapiranga (talk) 06:14, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Account created automatically?

What does "User account ... was created automatically" mean? SCP-2000 for example. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:17, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

It was created by the user on a different wiki. Hence the local account got created/attached "automatically". For instance, I created my acct on enwiki and my meta account got created automatically. SD0001 (talk) 14:39, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I believe that means they were created on a different wiki and unified here, as opposed to being created on this wiki. If you look at SUL, you can see that SCP-2000's account was created on zhwiki. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:41, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Interesting, thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:19, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Rounding error – is this a known bug?

I just noticed in Geography of Madagascar that the infobox ({{Infobox country geography}}) says the following:

• Land 99.6%
 • Water 0.40000000000001%

(Hmm, {{Poemquote}} doesn't preserve the alignment produced by the tabs correctly ...)

Is this a known issue? Where does it ultimately originate? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:50, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

A round 5 will fix the issue, but it should be a bug or something, because {{#expr: 100-99.6}} results in 0.40000000000001 (the round 5 version will show 0.4). This happens in some other cases, like {{#expr: 100-99.99}} which results in 0.010000000000005. Ahmadtalk 20:08, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
See meta:Help:Calculation accuracy#Floats. Less of a bug, more an issue with computers in general. For instance in JavaScript, 0.1 + 0.2 is 0.30000000000000004. — MusikAnimal talk 20:16, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Oh yeah, I'm aware of that. It's technically not a bug in Wikipedia's code, true. But at some point it would make sense to insert a round 5 or the like; I'm just trying to figure out where exactly, since the infobox template is derived from Module:Infobox, and my competence is wearing thin there. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:24, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. (Hah, I was already about to change the <noinclude/>s to <nowiki/>s myself, but then I noticed an edit conflict. Good you noticed it yourself so I didn't have to edit your reply, which I understand is strictly speaking disallowed or at least a grey zone in this case.) Unfortunately round 5 doesn't work in this case; look at the infobox code in Geography of Madagascar. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:19, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Florian Blaschke, please feel free to correct my mistakes, I sometimes make such mistakes and then trout Self-trout myself :) Why not? I tweaked the template in Special:Diff/923479117 (please revert if you oppose the change or if it creates any problem in articles), it seems to be working properly now. Ahmadtalk 20:31, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Awesome, it works now! (I wonder if there are any other infoboxes with similar issues.) Thanks a bunch. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:35, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
You're welcome. I guess there should be other infoboxes with similar issues. I may run some checks later to track those, it shouldn't be that hard to track them. Ahmadtalk 20:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

own-contributions page in plain-text

For reasons beyond my understanding, my own contributions page is rendering for me in plaintext, even when others' such pages are not. Does anybody have an idea as to what's happening? I'm using Safari 13.0.2 on macOS 10.15 on a MacBookAir6,1. Thanks! — Fourthords | =Λ= | 21:49, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

@Fourthords: does it work when using this safemode link? If so, try turning off some of your custom .js/.css pages. Also, you appear to be double-declaring the same css (via meta:User:Fourthords/global.css and User:Fourthords/common.css), this shouldn't alone be the problem. You also have a string of importing someone else's userscript, that is then importing a gadget - and maybe you also have the gadget on? — xaosflux Talk 22:02, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
It still occurs with the safemode link, yeah. It looks like only User:Fourthords/vector.js has any custom code in it, and that page hasn't been edited since 03:31, 2 January 2011.  User:Fourthords/monobook.css has some code there, but we haven't used Monobook in forever, right? Lastly, the code at User:Fourthords/common.css was suggested to me by … somebody I can't link to, because I can't search my own contributions right now; it just suppresses the social-mediaesque Wikipedia:Notifications icons, though.
You also have a string of importing someone else's userscript, that is then importing a gadget - and maybe you also have the gadget on? I don't understand this. Sorry, can you explain?  — Fourthords | =Λ= | 22:19, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
@Fourthords: In your User:Fourthords/common.css, you are importing User:Lupin/navpopdev.css, which is importing MediaWiki:Gadget-navpop.css - so you should just turn all that off and use the Gadget if you want it. — xaosflux Talk 23:12, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Oh! It looks like pop-ups, which were a hack (that I implemented c/o User:Lupin/navpopdev.css) are now an official thing I can enable in my preferences? Neat. Thanks for the heads-up! — Fourthords | =Λ= | 16:03, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Fun update, if—from the plain-text contributions page—I go to the next page of edits, then everything looks as it should. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 22:42, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Try a WP:BYPASS when the problem shows itself. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:11, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestion, but it didn't do anything. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 16:03, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Also which skin are you using? If you use a completely different skin like in this link does it work? — xaosflux Talk 23:14, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm using Vector. When I use your link to implement cologneblue (weird, I gotta say), I get an appropriately-skinned page, not the plain-text I've been getting. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 16:03, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
@Fourthords: try to turn off everything in User:Fourthords/vector.js, WP:PURGE, then try again. — xaosflux Talk 16:14, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
No dice. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 16:48, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Changes to Special:Contributions

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T234450

Has anybody else noticed that Special:Contributions now maxes out at 500? That is, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Redrose64?limit=5000 shows 500 edits, but until very recently it showed 5000. This means that it takes much longer to find out how often a given user has edited a particular page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:16, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed that today. Was that an intentional change? If so, very annoying. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:34, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Probably because of performance. I am not sure how viewing five thousand edits on one page can be useful. To dig out specific edit, it's better to use the calendar widget and go directly to the specific time range. 5000 is to wide to base a manual search on it. – Ammarpad (talk) 00:00, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Actually it is good when using a ctrl-F find to search from some text, say in an edit summary. Sometimes I remember I edited something, but I can't remember exactly what. searching this way can help find it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:08, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Agree this can be useful. @Redrose64: I've opened phab:T236859 too see if this was deliberate at least. — xaosflux Talk 00:14, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Exactly. I often do this when investigating abuse cases. It would be even better if I could easily run SQL queries against the database. I know about Quarry, but the schema that's exposed there is so complicated, so poorly documented, and so full of surprises, it fails the "easily" criteria. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:05, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Feel free to head over to WP:RAQ and we'll (by which I mean, "probably I'll") help you out with some example queries. What are the usecases here? Find a given user's edits to a given page, find a given user's n most recent edits containing given text in the edit summary, just find a given user's n most recent edits for n > 500? —Cryptic 21:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Centring a file in a HTML table?

Note: When writing Wiki Markup and HTML which I don't want to display, I have changed some characters to different ones, which means code won't be exact. Check at the bottom of my post for a key.

Hello everybody, I'm encountering an irritating problem whilst editing my user page. I have these tables on my page with only one row/column which I just use to display information and I was using one to display a selection of images from Wikimedia Commons which caught my attention. When I added an image into it using [[File]] (the exact code was [[File:Russell Falls 2.jpg|thumb|[[Russell Falls]],Australia]]), it wasn't centred inside the table. I did some research and found out that you can change the alignment, which I tried, but it didn't change anything as the default was middle in the first place. Here is my full code plus a screenshot of what I'm getting: 

<table align="center" style="height: 44px; border-color: #03fc6b; background-color: #59ff9e;" border="5" width="263" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5">
<tr>
<td style="width: 231px;">
<p style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;<span style="font-family: Oswald;">PHOTOS THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lato;">Here is a small selection of photos from Wikimedia Commons that caught my attention: [[File:Russell Falls 2.jpg|thumb|middle|[[Russell Falls]], Australia]]</span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Screenshot

If anybody can throw any light on this issue, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Key: (no longer needed) ~Xaeman (talk) 17:34, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Try: "td style="width: 231px; text-align: center" --Jorm (talk) 17:38, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
The image parameter "middle" is for vertical alignment. You want "center" after "thumb" instead. See mw:Help:Images. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:17, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Thank you Jonesey95 - this worked, when I came back to my page it had already been changed, I don't know if this was someone helping me out or I just did it already without realising. Thanks anyway! ~Xaeman (talk) 16:21, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Comment highlighting script issues

I find PleaseStand's comments-highlighting script (User:PleaseStand/highlight-comments.js) quite useful to quickly find a ping and/or the part of a long discussion I was involved with. Quite a while ago its functionality changed from highlighting whole lines to highlighting just links within a line. Now it has stopped highlighting anything. Anyone have any insight as to why this may be (or, more relevant, how to fix)? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 03:15, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

It would have stopped working for the same reason as #mediawiki.RegExp scripts not wokring, and will have the same fix - Evad37 [talk] 06:59, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion: substall

The subst parser function is useful. It would sometimes be useful to have a substall function too. It would subst a given template and all templates within that template. Just granpa (talk) 11:02, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

This request is phab:T4777 from 2005. Special:ExpandTemplates can do it with some copy-pasting. I agree it would be nice if wikitext could also do it. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:39, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. Just granpa (talk) 12:07, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Main page on the Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia

Hi there! Is there anyone who could assist me with setting up the mobile version of the Dutch Low Saxon main page? I've tried to set it up myself, but I can't seem to figure out how it works exactly. I also tried using an empty main page with 2 templates (consisting of only wikitext and div id) and 1 template (with a table), which is almost identical to the Frisian Wikipedia where it is displayed correctly. It would be highly appreciated. Servien (talk) 11:49, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Servien, Frysian Wikipedia (like English) is on the old deprecated method of presenting the main page on mobile. The way to do it now, is to use CSS and make the page responsive to the dimensions of the viewport. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:58, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation, TheDJ. I'm not very familiar with CSS programming, and the 'Mobile hompage formatting' explanation is not very helpful. Is there anyone willing to assist with updating the main page, or is there a way I could still use the old methode? Nowadays one would almost need to be a programmer to design/localise the mainpage, not that practical if you only have a small community. Servien (talk) 22:10, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I'll come and assist with this – Thjarkur (talk) 12:27, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Template:infobox person/Wikidata not working as intended

Resolved

Hi there!

I wrote a short biography of Michèle Ray-Gavras and I was planning to use the data from Wikidata to populate the infobox (since this is what the French version of the article does). However, It seems that only the photo was pulled from the database. Does anyone know how this template is supposed to work? -- Luk talk 13:36, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

From the documentation for that template: This will by default only fetch information that is sourced on Wikidata. This person's infobox-related data on Wikidata has no sources. The template is working as designed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:08, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm responsible for Journalist appearing in the box. I was curious and added a ref. - X201 (talk) 14:19, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
You are correct! When going through the documentation, I thought using fetchwikidata=ALL would overwrite this behaviour. Thanks! -- Luk talk 14:31, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Two issues (Javascript and Wiki source editor)

Greetings. I have two issues and the following are those

  1. I enabled JavaScript Wikipedia:Recovering from Wikipediholism/reminder some weeks ago. Its working was smooth and didn't cause any trouble. But recently when I edited this, this problem happened. I tried to rearrange the sub-headings, published and went offline. When another editor reverted the problematic edit and informed me of that. The references were modified into this link. (skin: default vector.js, browser: Opera, browser version:63.0.3368.107, operating system: Windows , and operating system version: 10 Pro)
  2. When I edit using source mode (wikitext editor) and when the syntax highlighting option is enabled, sometimes the text is entered in another place far from the blinking cursor. This is a problem only when I edit with syntax highlighting option enabled. So I turned off the option but I am curious why is it happening.Beastranger (talk) 05:19, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

XFDcloser gadget?

Multiple people have suggested that my script XFDcloser be made into a gadget – see above #Preventing this in the future and Archive 176#Likelihood of User:Evad37/XFDcloser.js becoming a gadget?. Basically the script is an important part of the workflow for many users closing XFDs – it is imported by ~982 users (359 + 638 - 15). A community gadget, rather than a personal userscript, would hopefully be more stable and preemptively maintained when there are going to be breaking changes in the underlying mediawiki code.

A gadget version would still be limited to WP:extendedconfirmed users. Access could also be further restricted, if the community wants, via a whitelist like AWB (WP:AWB/CP).

Thoughts? - Evad37 [talk] 04:35, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Pinging users from the above linked discussions: @MarioGom, Xaosflux, RL0919, Amorymeltzer, Nosebagbear, Steel1943, Headbomb, Izno, and SD0001: - Evad37 [talk] 04:35, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

  • Support Certainly it feels like one of the key scripts - it shutting down generated the only backlog lasting more than a few hours AfD has had in a long while. Having some more effort put in to make sure it works pre-emptively with any change seems great. What I can't really judge on are the negatives, including the level of difficulty of getting it to that status and whether you not being able to directly alter it would be significant downsides. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:56, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Support XFDcloser is over 6000 lines of code, it stands to gain a lot from the ResourceLoader's caching and minimisation (see mw:ResourceLoader/Architecture), resulting in faster and bandwidth-efficient loads for users. Also, at present, the majority of users are loading the script after hopping over 2 script redirects: User:Z-man/closeAFD.js --> User:Evad37/XFDcloser.js --> User:Evad37/XFDcloser/v3.js, making things even less efficient. SD0001 (talk) 11:09, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Support for adding to a new section, like "Maintenance and Administration" or something, and putting a description of what access is needed to use each tool with it (e.g. "requires sysop", "requires pagemover"). — xaosflux Talk 15:27, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Support The gadget definition allows you to specify the required user rights, and the gadget won't be listed at all for those who don't have those rights (e.g. Twinkle isn't listed for unconfirmed users). So putting "requires sysop" or what have you in the description might be redundant. At any rate, I definitely support promoting XFDcloser to a gadget. It's a rather critical tool for maintenance, widely used, and this would improve both performance and maintainability. — MusikAnimal talk 18:03, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Though xfdcloser can of course be used by non-sysops, so you don't want to limit to that, you'd just want to note that not all functions are available without being an admin Nosebagbear (talk) 09:47, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
The requirements to use XFDcloser should be the same as Twinkle ... or for extended confirmed. For example, non-admins (such as myself) use XFDcloser quite often. The one/only restriction is that I technically can not select the "delete" option for obvious reasons. Steel1943 (talk) 17:18, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Help with template gobbledygook

After butting my head on the screen for a few hours (spread over various days), I throw my hand in the air — why doesn't this work here?? (emphasis added)

{{#switch: {{Continent/Core | {{{1}}} | {{{2|simple}}} }} | {{#if: {{{table|}}} | style="text-align: center; background: Tan; {{{style|}}}" {{!}} }} Africa | Asia | North America | South America | Oceania | Antarctica | Europe = {{Continent/Core|{{{1}}}|{{{2|simple}}} }} }}

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Guarapiranga (talk • contribs) 04:26, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Could you give more detailed information about what you want to implement? Your highlight part belongs to the switch condition. Thus, if table=1, it will require the output of {{Continent/Core | {{{1}}} | {{{2|simple}}} }} being style="text-align: center; background: Tan; {{{style|}}}" {{!}} Africa (instead of simply Africa) to give a result of {{Continent/Core|{{{1}}}|{{{2|simple}}} }}. This looks odd and possibly not what you want. --WhitePhosphorus (talk) 05:51, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Edit screen problem at Laguna_del_Maule_(volcano)

When I was trying to edit Laguna_del_Maule_(volcano) to add information from [16], the edit screen (including the dropdowns and the input box) stopped responding to input with a thin gray bar appearing just below the button bar. Scrolling did still work but the bar on the right no longer moved. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:10, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Seems like that problem is now resolved. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:33, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
Nevermind, it has reappeared. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:35, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Added a screenshot; it seems like part of the interface has become disconnected from the actual edit box - on only that article. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:05, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
That looks like you either a) have a personal script causing an issue or b) your Internet browser causing an issue. What is your browser/operating system to start and/or what are your scripts? --Izno (talk) 03:16, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Try this safe mode edit link to see if it works without scripts. — xaosflux Talk 03:46, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Firefox 70.0.1 (64-Bit), aside from the Wikipedia defaults I only have syntax highlighter, Twinkle and the user scripts. I notice now that the syntax highlighting changes from a yellow-grey scheme such as in the screenshot into a pink-blue-green one within a second from opening the edit page, and that it now works. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:04, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Jo-Jo Eumerus, I suspect the syntax highlighter is the cause. I recommend toggling that off, and seeing if the problem disappears instantly. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:06, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
Huh. This particular problem disappeared after toggling all preferences off and then some of them - including syntax highlighter - back on. Now the only problem is that the syntax highlighting is transposed to above the edit box, but otherwise it is normally editable. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:09, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Default keyboard

Lately something funny happened to my keyboard (only in WP). Although there is no problem in copy and paste method, I can't write certain characters (like double brackets for links ) in WP. Any suggestion to return to default keyboard? Thanks Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 08:24, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Nedim Ardoğa, when you type those characters, do they turn into some other (strange) character? If so, then you might have accidentally enabled the IPA (software) keyboard. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:14, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Setting up auto-archiving

Resolved

It does not seem to work on Talk:Paleotempestology, despite the presence of the archive template. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:24, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

This edit by Czar (talk · contribs) may fix it. Of course, there were several changes there, any one of which may be the actual cure. My bet is on the parameters that have no value, such as |key= - I think that the bot doesn't fall back gracefully to default values. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:55, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Apparently this is working now. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:16, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Template:internetquelle compatibility with WP:CXT

Wasn't able to get a reply at Wikipedia talk:Content translation tool so reposting here:

Can anyone point me in the direction of what needs to be done to convert de:Template:Internetquelle (a dewp citation template) for use with WP:CXT? It looks like CXT should be able to convert the template directly into {{cite web}} but I don't know what needs to be linked for that to happen. Right now, enwp's {{internetquelle}} is meant to be subst'd to manually convert the German parameters to English, but isn't this something that TemplateData could do? Let me know if this question would be better handled elsewhere.

czar 15:34, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

The relevant bit of documentation seem to be mw:Content translation/Templates. The key part is setting up alias in the TemplateData for the destination template. TemplateData would look something like
<templatedata>
{
	"description": "cite web English translation from German",
	"params": {
		"author": {
			"aliases": ["autor"],
                        ....
                 },
                 ......
         }
}
</templatedata>

If you want to experiment I'd recomend setting up another template something like {{cite web trans from de}} rather than working directly with {{cite web}} as you will run into problems with protection settings. --Salix alba (talk): 18:14, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Here's what I've found thus far. As an example, the French fr:Template:Ouvrage is linked via Wikidata to our Template:Cite book. When translating a French article with CXT, it appears to use the French template's Wikidata in which, for example, |year= is linked as an alias for |année=. My understanding is that this works because "year" is indeed an alias in that template, otherwise it would be incorrect to simply add aliases that are not supported in the template code. Then since both fr:Template:Ouvrage and Template:Cite book have |year= parameters, CXT is able to make the connection.
I attempted this myself in the template in question de:Template:Internetquelle >> our Template:Internetquelle. Since both versions use the same German parameters, by adding TemplateData to our enwp template, CXT now supports the citation's display (within the tool). Now, ideally, I would like to convert the German template directly into {{cite web}} (rather than our own version of {{internetquelle}}) but I'm not sure if we're hosting a version of the German template for any other reason or if we're prepared to add the German aliases directly into the {{cite web}} code (hence my original question). In the meantime, a bot should automatically convert/subst my local invocation of {{internetquelle}} per its documentation so this might work fine, though it appears jury rigged as a permanent solution. czar 14:48, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Pinging User:Amire80 about the CX template-matching question. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:19, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-45

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

  • At Special:Contributions you could see up to 5000 edits at the same time if you edited the URL. This has been lowered to 500. This is to stop requests which break the sites. [17]

Changes later this week

  • MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry can set the default length to block a user for your wiki. You will be able to use MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip to set a different default block length for IP editors. [18]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 November. It will be on all wikis from 7 November (calendar).

Meetings

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

16:47, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Unified view of a user's activity?

Is there a simple way to get all of, 1) contributions, 2) deleted contributions, and 3) Special:Log for a user, in a unified, chronologically ordered, list? When investigating user behavior, having to flip back and forth between those three pages, and manually correlate the timestamps, is a pain. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:01, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

@RoySmith: would a user script help? DannyS712 (talk) 06:50, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Does such a script exist? -- RoySmith (talk) 16:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Access via mobile phones

Is there a working party looking specifically at problems associated with gaining access via mobile phones generally? Xyl 54 (talk) 23:46, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Xyl 54, try mw:Reading/Web/Mobile. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 09:44, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
Xyl 54, which kind of access are you interested in? For readers, for editors, for a particular use? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:21, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
Thank you both for replying. To answer your question; neither, really. I had a conversation with an editor from another project who'd had trouble loading an article introduction to their mobile phone, because it was too long. I hadn't considered that mobile users could have trouble with the standard layout here and wondered if anyone was looking into such matters. I searched for a project page but couldn't find one, so I thought I would ask here. Xyl 54 (talk) 22:53, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
PS: Also, I've been told there is a condensed version of WP provided by google; can you tell me what (or where) that is? Xyl 54 (talk) 22:54, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Developer environment for this wiki

I have raised a question here about creating developer-friendly images of each wiki, which people can use to create scripts and mediawiki extensions on their own PC without needing to request an account on Wikimedia Tools or their sister services. I hope an image can be available for install in one click. If you are experienced in how to make this happen, or know how it would be useful for this wiki, please respond either here or there. Thanks. :-) --Gryllida/ (talk) 23:00, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia alerts and notices

Every time I log into Wikipedia, my alerts and notices icons at the top of the display are highlighted in colour to indicate that I have new alerts and notices. This is almost never true. I view my alerts and notices, see that there are no new ones, only a list of old ones, and select "Mark all as read." Neither viewing my alerts and notices nor selecting "Mark all as read" is effective in suppressing them. I do not wish to waste my time checking old alerts and notices every time I log in. Can this error be fixed, please? — O'Dea (talk) 19:28, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

@O'Dea: sometimes they get stuck, try going to Special:Notifications and clearing them out. — xaosflux Talk 19:41, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
What action does "clearing them out" refer to? The only option presented is to mark them, one by one, as read, but I have already marked-all as read. Thanks. — O'Dea (talk) 19:45, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
@O'Dea: yes, clicking on the "Unread" tab and clicking through any that are in there. If the icon is still lit after that, log out, clear your cache, and log back in please. — xaosflux Talk 19:51, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
No notices appear in the "Unread" tab. As to clearing my cache, I log in from multiple devices at different locations, and clear my caches regularly, so this continuing problem is not caused by cached data or persistent log in; I log in quite often and see these attention-demanding notices. To clarify, right now in this session, no outstanding notices appear because I marked them as read at the beginning of this Wikipedia session, but they will certainly be there when I log in to a new session. — O'Dea (talk) 19:54, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Is it always the same notices? Are the notices from the project you are currently on, or from another project (e.g. commonswiki)? — xaosflux Talk 20:01, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Old notices from a variety of projects are repeated. Valid new notices appear occasionally but the old ones that I have read, and flagged as read, are highlighted anew upon logging in. — O'Dea (talk) 20:46, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Are they "very old"? I had that problem once and had to go to each project to clear the notices, then they stayed away. — xaosflux Talk 22:20, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: They were a mixture of very old, old, and new. Today, I logged in after a few days' absence and saw old alerts. I flagged them as read, logged out, then logged back in and now they're gone. I'll monitor them in coming days. I am not active every day at the moment. Thanks for your interest. — O'Dea (talk) 23:06, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
@O'Dea: When you click the bell icon, the popup shows a list comprising three groups as follows (in this description, an "unread alert" is one which shows the blue dot at upper right of its entry, and a "read alert" is one which shows the empty grey circle at upper right). Group 1 comprises the unread alerts from the same wiki in reverse chronological order (newest at the top), to a maximum of 25. Group 2 comprises summaries of unread alerts on other WMF wikis, titled "More alerts from another wiki", one per wiki. Group 3 comprises read alerts from the same wiki, again in reverse chronological order. The total number of entries in groups 1 and 3 taken together cannot exceed 25, so if there are 25 unread alerts from the same wiki, no read alerts will be listed. Read alerts from other wikis are not shown. So if you have three unread alerts on this wiki and two on Commons you will get four entries with blue dots followed by 22 with the empty circle. Clicking a blue dot of a group 1 entry moves it to group 3; clicking an empty circle of a group 3 entry moves it to group 1. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:42, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
Not sure if this is related, but today I got an old alert highlighted when someone archived the talk page the alert came from. I've never noticed this behaviour in the past.   Jts1882 | talk  10:41, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

How to create a page with ALL CAPS name over existing redir

I guess this is technical, not general, so reposting here...

I'm writing a page that should be named "SNAP (programming language)". However, there is already a page called "Snap! (programming language)". It appears the system (or a user?) has created a redirect without the !, "Snap (programming language)".

I'm lost how to create a new page with the ALL CAPS name. When I try, wiki sends me to the redirect and then to Snap!. I can click back from the redir link, but that has sentence casing.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Hey Maury. When you are redirected to the other page, there should be small text in the upper left hand corner that reads "redirected from REDIRECT-NAME". If you click on that link, you will be taken to the redirect itself, which you can then edit as you like. GMGtalk 15:31, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
As I noted in the post above, that sends me to the version with lower case. Try it yourself and you'll see what I mean. Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:34, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP%20(programming%20language)?redirect=no , even if SNAP (programming language) weren't a red link, should get you where you want to go. If it does not, then there's something wrong on your end, not ours. --Izno (talk) 15:39, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
That said, if your page is intended to be a replacement of the other, I might recommend editing the existing page (assuming it's the same topic) and then moving it to where you want it to go. --Izno (talk) 15:40, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Oh yea. As Izno says. You can just edit the text of the url in the address box to say SNAP instead of Snap and it will take you there just fine. GMGtalk 15:41, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but expecting the users to edit URLs to get to the page when the en.wiki keeps redirecting them to a different one does not strike me as either a problem "on my end" nor a useful solution. The question remains, why is the wiki redirecting me to the lower-case version when I explicitly type in the upper case one? There is no upper-case version, so it does not appear this redirect should fire given the way page naming is supposed to work (ie, all caps is not the same). Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:52, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
This is how the software treats all all-caps titles entered into the search window. If you enter ABRAHAM LINCOLN into the search window, it will redirect you to the article for Abraham Lincoln, even though there has been no manually created redirect from all caps to normal case. If you type ABRAHAM LINCOLN as a wikilink, it will make a red link and take you to the non-existent page. Alternatively, if you go to Abraham Lincoln and manually change the url to say ABRAHAM LINCOLN instead, it will also take you to the non-existent page. GMGtalk 15:55, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

I typed this, exactly, into the search box "SNAP (programming language)". This takes me through the redir. There is no obvious way to get to the redline page otherwise. What am I missing here? Are we to type in a manual URL? Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:48, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

The search box is programmed to help users find the right topic, no matter the letter case and even when it's misspelled (like without the "!"). But if you enter the phrase "SNAP (programming language)" and then click "Search" and not press Enter, it will take you to the search results where you can find the red link to edit the page. Regards SoWhy 15:56, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Unexpected cite page feature

Edit an article using the (old) source editor, navigate the toolbar to the web citation screen, paste "Mystery Science Theater 3000" without the quotes into the URL field, click the search button and see what happens... Daß Wölf 00:51, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

I think it's getting it from Google or perhaps Google Books. [19] Killiondude (talk) 01:00, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
I thought it would be something cool, like adding some theatre seat and robot silhouettes to the bottom right of my screen. Instead it adds a citation to a 1999 book by Henry Krips on fetishes and psychoanalysis. Wug·a·po·des​ 08:29, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
I don't think I would've complained about that. Daß Wölf 22:56, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Query issue

I'm finding a lot of my old queries that I like to re-run periodically broken by sintax changes on Quarry. I must profess myself to be an utter noob and in need of help fixing it (I had help putting them together in the first place). The query I'm trying to fix is this one.

It is essentially a way of sorting top-wikipedian users by number of edits and other criteria (to help in narrowing the search for new editors for New Page Patrol). Another criteria that I'd like to add if possible would be X edits to Wikipedia: namespace in the last N days (like 100 in the last 6 months or something).

Any help is appreciated. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 21:37, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Your query was broken by the Actor migration. Updating the query to use the proper actor table, producing 
SELECT user_id, user_name, user_editcount, user_registration
FROM `user`
JOIN actor_user on actor_user=user_id
WHERE user_editcount >= 75000
  AND user_editcount <= 80000
  AND user_registration < 20181105000000
  AND EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM user_groups WHERE user_id=ug_user AND ug_group = 'extendedconfirmed')
  AND NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM user_groups WHERE user_id=ug_user AND ug_group = 'sysop') -- administrator
  AND NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM user_groups WHERE user_id=ug_user AND ug_group = 'patroller') -- new page patroller
  AND NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM logging_logindex
                  WHERE user_name = log_title
                    AND log_type = 'block' AND log_action = 'block'
                    AND log_timestamp >= 20181105000000)
  AND (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM logging_userindex WHERE actor_id=log_actor AND log_type = 'move' LIMIT 5) >= 5
  AND (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM revision_userindex
       WHERE rev_actor = actor_id
         AND rev_timestamp >= 20181105000000
       LIMIT 500) >= 500
  AND (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM revision_userindex
       WHERE rev_actor = actor_id
         AND rev_timestamp >= 20191005000000
       LIMIT 500) >= 50
  AND (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM revision_userindex
       JOIN page ON page_id = rev_page
       WHERE rev_actor = actor_id
         AND rev_parent_id = 0
         AND page_namespace = 0
         AND page_len >= 2000 -- length in bytes
       LIMIT 2) >= 2;
should work as a fix. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:55, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Pppery, Cheers! — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 22:03, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Pppery, seems to work again. Any idea how I could add that additional criteria though? (Also sorting by # edits to a particular namespace?) — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 01:29, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Make Reply-to a Gadget

Proposal: Make the popular Reply-to script a gadget, with special credit and attribution to User:Enterprisey for his coding of the script.

Rationale: The current Reply-to script is headily used, but suffers from intermittent and frequent errors depending on the page you're replying to another editor.

Hat tip: Evad37 to based on this similar proposal, and to Steel1943. --Doug Mehus (talk) 01:51, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

  • @Dmehus: are you referring to reply-link? If so, not only has the author said it is stilll being tested and debugged. Bugs are still present. but you also mentioned that it has problems. We shouldn't be forking this to a public gadget if it is known to be problematic. — xaosflux Talk 01:53, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Xaosflux Yes, I meant Reply-link. Thanks. But, my understanding is that being a gadget, it will be hard-coded into the MediaWiki software, no? Also, I assume Wikimedia Foundation has full-time employed software engineers who could work out any kinks? --Doug Mehus (talk) 02:16, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@Dmehus: nope, a "gadget" is just a community-managed script. You are probably thinking of an extension (an add-on piece of server software). You can track the (slow) progress on that at phab:T207567. — xaosflux Talk 02:28, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Ah, that makes sense, and thanks for pointing out that link for me! Glad to see it's "in the works"—albeit slowly. In that case, I wonder if XFDCloser/DiscussionCloser could be made into Extensions? Also, re: "gadgets," what's the point in having a community-managed script versus the way it is now (one or more editors/administrators maintain the script)? Doug Mehus (talk) 02:31, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@Dmehus: the primary benefit is for users, they can enable or disable gadgets very easily in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets instead of mucking about in .js/.css files. They are generally considered "safe" as only interface-administrators may make changes to them. (Anyone can request changes of course). — xaosflux Talk 03:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Xaosflux, Ah, yes, I knew that, too! Like Twinkle...that makes sense. Thanks. Doug Mehus (talk) 03:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Webcitation redux

resolved

There was a proposal to deprecate webcitation, since it had stopped accepting new pages to archive.

Although webcitation.org is no longer accepting new pages, it continues to serve pages archived in the past.

However Citation_bot is breaking those working links to the archives. It seems to me this is not what was agreed to in the proposal. I thought a bot was going to (1) search out all links to pages archived by webcitation.org; (2) determine if the page was also archived at archive.org; (3) if the page in question was also archived at archive.org, or, if still live, whether it could be archived at archive.org, then replace the webcitation.org url with an archive.org url.

I don't see anything in the proposal that authorized breaking working urls to archived pages.

I thought if there was no replacement at a better archive the working urls to the webcitation.org archive would be left, as is.

I went to User_talk:Citation_bot/Archive_18#WebCite_query_strings. Near as I can understand GreenC justifies this excision of working archive links because he or she has found vandals, or naive but misguided good faith contributors, have used links to webcitation so they could serve references to pages at sites we had decided to blacklist.

  1. But couldn't a vandal use this technique with links to archive.org, just as easily?
  2. This wasn't what was agreed to at the proposal, which only took place a month or so prior to the second discussion.

Webcitation was the first archive server I discovered, and I used it exclusively, for years, until I discovered archive.org. So, prior to this bot breaking links to it, there may have been as many as a thousand perfectly valid instances where I used it, that still pointed to it. This represented a meaningful investment of my valuable time. So, I am not happy that this bot was authorized to break those links. Of course I would have to live with that unhappiness, if a central discussion authorized this. It does not seem that this was the case.

I sure hope citationbot was replacing those links with archive.org links, when this was possible.

A complicating factor is that webcitation offered users a choice - the archive-url it returned could either be a short, but obfuscated unique link, or it could return a longer, non-opaque link, that encoded the original pages url into it, just as archive.org does. It seems to me that GreenC's justification that vandals could hide bogus improper links in archive-url fields would only be true for those short, obfuscated links.

Well, I never used the short, obfuscated links webcitation offered. I only rarely came across anyone else using them.

I'd like a status report - has this bot broken every single working link to a webcitation archive? If not I suggest the bot should have this feature disabled, immediately.

If possible, I'd like to see a bot go through all the edits where citationbot broke perfectly valid, working links to the long, non-obfuscated webcitation archives, and restore those that weren't updated with a link to archive.org. Geo Swan (talk) 19:10, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Geo Swan, you could report this to Citation bot but AFAIK it no longer messes with Webcite links. @AManWithNoPlan:. Also you are misunderstanding the discussion at User_talk:Citation_bot/Archive_18#WebCite_query_strings I was not "justifying the excision of working archive links". -- GreenC 03:04, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
citation bot broke nothing. All it did was remove a human readable comment from the url. It was never actually used by webcitation. It turns out there are supposedly bots that add these and verify them, and they exist solely so people using Wikipedia can see what the archive is. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:30, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
webcitation links contain a time stamp and nothing else. Deep in their archive they simply never archived two pages at exactly the same moment. Very simple and yet very stupid. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:33, 8 November 2019 (UTC)


  • So, I got my knickers in a knot over something cosmetic... I'd still say the removal was a lapse from the principle "if it ain't broke, don't fix it..."

Read only maintenance window planned for ENWP at 14th Nov 05:00 AM UTC (one week away)

A reminder this is one week away, see https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2019-October/092653.html. --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 09:22, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks log not included in "All public logs"?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T237729

Consider these two log searches:

Why is the "thanks" entry not shown in the "all" search? Which part of "all" did I not understand? -- RoySmith (talk) 13:56, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@RoySmith: it is available from that page, see example here. The instructions for that page say "This is a combined display of all logs except the patrol, review, tag and thanks logs", but you can turn them on where it says "Show additional logs". — xaosflux Talk 14:14, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Funny story, I once almost desysopped someone because of this. (their hidden “thank” was keeping them from inactivity). –xenotalk 14:16, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The logs under "Show additional logs" are omitted if you only select "All public logs" so the name is a little misleading. It's determined by MediaWiki:All-logs-page but that message is shown both in the drop-down and heading of Special:Log so it's problematic to change it. If we for example said "All public logs (except additional logs)" then the heading would be false when additional logs have been selected. Special:Log displays MediaWiki:Alllogstext which has been customized by the English Wikipedia to include: "This is a combined display of all logs except the patrol, review, tag and thanks logs". This has the same issue of still displaying when some or all of those additional logs are selected. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:26, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Ugh, what a disastrously bad UX. In the most central place, with a box around it to draw your attention, it says, "All". Then, in other places, where you might not think to look, it says, "well, except for these things..." Thanks for explaining it. I've opened T237729. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:31, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Global watchlist - Update 2

Updates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script:

General notes
Recent additions
  • Site validation has been tightened. Previously, only the language code and project name had to be valid - now, they must be a valid combination (i.e. en.wikiversity exists, and so is valid, but sco.wikiversity is not valid, because no such wiki exists).
  • When the global watchlist feed is loading, an OOUI widget will be shown, rather than an animated gif.
  • An option has been added to no longer group edits to the same page. For now, this isn't very useful, since metadata for the edits (editor, summary, tags, etc.) are not yet shown, but they will be soon. Until then, ungrouped edits are treated the same as pages with only 1 edit - the minor and bot flags are displayed if applicable. If edits are grouped, the minor and bot flags are only shown if they apply to all of the edits.
Upcoming changes
  • Starting with version 5.0, there will be an option at the settings page to switch to and from a "stable" version of the script. When activated, the script import in your global.js should be replaced, and then the page refreshed with the new script loaded. The stable script will live at m:User:DannyS712/Global watchlist/stable.js, and will be updated with each full release. Otherwise, it shouldn't be edited, providing a version that is less prone to bugs as the script is developed.
Announcements
  • WARNING: Starting with version 5.1, the option to mark the pages of a site as seen be implemented using the entirewatchlist API option, rather than manually listing the titles. This is being done to simplify the implementation code. This will result in the same functionality as marking all pages as seen via Special:Watchlist (i.e. even if the page isn't visible due to your filter choices, it will still be marked as seen). If you would like to keep using the current method for a while, please switch to the stable branch.
Next release

Version 5.0 has just gone live. It includes the new features mentioned above.

To subscribe or unsubscribe from future updates, see the distribution list.

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 22:43, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Global watchlist user script: About • Updates • Code

Google Code-In will soon take place again! Mentor tasks to help new contributors!

Hi everybody! Google Code-in (GCI) will soon take place again - a seven week long contest for 13-17 year old students to contribute to free software projects. Tasks should take an experienced contributor about two or three hours and can be of the categories Code, Documentation/Training, Outreach/Research, Quality Assurance, and User Interface/Design. Do you have any Lua, template, gadget/script or similar task that would benefit your wiki? Or maybe some of your tools need better documentation? If so, and you can imagine enjoying mentoring such a task to help a new contributor, please check out mw:Google Code-in/2019 and become a mentor. If you have any questions, feel free to ask at our talk page. Many thanks in advance! --Martin Urbanec 07:28, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

The tasks for "Google Code in" are listed on phab:project/view/4241/.--Snaevar (talk) 10:09, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Question about MediaWiki interface timestamp format

Is there a MediaWiki: meta page that formats the structure of the use of "~~~~~" (e.g., displaying 02:55, 9 November 2019 (UTC) as 2019-11-09T02:55Z, etc)?  Nixinova  T / C   02:55, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

No. mw:Help:Signatures says: "timestamps are currently formatted by default and saved according to the default locale conventions (language, script, date and time format) used on each wiki". This data is given in configuration files for the wiki and not editable wiki pages like the MediaWiki namespace. But the default user part excluding timestamp (made with three ~~~) is determined by MediaWiki:Signature and MediaWiki:Signature-anon. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:19, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
On muh localhost wiki, I tried editing MediaWiki:Datedefault to various values based on reading mw:Manual:Date formatting, but none seemed to have any effect. Not sure why.
What definitely does work is editing ./languages/messages/MessagesEn.php and changing this line
$defaultDateFormat = 'dmy or mdy';
to
$defaultDateFormat = 'ISO 8601';
However this format is pre-defined to include the seconds and exclude the final Z. So if you want it to look exactly like the example you gave, you'd also need to find these two lines in the same file (not actually adjacent):
	'ISO 8601 time' => 'xnH:xni:xns',
	'ISO 8601 both' => 'xnY-xnm-xnd"T"xnH:xni:xns',
and change them to
	'ISO 8601 time' => 'xnH:xni"Z"',
	'ISO 8601 both' => 'xnY-xnm-xnd"T"xnH:xni"Z"',
Alternatively, you could add the Z and still keep the seconds, for the sake of "true ISO 8601" completeness.
Note that in addition to the users' signatures, this also affects log/history/contribs/etc. views.
Unfortunately attempting to set any of these things in LocalSettings.php did not seem to have any effect either.
You could probably create your own language (or "variant"?) as a way to avoid having these tweaks overwritten by updates, then choose that language instead of "en" in LocalSettings.php. Doing that may or may not require duplicating a bunch of other files as well (did not attempt). ―cobaltcigs 12:59, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
If you click Edit or View source on a MediaWiki message in the English Wikipedia then you get a link to translatewiki.net which usually says what the message is for. MediaWiki:Datedefault gives https://translatewiki.net/wiki/MediaWiki:Datedefault/qqq which says: 'Used as checkbox label in user preferences, Prefs-rendering ("Appearance") tab. This message indicates Prefs-dateformat ("Date format") is default (= not specified).' So it merely displays the text "No preference" under "Date format" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. uselang=qqx confirms the message is displayed there. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:41, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

IP range edits

Resolved
 – The OOUI monster changed the controls around. — xaosflux Talk 05:21, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

There used to be tools that allowed the edits in an IP range to be viewed, but I can no longer find them and/or they no longer exist. I know that a CIDR range can be entered in the special:contributions page, but it is fairly useless as it can't be limited to recent contributions or a date range. One has to wade through thousands of irrelevant edits from decades ago. Is there anything better on WMF Labs nowadays? SpinningSpark 18:35, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: you should be able to use multiple filters at Special:Contributions, here is an example with a CIDR range and a date filter. Is that what you are having trouble with? — xaosflux Talk 19:22, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
That's perfect, I was just too stupid to work it out for myself. Is putting the dates directly in the url the only way to do this? SpinningSpark 20:57, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
@Spinningspark: From/to dates among other filters are available in the "Search for contributions" panel at the top of Special:Contribs. — MusikAnimal talk 21:59, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Ah right, I see. You can only get that from a clean form. Getting to it from a user's contributions, the settings fields aren't displayed. SpinningSpark 22:49, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
@Spinningspark: you should be able to, at the top of that page there is a collapsed "Search for contributions" control that you can open and change the filters. — xaosflux Talk 00:02, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
D'oh! SpinningSpark 01:12, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

breaking edit??

Can anyone tell me what happened here? I only touched the part after the '=' at website in that edit, using the regular old-fashioned wikitext editor. The save however resulted in some spaces to be replaced by .. spaces, or tabs? --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:12, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

The breaking character is still in another parameter, it breaks the parameter name resulting for 'website' in a edit-mode warning that 'website' is not a recognised parameter. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:21, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

@Beetstra: an "edit-mode warning"? In the wikitext editor? What is making this warning, what does it say? (Or is this a template in preview mode outputing to the preview?) — xaosflux Talk 05:23, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Template is throwing the error that the parameter is unknown. Apologies for the unclarity. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:29, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
@Beetstra: Revision 925449023 was just before your second edit. It contains no non-breaking spaces. Revision 925449055 (your firstsecond edit) contains three U+00A0 non-breaking spaces. They are where an asterisk is used in the following:
| website * * = {{facebook|stephenwesleymusic}}
| imagesize * =
No idea how they got there, but I've seen it before. Johnuniq (talk) 06:03, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Johnuniq, yes, those nbsp's are the problem. I for sure did not put them there, they magically appeared and 'broke' the infobox. I know that 'French spacing' is converted, is that here converted wrongly? Dirk Beetstra T C 06:44, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
@Beetstra: I've remembered one place I saw it before. Did you copy the wikitext into a gmail edit window and then copied it out from there and back into the wikitext edit window? If so, that is a gmail feature. Johnuniq (talk) 07:15, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Johnuniq, Nope, I copied the template from the external links section, then in the next edit I edited 'top' and replaced the content after the '=' with the material from my clipboard and hit saved the edit. I did not touch the material before the '=' on website, and not the next line. I then noticed on the page that my pasted facebook did not appear in the box and tried to figure out what went wrong. That is where the next edit window showed the template error that 'website' was not a recognised parameter. Dirk Beetstra T C 07:31, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Hmm, if you used an Apple device the gmail issue might have been a red herring. Otherwise, all we can say is that something is doing the change whereas, for example, I often copy/paste wikitext but have never had that problem. Johnuniq (talk) 08:38, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Johnuniq, I'm on Windows/Chrome. Somehow I think it is not related to the copy/paste but due to the some cleanup in the wikicode that malfunctions. Dirk Beetstra T C 09:59, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
I've been back through the last year's archives of this page and have found two related threads: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 173#Typing consecutive spaces in the Wikipedia iOS app editor causes NBSPs, which can break templates, and Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 174#Taxobox questions. It seems to be browser/device dependent. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:02, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Template:Uw-coi-warn contains the string "You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at [[{{SAFESUBST:<noinclude />BASEPAGENAME}}]]." There is an error here; this generates a mainspace article instead of the correct userpage, visible at [20] as an example. I'd correct it myself, but I fear mucking up the template in the process. Can a willing someone make the necessary change? Home Lander (talk) 20:12, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

@Home Lander: Fixed by using SUBJECTPAGENAME instead. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:14, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Watchlist - Are you sure

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Watchlist notices

Starting yesterday a new inconvenience seems to have been added to the watchlist process. Previously, I could click on the white (blue bordered) star and it would simply add the article to my watchlist. If I want to remove it, I click the blue star and it toggles back to white. Pretty simple. Now, for the last two articles I have added I get asked an obnoxious "are you sure?" question. I watch over fifteen thousand articles built up over a dozen years. I use this process constantly. I watch, I check, I respond when necessary to protect content. I spend far too much time doing this. I do not need to wait for an additional page load on each article I add to my watchlist, it answers; another page load and yet another 2 page loads to use the back button go back to where I was. It interrupts the flow of reading. How do we turn this unnecessary and obnoxious process off, permanently? Trackinfo (talk) 20:15, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Additionally, and I only suggest it because the timing matches with the above inclusion, I am now unable to preview forward to see what edits have been made to the articles that show up in my watchlist. Again it was a function I had to sign up for that worked well for, oh, maybe a decade. By being unable to preview the edit, I must open each article I suspect might be a bad change. This greatly slows my ability to watch. Why has this disappeared? Trackinfo (talk) 20:22, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Trackinfo: are you using the mobile app, mobile site, or the full website? Which skin are you using? Do you have javascript disabled on your browser? — xaosflux Talk 21:06, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
I am on Safari on a Mac; essentially the same browser (updated) I have been using for a dozen years. I believe javascript is active and necessary for some of the editing features I have been signed up for. No changes on my side. All these things failing at the same time indicates to me that someone else did a system wide update that screwed things up. That's what I am trying to head off. Trackinfo (talk) 03:18, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
An additional feature is also failing. The notifications section, normally (over the last year or so) would show me some activity that name dropped me. Today I received three, I assume from this case. The Notifications bubble no longer appears, instead it opens up as a new page, that does not resolve. All I get below the wikipedia header is a header saying "Notifications" and an animation suggesting something is loading. It never loads. Trackinfo (talk) 03:25, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Sounds like a javascript error somewhere, possibly in a userscript or gadget. Try opening your browser's console and let us know if there's any errors (in red). Also try adding ?safemode=1 to end of the web address (which disables all userscripts/gadgets) and see if the issues are still present. the wub "?!" 10:29, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
I have occasionally been afflicted by the "are you sure" malarkey, and the notifications opening as a new page. I think I enquired about the watchlist thing a while ago, but can't be sure offhand. I've rather assumed both were down to either a slow connexion at my end, or some sort of burp at the Wikimedia end. Monobook, Edge, Win10. DuncanHill (talk) 01:33, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Post-expand include size

Seeking a better understanding of post-expand include size. Reading the description, this data structure doesn't appear to be synonymous with HTML page. Is there an available picture of an example of it? And, is there an easy way to determine the size of the HTML page? ―Mandruss ☎ 16:03, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are asking, but you can use Special:ExpandTemplates to see the post-expand output of any wikitext, which is different from the HTML output - it's just wikitext with all templates expanded recursively and parser functions replaced with their output. The post-expand limit is applied to the length of the expanded wikitext. An easy way to determine the size of the html page? Not that it's relevant per above, but you can right click, click view page source, and get the character count using any software that has a character counter in it, like Word. SD0001 (talk) 19:30, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
The output of all templates, modules and parser functions called during the processing of a template can contribute to the post-expand include size so it's often larger than the final output. Click "Parser profiling data" at the bottom of a preview to see the post-expand include size. It's 39 bytes for {{green|Hello}} because {{green}} does not call anything. It just outputs 39 bytes. {{ISO 639 name|en}} only produces 7 bytes "English" but the post-expand include size is 28 bytes because {{ISO 639 name}} makes its own calls. "English" is output four times during processing: By {{ISO 639 name en}}, #ifexist, #if, and finally {{ISO 639 name}}. A template with no output could break the 2MB limit if it calls other templates with large output without passing that output to the original caller. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:18, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
See the examples of pages with a problem at Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded or the API list of articles. Taking List of political ideologies as an example, view that article then view the HTML source (Ctrl-U on some browsers). Search the HTML source for "NewPP" to see "Post‐expand include size: 2097066/2097152 bytes". In megabytes, that is saying that 2 MB of wikitext was included (transcluded) in the page from the expansion of templates. As an example, pasting {{green|Hello}} into Special:ExpandTemplates shows it generates <span style="color:green;">Hello</span> which is 39 bytes. In other words, using that example, the template would count as 39 bytes for the 2 MB limit. Johnuniq (talk) 21:28, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. Is there an easy way to determine the size of the HTML page (in bytes)? ―Mandruss ☎ 03:40, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
No, because it differs for every reader. The preferences (skin, etc.) of Logged-in users make a difference to what is displayed, and hence the output HTML. Even for logged-out users, the "You have a new message" orange box may appear or be absent. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:21, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Good point. Now I wonder what the cached version of an article looks like. I had assumed it was the final HTML, but that can't be the case – unless all of that "customization" happens on the client side after download. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:52, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Cached versions of articles look like this - the output of the MediaWiki parser, which is same across all skins - all user customisations are applied over this client side, via CSS or javascript. SD0001 (talk) 12:35, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Deleting ancient redirects from moves and attribution

In the early days of wikipedia, moving a page didn't leave any trace in the history of the page moved, only in the redirect that was left behind. And if at some point that redirect gets deleted for some reason, then there won't be any record of that move anywhere. Is that bad? Are we required to preserve some sort of information about the past names of articles for attribution? Are there any technical considerations that could be relevant? – Uanfala (talk) 00:43, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Generally old redirects should just be left alone unless there's a really good reason to delete them. Partly for attribution issues but also due to link rot. As for what was done historically, I believe history merges were more common to preserve history. If you must delete an old redirect with history, you should request one of those so history is retained. Wug·a·po·des​ 00:49, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
True, but if the only thing remaining in the edit history of the redirect is that it is the previous name of the article, I don't think that alone needs to be preserved. If the redirect is deleted, then there is nothing to attribute. bd2412 T 00:53, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
If we needed to find out all the past names of a page, there ought to be a way. Possibly very tedious. EdJohnston (talk) 02:27, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Page moves are recorded in the page's edit history, although the text has changed over the years. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:24, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Prior to the roll out of MediaWiki 1.5 in June 2005, they were not recorded in the history of the page moved. – Uanfala (talk) 12:52, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
And in the earliest days of Wikipedia, there was no page move. You had to create a new page with cut-and-paste. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:02, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-46

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22:02, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Is there a bot to disable hijacked links in refs/ELs that may now be unfit/malicious? At Wikipedia:Teahouse#Hijacked site with possible malware, Lyndaship has reported that www.clydesite.co.uk has moved to clydeships.co.uk, and the new www.clydesite.co.uk host may be malicious (certainly misleading). The layout of the new site has changed, so it's not an easy replace of the hostname (though maybe editors could help construct a translation table?). Meanwhile, disabling the links would probably be reader-friendly. Is there a bot or some other means to handle this? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:07, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

@GreenC: poke. --Izno (talk) 01:11, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
@AlanM1: Agree on malicious domain: http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=2467 it is a sketchy domain. Normally would set the domain to Blacklisted in the IABot interface and run IABot and archive them all (since we don't know the new URLs second option is archive). But they will also require adding |url-status=usurped, to suppress displaying the malware link, which is custom coding. WaybackMedic can do it. Post/move this request to WP:URLREQ. Might also edit filter request. -- GreenC 01:44, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
@GreenC: Thanks for the quick response. I'll explore a little more to find out whether a translation table is reasonable before continuing. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 01:55, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
(Moved to WP:URLREQ#clydesite.co.uk and resolved.) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:23, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@AlanM1: A few years back I used AWB and some manual editing to replace all references to the now defunct exchange.dnv.com to instead use {{cite ship register}} or {{ship register}}. This way, now only could I make them all point to the new vesselregister.dnvgl.org address, but should the linking scheme change again in the future, only those two templates need to be updated. Both templates already have been changed to point to the new clydeships.co.uk address, so the best long-term solution would probably be to switch over to the template instead of just marking as usurped. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:23, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Thats a great little tool which I was unaware of. All the clydesite links are now sorted but I don't think this template would have been of benefit in this instance as the vessel id numbers also changed when the domain changed Lyndaship (talk) 07:03, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Problems with separators and semicolons on RecentChanges, Watchlist, History and Contributions

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T233649

What's with the semicolons in the watchlist?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T237685

I just noticed today that titles of pages in my watchlist end with a semicolon. I'm a big fan of semicolons, used correctly; this one, I have to say, just looks weird. When did it start, and what was the rationale? --Trovatore (talk) 20:45, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

WP:ITSTHURSDAY - seems to be:
.mw-title::after {
    content: ';\00a0';
}
code with a bug? Will open a phab ticket. — xaosflux Talk 20:48, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
phab:T237685 opened. — xaosflux Talk 20:52, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! --Trovatore (talk) 20:53, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
@Jdlrobson: can you take a look at that ticket? — xaosflux Talk 21:48, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
very curious about this one - I'm a fan of consistency where ever possible and I'm not sure why the semicolon wouldnt appear here but would appear on history. What is the problem it is solving on history but not solving on watchlist? Jdlrobson (talk) 01:39, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Missing separator

Resolved
 – Unable to duplicate this part - possibly related to other sections. — xaosflux Talk 01:22, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

On a perhaps related note, a few minutes ago I lost the space between page title and revision time, e.g.

m Meteotsunami‎22:37 . . (-35‎) . . ‎LizardJr8 ( talk | contribs )

Note the missing space between "Meteotsunami" and "22:37". Daß Wölf 22:54, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@Daß Wölf: is that on the watchlist? What interface language are you using, what skin are you using? Do you have any special watchlist settings enabled? — xaosflux Talk 00:49, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: yes, it's the watchlist, forgot to write that. Vector skin, JavaScript watchlist. Of all the settings that look like they might have impact, the ones I have enabled are unread changes in bold, and the subtle update marker. Daß Wölf 01:04, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Actually, it seems to have gone away. Now for the separator I have a semicolon and a space (e.g. "Meteotsunami; 22:37". I don't remember if the semicolon was there before. Daß Wölf 01:05, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@Daß Wölf: thanks, I hadn't been able to break it like you did - was going nuts :D The semicolon appears to be new (and unwanted), from the parent section of this above. — xaosflux Talk 01:10, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Bad semicolon in history

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T237705
@Xaosflux: Again unrelated, I just went to thank you for this edit and a new semicolon has popped up in the article history: "(cur | prev ) ¤ ¤ ; 01:10, 8 November 2019‎" - bolded for clarity. Now that one I'm sure wasn't there! Daß Wölf 01:13, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@Daß Wölf: phab:T237705 is open for the bad semicolon here. — xaosflux Talk 01:21, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Yep, that's what I see too, thanks. Daß Wölf 01:35, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Note, in come cases a double set of bad leading semicolons are also appearing, updated the phab ticket. — xaosflux Talk 03:54, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Xaosflux, I see a double set when I do an RD1 — I dropped a note at the ticket S Philbrick(Talk) 14:37, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Semicolon before timestamp of edits in "View history"

The lines for each edit at any page when viewing under "View history" start with a semicolon (;). Is this intentional or a mistake? 37KZ (talk) 15:32, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@37KZ: see above. — xaosflux Talk 15:49, 8 November 2019 (UTC)


Missing separators in page history

Resolved
 – This issue is no longer presenting. — xaosflux Talk 03:53, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Parenthesis and pipe characters have disappeared in the page history for me (image). &safemode=1 did not solve the problem, suggesting it's not a problem with my scripts. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 01:19, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@K6ka: could you trying clearing you local cache and trying again? (I can't duplicate this one). — xaosflux Talk 01:27, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: The issue seems to have fixed itself (or someone fixed it behind the scenes) and I'm not getting this problem anymore. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 03:48, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Temporary CSS fix

At the moment, I get the stray semicolon before the date in Special:Contribs results. I resolved it with the following in my common.css: 

.mw-changeslist-date::before {
	content:'';
}

The debugger said the content was ';\u00a0' (semicolon followed by a non-breaking space), which was then prefixed to the timestamp, after the bullet. Should I leave the \u00a0 there? It looks fine to me without it. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 03:21, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@AlanM1: shouldn't hurt anything, keep an eye on the master phab ticket, they may fix all of this for you sooner than later. — xaosflux Talk 03:24, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Semicolons on Contributions pages

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T233649

I have noticed that the entries on Contributions pages (Special:Contributions) begin with a semicolon for each entry. Please fix this. —Etewilak (talk) 08:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Probably T233649? --rchard2scout (talk) 11:08, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Same for "View history" on individual pages. 37KZ (talk) 15:57, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
37KZ, There could be a reason for this, perhaps? It could be using the same coding for other pages, which have information which precede the current diff. Doug Mehus (talk) 16:37, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Semi-colons before timestamps in Special:Contributions

I just noticed that, as of today, there's semi-colons before the time stamps of edits when you look at a user's contributions. I don't remember this being the case before today and I don't remember there being an announcement of this happening. Is this a glitch or an intended feature? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 02:04, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Contributions have a semicolon

To the left of each edit. I don't think that was true before.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:00, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

See above. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:07, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:24, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Read only maintenance window planned for ENWP at 14th Nov 06:00 AM UTC

This is a reminder. See https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2019-October/092653.html for more information.

Due to daylight saving time, the time window has been changed from 05:00 UTC to 06:00 UTC.

Trizek (WMF) (talk) 09:43, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Development environment for this wiki (take 2)

If I make a (Vagrant or Docker or VirtualBox) development for this wiki, would you be interested in including

  • 1. all gadgets or only some (if so then which)
  • 2. all extensions or only some (if so then which)
  • 3. all content or only some (if so then what part)
  • 4. all settings or only some (if so then which ones)

Also what extensions, or improvements to existing extensions, would you like to see developed if someone volunteers to do it. Is there a wish list.

Thanks, --Gryllida (talk) 05:10, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

There's plenty of wishes at meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Results (and from previous years) - Evad37 [talk] 10:45, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
All extensions and settings should be there. Since gadgets can be installed trivially by editing pages on-wiki, there would not be much point in adding them. Regarding the content -- it wouldn't be possible to include 50 million pages, right? A sample, of say 100 pages from each namespace would be okay. SD0001 (talk) 11:41, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

A user posted a question at the teahouse about how to set the contribs list to filter out edits to his user page. I didn't see a way to set the default options for the Special:Contribs page or any params to that Special page other than the username. So, I gave them an alternate link with a "long-form" URL with the params set up to filter out User namespace contribs. I'd like to be able to modify that Contribs link at the top of the page to use this URL instead of the plain Special:Contribs. This seems to work, but I'd appreciate knowing if there's an easier/better way (I'm a developer, but a total novice in this environment). The code I added to my common.js is:

$(document).ready(function() {
	var s = document.getElementById("pt-mycontris").firstChild.href;
	document.getElementById("pt-mycontris").firstChild.href =
		"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?target="
		+ s.substr(s.lastIndexOf('/') + 1)
		+ "&namespace=2&wpfilters%5B%5D=nsInvert&title=Special%3AContributions";
});

(I actually already had a ready() function and added to it.) Thanks. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 11:03, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

$('#pt-mycontris a')[0].href += '?namespace=2&wpfilters%5B%5D=nsInvert'; inside the ready() does the same thing. SD0001 (talk) 11:34, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Excellent, thanks! Do other Special pages work the same way (allowing tacking the raw URL parms on the end of one of the supported parms)? Is it documented somewhere what's available? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 12:12, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Most special pages have one primary parameter, which for contributions is the username, so links of the form /wiki/Special:Contributions/username?...other...params... are the same as /w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&...other...params . Similarly for WhatLinksHere, the primary parameter is the page name, and for PrefixIndex the prefix. SD0001 (talk) 15:04, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

subst:

Hello!

{{subst:PAGENAME}} makes the actual page name appear in the source edit instead of {{PAGENAME}}. How do I do the same for the page name minus the last letter, which is, as far as I know, written {{#invoke:string|sub|s={{PAGENAME}}|i=1|j=-2}}? Is it possible to subst: a module invoke?Jonteemil (talk) 03:13, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Modules can be substituted in the same way as templates. {{subst:#invoke:string|sub|s={{subst:PAGENAME}}|i=1|j=-2}} should work * Pppery * it has begun... 03:20, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
@Pppery: It worked, thanks!Jonteemil (talk) 03:35, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Email this user

Is it possible to have "email this user" enabled on some projects but not on others? For example, to have it enabled here on en-wiki but off on Meta? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 11:03, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

If you want to remove the link from your own interface when you view a userspace page then you can add this to the local Special:MyPage/common.css:
#t-emailuser {display: none;}
If you want to disallow others to mail you then disable "Allow other users to email me" at the local Special:Preferences. This will remove the link for them. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:36, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, it's the latter I was looking for. DuncanHill (talk) 11:40, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
Even better, it allows me to block specific users, which is probably better for my purposes at the moment. Thanks again, DuncanHill (talk) 11:42, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Watchlist diff placement

Previously on my watchlist (and Special:RecentChanges, and possibly elsewhere I haven't noticed yet), the (diff|hist) link was previously immediately after the bullet point, to the left of the page and user information. It's now as of yesterday moved to the right of the page title. Is there a way I can move it back? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:07, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

I still see the (diff | hist) immediately after the bullet, both on watchlist and on RC. SD0001 (talk) 08:18, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
Did you accidentally turn on "group results by page"? Possibly unexpectedly by merely following a link? Anomie⚔ 12:25, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
Apparently yes, thanks. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:45, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Unbulleted lists in infoboxes

At Money (That's What I Want) the infobox's "Label" field is formatted as a horizontal list, exactly as though it used {{hlist}}, except that on mobile it's missing any demarcation at all between items. But it actually uses {{unbulleted list}}, which is supposed to format as a vertical unbulleted list. Compare the same infobox's "writer" field, which uses {{hlist}}. I have never seen this behaviour before and I am surprised to find a vertical list template formatting horizontally. It makes no difference if I replace it with {{plainlist}}. Is this an intentional change? It's certainly not wanted and neither is it documented anywhere I can see. Hairy Dude (talk) 00:20, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Well it appears this particular infobox template ({{Infobox song}}) imposes the plainlist class. Perhaps that's what causes this strange behaviour? Hairy Dude (talk) 00:30, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

How can I make a template return a table?

I must've tried all possible permutations, and also searched all around WP, to no avail. What am I doing wrong here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guarapiranga (talk • contribs) 01:25, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

 Sorted Thanks, PrimeHunter. Guarapiranga (talk) 02:09, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) {{crlf}} just makes the html code <br/>. I made actual newlines so table code starts on a new line.[21] Some templates get around such MediaWiki requirements by outputting tables with html syntax: Help:Table#Other table syntax. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:10, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Unable to view diffs of deleted pages

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T237709

Apologies if this is the wrong location to report...but lately I've been having issues with viewing the diffs of deleted pages and was wondering if it was just me. When I try to click on a diff of a page that's been deleted, I'm met with "Internal error: Fatal exception of type "InvalidArgumentException" ", but strangely, when I click on the time and date of the revision I want to see as opposed to the diff button, I can view it just fine. So, for example, I can't see [22], but I can see [23]. A minor inconvenience, but annoying nonetheless. Also I can still see diffs that have been revision deleted as normal. Anyone know of an easy fix? Sro23 (talk) 19:09, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Sro23: it's broken, just confirmed on testwiki too. Will open a phab ticket. — xaosflux Talk 19:13, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
@Sro23: phab:T237824 has been created. — xaosflux Talk 19:17, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Upmerged to phab:T237709. — xaosflux Talk 21:24, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Good to see that I'm not the only one who is having this problem and that there are alternative ways to view deleted edits. Liz Read! Talk! 15:56, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Watchlist in the advanced mode

when I open the watchlist using the advanced mode in my phone, it takes 30-45 seconds for the filters box to appear. If I clicked on anything in the watchlist at that time I end up clicking on something else because when the filters box appear the whole list go down few centimetres. It's really annoying and I sometimes accidentally click on rollback.--SharabSalam (talk) 16:29, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

SharabSalam, either get a faster phone, or use the hide option in the topright of the filters and dont use them, or disable the entire feature in your preferences. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:41, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Since the watchlist got changed in the advanced mode (approximately 3 weeks ago) I stopped using the advanced mode but Wikipedia keeps asking me to try the advanced mode until one time I accidentally clicked on something and it changed to the advanced mode. I like the advanced mode but the watchlist has become so annoying. Anyway, I am just going to stop using the advanced mode I am already pissed off, I reverted someone comment in the talk page and then self-reverted and he sent me a warning.--SharabSalam (talk) 16:50, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Searching Contribution history

Is there a way to show user contributions based on a keyword search of the edit summary? Would like to find all edits by User:GreenC bot that contain an edit summary of Add {{Cleanup bare URLs}} like this edit. Particularly interested in the size of the edit - GreenC bot had a rare bug and hunting for a large increase in article size, with these edits, going back to May. -- GreenC 22:26, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Not through the Wikipedia interface. quarry:query/40110. Looks like you're after Special:Diff/915911382, Special:Diff/915552147, Special:Diff/911767914, and Special:Diff/909834784. —Cryptic 22:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
For the more general case, there's the edit summary search tool, linked from users' contribution pages. I don't think it works in this specific case though. Graham87 06:59, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
In the old days, like until three weeks ago, you would go to the user's contribs page and append ?limit=5000 to the URL, then use your browser's "Find" feature (often Ctrl+F). Since they busted it right down to 500 max, it now takes ten times as long to do the same thing. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:08, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
See phab:T234450 and feel free to comment there. — xaosflux Talk 14:40, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Categories on archived talk page

Talk:Albert Cashier/Archive 2 is inappropriately appearing in 12 articlespace categories that it's not supposed to be in. I'm able to determine that it relates to the "Implementing the RFC/Comparisons" section, which contains several instances of direct transclusion of the article side by side with a proposed rewrite — but unfortunately, I don't know how to fix it without breaking the entire section in the process, and the page can't just stay in articlespace categories. Can somebody figure out how to get the page out of the categories? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 16:49, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

It seems a poor idea to transclude whole articles on talk pages and the drafts are deleted so the comparisons don't work but I have used {{Suppress categories}} instead of removing the transclusions.[24] PrimeHunter (talk) 17:10, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Pageview Statistics for Bible

I posted this concern at the Help Desk, and was advised to come here.

I have been looking at page viewing statistics for some articles, and I would like to know if someone with knowledge could review the statistics for Bible. On 5 March 2019, it was 4326. Starting on 6 March 2019, I see 55,573 pageviews. By the way, that was Ash Wednesday. On 15 April 2019, I see 284,992 pageviews. That wasn't Easter, by the way. Easter was 21 April 2019, and was 256,054 pageviews. The pageview metrics drop off in May 2019, but then fluctuate between thousands of pageviews and hundreds of thousands of pageviews. How confident can we be that there really is a weirdly fluctuating demand for viewing of the Bible article? Comments?

User:Maproom said that they did not find the values after 5 March to be plausible.
I posted: Thank you, User:Maproom. Is there a trouble ticketing system, such as Phabricator, for reporting the issue? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:27, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
I could make some sort of philosophical joke about a use-mention distinction or the difference between the symbol and the thing symbolized, except that on a given day, the number of readers who read the Bible is not in the hundreds of thousands, but the hundreds of millions.
In the year 2018, the daily viewing metrics are: 3800 average daily pageviews , and I find them consistent with other commonly read articles.
In the year 2017, we see an average of 4177 daily pageviews, and I believe that.

I pinged a few other editors, and got a response from User:BrownHairedGirl.

Another editor at Help Desk commented: Comparison with other pages showing the view counter wasn't just broken or had changed. Don't see any major news coverage relating to the Bible spanning March/April 2019.

User:BrownHairedGirl wrote: Looks to me like there is something v weird going on with the 2019 figures.

I suggest raising this at WP:VPT, where there seems to be lots of knowledgeable technie people who in my experience respond quickly and helpfully to a well-constructed query on even obscure issues

I don't find the numbers beginning on 5 March 2019 to be plausible. They are anywhere from one to two orders of magnitude higher than previously, and higher than what I see for other reasonably well-viewed articles. Is there a trouble ticketing system that editors can use? Comments? Assistance? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:04, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: poke --Izno (talk) 20:46, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
See toolforge:pageviews/faq/#anomaly. Comparing desktop and mobile-web, it's likely there was some sort of automated false traffic from March to May 2019. I'm not sure about the recent spike in mobile-web pageviews. If something really bizarre is going on you can always file a task on Phabricator, but I think the comparisons here offer the confirmation we need. The private data is also purged after 90 days so I don't think we could give any concrete explanations of the March-May spike. When in doubt, I usually refer to the mobile-app figures, which don't experience the same kind of anomalies and hence can help confirm if fluctuations in traffic are authentic. The parent task to improve bot detection is tracked at phab:T138207. Hope this helps, — MusikAnimal talk 21:49, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

What would cause the enwp UI to disappear?

Exemplar

For reasons beyond my understanding, random pages are rendering for me without the enwp UI, even when other pages are fine. Does anybody have an idea as to what's happening? I'm using Safari 13.0.3 on macOS 10.15.1 on a MacBookAir6,1. Thanks! (I had a similar problem that I asked about here, but it eventually resolved itself.) — Fourthords | =Λ= | 21:49, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@Fourthords: see my reply at #Some wikipedia articles lack all standard formatting. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:44, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll reply up there. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 23:01, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Referencing queries

Firstly a specific problem. I have a very untidy External links reference * Paintings by William Oliver Williams at Art UK. On 30 October OxonAlex tidied a similar reference up by removing 2 spaces (it was something about getting everything on the same line). Could you indicate what he did?

Another query is that the scanning of books is becoming more common so that you get a reference that is a combination of a web and book source. You initially will use the web template but may also need to give details of the book (such as page numbers) that would be obtained using the book template in combination with the web site details. An example (probably done inadequately by me) is, [1]

Editors have kindly helped me out eg. improving this 'Oliver, William. "Royal Academy entries". Exhibitors at the RA' to this [2]

However, I can't rely on this help and need to do things for myself. Is there a standard procedure recommended? I presume there is not a template for these 'combination' sources? BFP1 (talk) 16:46, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Ledger, Tanya. "A Study of the Arundel Society !848-1897. PhD thesis (!978) pp 45-50". University of Oxford, UK. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
  2. ^ Graves, Algernon (1906). The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904. London: H. Graves and co. p. 12 – via the Internet Archive.
In future, please don't place your "references" inside ref tags on talk pages. Just link to them. Bearcat (talk) 16:50, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
You can use {{cite thesis}} for a thesis and {{cite book}} for a book. Examples are given there; you can copy and adapt them for your use. The documentation is long, but it explains how to use each parameter. {{cite web}} is generally for sources that are available only on the web. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:17, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Jonesey95. BFP1 (talk) 12:09, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

self-sufficient unlinked DAB page entries

Just now, editing Tashi delek#Origin and meaning, I noticed that the link on the word "Tashi" is orange, i.e., a link to a DAB page. Tashi redirects to Tashi (disambiguation), but the meaning intended here is that of the word "tashi" itself, which is defined on the first line of the page:

Tashi (Tibetan: བཀྲ་ཤིས་, Wylie: bkra-shis, ZYPY: zhaxi, Lhasa dialect: [ʈáɕiʔ]), also spelled trashi, is a Tibetan word meaning "good fortune" or "auspiciousness". Tashi or trashi may refer to:
[TOC]

I added {{anchor|word}} to the beginning of the line and changed the link in Tashi delek to [[Tashi#word|Tashi]], but it didn't help; see the diff.

Is there any solution for this problem? The link should not be flagged in orange as a DAB link, because it links specifically to the one entry on the page that does not lead to another page but contains the relevant content. Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 19:17, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Maybe link the word to Wiktionary instead, since all you want is a definition. (Although it looks like someone will need to create that page at Wiktionary first.) – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:30, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
@Thnidu: It's only orange because you enabled a script, probably "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. Normal readers don't see the color. If the disambiguation page is intentionally linked then the link should go via the redirect Tashi (disambiguation) per WP:INTDAB. This will also remove the orange. But the intention of the link here is not what disambiguation pages are for. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:00, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter: Thanks. – Is it common for a DAB page "Xxxx (disambiguation)" to begin with a line that does not include a link to an article, but which instead contains what could be
  • the (brief) content of an article Xxxx, or
  • the description of xxxx in an article on a broader topic – say, if xxxx doesn't warrant a page of its own but is relevant within the broader topic?
Also, ISTM that your mention of "normal readers" is irrelevant. Am I so unusual in wanting to see whether a link I'm adding redirects to a DAB page, so I can fix it if necessary before saving the edit? --Thnidu (talk) 14:53, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Some wikipedia articles lack all standard formatting

I've noticed recently that a number of WP articles -- for example, My Grandfather's Clock -- appear without any of the standardized formatting when accessed. Is this a deliberate deprecation of these articles, or are some wiki scripts not working? Clevelander96 (talk) 00:53, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean by standardized formatting? --Izno (talk) 02:04, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
It looks normal to me. Try to bypass your cache, e.g. Ctrl+F5 in many Windows browsers. F5 alone does less and probably isn't enough for you. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:05, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
This sounds like Clevelander96 is experiencing an intermittent problem whereby their browser is unable to apply all of the intended styling to a Wikipedia page. Common effects include: content of top bar and sidebar appears as plain bulleted lists below the page content; all text is in browser's default serif font; images and other boxes appear inline instead of being floated to one side. There are a number of reasons that this happens, including: missing or corrupt style sheets; missing or corrupt JavaScript. The root causes may be: problems with the servers; problems with the browser itself; problems anywhere in between. The usual fixes are: (i) WP:BYPASS; (ii) wait a bit; (iii) WP:BYPASS again. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:16, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm having the same trouble as Clevelander96, and have had this problem before. At that time it was recommended that I bypass and purge, both of which I did to no avail; the problem though resolved itself about a week later. Is there any third thought as to what might remedy this? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 23:04, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes, the problem is persistent -- still happening now with numerous articles. It's like taking a trip back in time back to the earliest days of WP. I've just noticed, though, that the problem occurs only in Safari on my Mac, not with Chrome! Clevelander96 (talk) 14:52, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Yep, same here. I still haven't figured out why. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 19:21, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

How to start a new archive with OCA

I wished to begin a new user talk page archive here because the original one was becoming quite lengthy. I begun it by manually entering the section when I returned to the site after a three month break. However, when I used the OneClickArchiver script to add another thread [25], it instead placed the thread in the first archive [26] instead of the new one. How do I get OCA to begin placing threads in the new archive? funplussmart (talk) 17:37, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Add {{archive basics}} to the page with an appropriate counter value. SD0001 (talk) 19:49, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. Didn't know such a template existed. I thought the function was in the script or other templates. funplussmart (talk) 20:08, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Reference highlighting gone?

If I go on a page like Actinium-225, and click on [1], when I'm taking to the reference section, the corresponding reference should be highlighted. But this is somehow no longer happening. What gives? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:35, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

It works for me on Chrome. – Ammarpad (talk) 06:56, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
It works again now. Wonder why it didn't earlier. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:17, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Detecting whether page is a disambiguation page

Is there a means (in regular wiki-code templates or Lua modules) to detect whether a page (in particular, the subject page of a talk page) is a DAB page? I notice that a JS-based "gadget" available in Preferences to can do this (it handily turn DAB links orange for easy detection and cleanup), but I've not found a "templatey" way to do this yet. We don't seem to have a DAB equivalent of Module:Redirect's isRedirect, unless I just don't know where it is yet.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:27, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I've created Module:Disambiguation, which should be able to do what you want - Evad37 [talk] 10:00, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
@Evad37: Speed demon! You've obviously had even more coffee than I. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:27, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes, coffee helps... but it's also easy if already have most of the pieces you need in another module you've worked on - Evad37 [talk] 10:31, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
Yar. I expected that such a module would be easy, but I can't Lua my way out of a paper bag, so I thought it best to just ask if there was already a tool for this before trying to make one or asking someone else to do so. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:59, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
Someone should finish fixing phab:T71441 so searching the page wikitext for a template isn't needed... Anomie⚔ 12:35, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-47

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20:16, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Page delete link missing

The menu option "delete page" is no longer showing under the Page menu for me, but I was able to use the Mass delete special page to do the deletion. I exited and re-logged in to Wikipedia, and purged the page, to no avail. I am using Firefox 70.0.1 (64-bit) and windows 7. I haven't changed any scripts recently, not updated the browser that I know of, and this was working yesterday, or perhaps the day before. (Checking my log, my last actual deletion was 22:45, 14 November 2019, longer ago than usual .) Any advice? DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 09:20, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

It works for me in Firefox, Vector, Windows 7. Is it under the "More" menu? That's the default position. "MoreMenu" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets moves it to the "Page" menu. Did you purge with Ctrl+F5, F5 or only Wikipedia's purge feature? Try Ctrl+F5 if you haven't. What is your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? As a workaround, you probably have it under "More" with safemode=1. If the link is still missing then action=delete can be added manually to the url (only works for admins). PrimeHunter (talk) 12:29, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, PrimeHunter. I did try Ctrl-F5, to no avail. I have tried opening pages from several different namespaces, and the Delete Page option (which had been under the page menu for me for years) is not visible under any menu for any of them. I am using the MoreMenu gadget. I am also using the following appearance gadgets: Add edit link for lead section; add clock fopr personal toolbar; Add purge option to the top of page; Replace "new section" tab text with "+"; Change UTC-based times and dates to Local; Show radio buttom to switch between views (maps); and Strikew out usernames that hav been blocked. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 17:00, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Oh I am using the Vector skin, PrimeHunter. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 17:02, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Your link using safemod does add the Delete menu under More. Must "safemode=1" be added manually to the URL, or can it be don in some automatic way? DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 17:06, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
If you're getting the delete link when safemode=1 is there in the URL, that means there is some script you've installed in common.js or vector.js that's likely causing the problem. Try sequentially removing the teahouse-related scripts to see if any of them are causing the issue. SD0001 (talk) 17:37, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Oh, PrimeHunter, I am also using my common.js to add a "Tools" menu, and to import WP:Reflinks, your [[my subpages, Writ Keeper's Teahouse utility, Writ Keeper's Teahouse talkback script, Writ Keeper's Teahouse talkbackLink script, and Earwig's copyvio tool script. Some of those affect menus, some do not, none were changed by me recently . DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 17:34, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Some user script, gadget or combination must be causing it. I don't know what. User:PrimeHunter/Safe mode.js adds a link to reload a page with safemode=1 in the url. Safemode disables all gadgets and user scripts until you click a link. This means the safemode script is "selfdestructing": It also disables itself when you click the safemode link. That's OK. The only feature is to add the safemode link and you don't need the link when you have already clicked it. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:23, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
@DESiegel: There was a bug with MoreMenu that sometimes caused this, but it was fixed quite a while ago. If it is the same problem, it should have fixed itself by now because MoreMenu refreshes user rights data after 24 hours. Can you confirm if the "delete" link is now visible? If all else fails, you could try completely clearing your cache.
Incidentally, there is a new version of MoreMenu that I'm going to be rolling out soon that hopefully will have no such issues, while also adding many new features. If you are interested in helping test it, let me know. Best, — MusikAnimal talk 02:04, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal, PrimeHunter, SD0001, and Writ Keeper: Thanks for all your help. Removing the script Writ Keeper's Teahouse utility fixed the problem. I note that that scrip adds items to the page menu, and tries to create that menu if it doesn't exist. Apparently it soemone interacted badly with the addition of the delete page item on that menu, but I have no idea how, or whAnyway, the problem seems to be fixed for me. at changed to make this start happening only a few days ago. I may look ito creating a local variant of that script, perhaps using the More menu, but not today. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 03:15, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Chrome - userscript problem

I have a long-standing íssue with my script on Windows Chrome.  (Admin only) script User:Beetstra/Gadget-Spam-blacklist-Handler.js fails in line 730: 'text.value += '\n' + append;' to update the actual text in the edit box, not adding the required content in 'append'. When looking at the value of text.value in debug mode, it is actually there (it is also in document.editform.wpTextbox1.value; text = document.editform.wpTextbox1), but it is not displayed in the edit box. The update of the summary field (document.editform.wpSummary.value) does get updated (I see it in the summary box), the correct material is collected, and the script does continue as expected (but when saving, the content is not changed). The problem is not there on Internet Explorer 11, the problem is not there in Chrome on my iPad. Someone has any clues? --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:04, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Disable syntax highlighting - apparently highlighting "disables" use of this textbox (it's greyed in code Inspector [F12 FF]). If you switch that off, it will be "enabled" again. MarMi wiki (talk) 13:01, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
MarMi wiki thanks!. Funny, so .. is there then another box that is 'enabled'? (and funny that only Chrome understands that). Dirk Beetstra T C 13:03, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
MarMi wiki, did you mean User:Remember_the_dot/Syntax_highlighter? That one is turned off for me. Dirk Beetstra T C 13:10, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
I meant the default highlighter (CodeMirror) (the pencil icon, ~7th button from the left on the toolbar).
Under FF with enabled highlighting the script will not work either (I checked it with the above code snippets in Console). When in highlight mode, the text is stored in multiple div/span tags - each line (until enter) is in its own div. MarMi wiki (talk) 13:39, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
@MarMi wiki: yay, that worked. Rather annoying (I find it rather handy), but well, at least I can get the script to work. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:47, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
@Beetstra: You could also try to disable highlighting in the script (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Twt8s67hwtmaa7jo):
//code to check if highlighting is enabled
$( '#wpTextbox1' ).data( 'wikiEditor-context' ).modules.toolbar.$toolbar.find( '#mw-editbutton-codemirror > a' )[0].click()
//change value
$( '#wpTextbox1' ).data( 'wikiEditor-context' ).modules.toolbar.$toolbar.find( '#mw-editbutton-codemirror > a' )[0].click()
MarMi wiki (talk) 15:07, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
MarMi wiki, not very elegant, but I could give it a try (though I am afraid it will turn it on when it is already turned off ..). Dirk Beetstra T C 06:11, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
@Beetstra: The api to modify the textarea is jQuery.textSelection. It exists specifically to avoid this issue of keeping multiple editors of the textarea in sync with eachother. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:50, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
And it's even described on Wikipedia:User_scripts/Guide#Text_manipulation and Wikipedia:User_scripts/Techniques#Automatic_edits. I think it should be mentioned also on the WikiEditor and CodeMirror extensions pages (for example with a link: "visit here if you want to develop a JS script").
So for this case it would be:
var text = $textbox.textSelection( 'getContents')
$textbox.textSelection( 'setContents', text+'\n test')
// Above will scroll the text to the top (at least it does that when syntax highlighting is on),
// if you want to scroll back, you need to remember caret position:

// Put this line before 'setContents'
var pos = $textbox.textSelection( 'getCaretPosition')
// Put this line after 'setContents'
$textbox.textSelection( 'setSelection', pos)
--MarMi wiki (talk) 15:43, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
TheDJ, this script was ported, I did not write it from scratch, so I never saw that. I will try to incorporate this. Thanks! Dirk Beetstra T C 05:26, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks all, this seems to be resolved. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:05, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Category size

Is it possible to run off the size of a category over time? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:13, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: If you're lucky, you may find snapshots of the category page at the Wayback Machine. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:11, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
You might also download database dumps of the categorylinks table and process the data to get the number of pages in the category at the time of each dump. Anomie⚔ 13:08, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Is there a page/query to see a count of how many users have each of the user scripts installed? Cheers. Guarapiranga (talk) 00:45, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, User:Facenapalm/Most imported scripts, but it hasn't been updated since 21 March 2018. I've been slowly working on a new version that reads dumps (to avoid all the API calls), but I don't know when it'll be done. Enterprisey (talk!) 01:39, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I just went ahead and gave that page a much-needed update. It looked easy enough. About 1800 API calls for searches - but they are all quite inexpensive since we just want the total number of search hits, and not the search results themselves. SD0001 (talk) 17:30, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you. Should that info be incorporated into WP:USL, somehow? Cheers. Guarapiranga (talk) 20:49, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks SD0001. Would you mind putting a brief outline of how that list is created at WP:User scripts/Most imported scripts? Perhaps just one example of the API call for my curiosity. Johnuniq (talk) 22:12, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
I added a brief note on the page. See the 2nd & 3rd paragraphs of the comment atop User:SD0001/MostImportedScriptsUpdater.js for more details. SD0001 (talk) 09:52, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

I've now had a look at the top 25 scripts, and they are mostly all either obsolete, deprecated, superseded by gadgets or simply no longer working. Perhaps a flag would help editors identify what scripts not to install or to uninstall. Guarapiranga (talk) 22:50, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

It's likely that a significant portion of editors using those scripts are no longer active, and I bet plenty were simply left as-is in the monobook -> vector transition. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:57, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

This task seems well suited to a bot, so I've requested one at WP:BOTREQ#Most imported user scripts table - Evad37 [talk] 13:49, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Is there a way the bot could differentiate active from inactive users, Evad37? (I suppose differentiating admins from editors would be trivial.)

Also, if the bot could also spit out the change in number of imports, so that we could rank by trending scripts, that'd be a bonus! Guarapiranga (talk) 01:46, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: That's up to whoever (if anyone) ends up coding the bot. I've copied your request to WP:BOTREQ#Most imported user scripts table, and replied there - Evad37 [talk] 14:59, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Mass Retarget script not working anymore for me

Hi, I have been using User:Andy M. Wang/massretarget and User:Andy M. Wang/pageswap over the past year. Recently (like a month or so) the MassRetarget script has stopped working. User:Andy M. Wang has not edited in the past one year. Is someone maintaining these scripts ? what options (other apps?) do I have ?

Here is what I intend to do.

  • There are several double redirects that link to Special:WhatLinksHere/Prayagraj(Allahabad)#, created as a result of undiscussed (and now reverted) page move. I would like all of these double redirect to Allahabad.
  • The massretarget could have done this in few clicks, but for some reasons it is failing to make an edit even though the UI is proceeding as expected.

Any help here will be appreciated. --DBigXrayᗙ 10:23, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Should be fixed now ~ Amory (u • t • c) 11:06, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
Amorymeltzer, thanks for the kind reply. Yes, I have verified that the script is working for me now. As I was able to complete the work of fixing the double redirects related to Allahabad. Marking it as resolved. --DBigXrayᗙ 16:28, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
Resolved
@DBigXray: I have been maintaining a fork of pageswap at User:Ahecht/Scripts/pageswap with bugfixes and added usability and cleanup features. Are there particular issues with the old script that need to be addressed? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:04, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
Ahecht Thanks a lot for the kind reply. No, Andy's pageswap works fine and I dont have any issues with it. I am glad that you are maintaining this useful tool. I have installed your version and commented out Andy's for now. If there are any feedback I would contact you on your talk page. --DBigXrayᗙ 15:46, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Category redirects populated by templates

Category:Articles with unsourced statements from November 2,019 and Category:Articles with unsourced statements from October 2,019 are both category redirects but are currently populated due to some template on the articles. Can anyone identify and fix the code to remove the commas from the years? Timrollpickering (Talk) 08:55, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

It's causes by dated {{cn}} (or similar) tags in the "Population" section of the infobox. The infobox template has code to automatically format that number, but apparently also formats the year. I've moved the tags to the population_footnote parameter, which fixes it for now. I don't know if it's desired and/or possible to change {{Infobox settlement}} to be smarter, or if tags like that just shouldn't be in the population parameter. rchard2scout (talk) 09:32, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Number of search results

Is there a template or magic word (similar to PAGESINCATEGORY) that results the number of results for a given search string? -- /Alex/21 02:30, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

No. Wikitext does not have access to anything about search results. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:44, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Global watchlist - Update 3

Updates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script:

Survey
  • I am investigating adding more context to each entry that is shown (such as the edit summaries, tags, patrol marks, the user who made the edit, etc.). Is there any desire for such additions? If so, what should be added first, and what is a low priority? Please leave feedback on the relevant phabricator task, phab:T238300.
Recent additions
  • Site validation has been overhauled. Rather than hard-coding a list of valid sites, users will be able to watch any site where they have an attached local user account. If a site is rejected as invalid, please ensure that there is indeed a local account attached to your global account.
  • Users will now be alerted regarding the results of attempting to update their settings.
  • Live updates have been added - when activated, the script will refresh in the background, and then load the new feed, every 7.5 seconds. In the future, this frequency may be configurable.
  • OOUI icons have been added to most buttons.
  • There is now an option to eliminate the confirmation dialog when marking all sites as seen.
Announcements
  • WARNING: Starting with version 6.1, site aliases currently used when saving settings will be removed, and only sites in the form of `lang.project` will be accepted.
  • As noted in the last update, marking a site as seen now uses entirewatchlist, which means that any changes to watched pages between when the watchlist was loaded and when the site was "marked as seen" may be ignored.
Next release

Version 6.0 was just finalized for the development and stable branches of the script.

To subscribe or unsubscribe from future updates, see the distribution list.

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 21:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Global watchlist user script: About • Updates • Code

Different ways to create accounts?

Looking through the eventlog (via the API), I see four different actions under newusers: 

Counter({'create': 6302, 'autocreate': 3507, 'byemail': 110, 'create2': 81})

I assume these mean:

  • create: went to Special:CreateAccount
  • autocreate: created a global account on another wiki, then logged in here
  • byemail: an OTRS volunteer created the account upon request

But, what does 'create2' mean? -- RoySmith (talk) 17:56, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Account creation by a existing user, done while being logged in. SD0001 (talk) 18:00, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

PS, I also notice that some users (myself, for example), don't have any entries in the newusers log. I assume that just means the account was created before we started logging account creations? -- RoySmith (talk) 17:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@RoySmith: yes, old entries didn't get put in to the log when it was made. You can create an account 4 ways:
  1. Non-logged in user makes an account
  2. Logged in central auth user from another project accesses this project
  3. Logged in user creates another account and gives it a new password
  4. Logged in user creates another account and has a random password emailed.
— xaosflux Talk 18:03, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, the account creation log goes back only up to 8 September 2005. The entry will also not be there for users who were renamed. SD0001 (talk) 18:12, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikitable header centering: desktop vs mobile

I noticed wikitables set with a global alignment in style will show headers centralised on desktop and according to that global alignment on mobile. Is that how it's meant to be? Guarapiranga (talk) 07:27, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Guarapiranga, pls give examples. It helps avoid ambiguity. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:22, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Here's one, TheDJ (but basically any table with figures set to align right at the table heading). Guarapiranga (talk) 20:54, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
So, the desktop version has the text in the header of the table aligned center because of the wikitable styling. Mobile has some of the wikitable styling, but it seems like the header stiling (wikitable tr th) is missing. Instead the header inherits the styling from the table element which is align right. So, I would say it is a bug. Mobile should look like the desktop version. Just file an bug on phab. There is not a bug like this one there yet.--Snaevar (talk) 18:17, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

HDS id

Resolved

At Vladimir Lenin's authority control on the bottom there's a red error "The HDS id 028375 is not valid" (at Wikidata seemingly there's no indication that HDS id is flawed). Could someone knowledgeable look into? A similar error has been in another article I can't recall, perhaps there's some grouping of such errors. Brandmeistertalk 16:30, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

There's a grouping of such errors at Category:Wikipedia articles with faulty HDS identifiers. Apparently it is a frequent issue: Module:Authority control lists the number of valid and invalid ids for the various parameters. Most parameters have either no faulty IDS or something in the single digits. HDS has 1870 faulty ones (versus 3274 valid ones). I'm not particularly familiar with HDS, but from what I can see by comparing about half a dozen each of functioning versus faulty ones, I strongly suspect the problem to be the zero at the start of the ID. No functioning ID started with a zero, every flawed ID I checked did. AddWittyNameHere 16:44, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
EDIT: Well, functioning as far as the software detects it--most of the ones Authority control considers valid actually lead to a 404 error because the resulting link is not actually correct. (See e.g. Vacallo. ID supposedly not faulty-but leads to 404) EDIT2: Looking into it further, even if the leading zero was accepted, it wouldn't solve the issue because it adds .php at the end of the resulting url, even though the actual site doesn't. (Or doesn't any more, who knows) Something in the link formatting at WikiData needs updating, I'd guess. I'll leave the actual fixing to someone who actually knows what they're doing there, though. AddWittyNameHere 17:03, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
I have updated the validity check to match the check used at Wikidata, which makes the HDS at Vladimir Lenin work. I imagine that there are "valid" IDs that don't lead to any pages, but you can't have everything. I have also updated the underlying https link to something that appears to work better for all IDs (with very limited testing, so I might have made a mistake), which makes things work at Vacallo as well. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:22, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, think that any "valid" IDs that don't lead anywhere now are ones where the ID at WikiData simply doesn't match the actual ID over at the website, but that's just a case of "garbage in, garbage out". Thanks! AddWittyNameHere 17:31, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. HDS identifiers seems to be the biggest issue among other articles with faulty authority control, with a whopping 2,117 currently there. Brandmeistertalk 17:35, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
There are no articles left in the error category after the above update to the module. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:44, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Outdated Security Browser Message

This happens most of the time in older browsers. It had started happening on Saturday and again on Monday. It's not the browser age it is very likely to be done in error especially on a Generation I device. Wikitech has an article about that mentioning that it interferes with the process. This error has to be fixed.

Regards,

69.126.37.241 (talk) 20:43, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi 69... can you share some more steps for this if you feel comfortable:
  1. What browser/OS are you using?
  2. What is your user-agent string?
  3. What is the page you are going to when you get the warning?
  4. What does the message say?
Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 20:58, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
Hello IP. I'm sorry to hear that you're having issues accessing Wikipedia. What is the name and version of the browser and operating system you are using?
We currently recommend that you use one of the following browsers to access Wikipedia: The current or previous major version of Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or Edge, Internet Explorer version 11 or later, Safari version 5.1 or later, iOS version 6.1 or later, or Android version 4.1 or later. Internet Explorer versions before IE8 are not supported, as continuing to support them would make all visitors to Wikipedia less secure. Browsers not on this list may continue to work, but may only be able to use a limited set of features. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 21:09, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
IE6 and IE7 were recently removed from "basic support" in the MediaWiki compatibility table, if you're using either they must have start behaving differently. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:58, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
For reference, the page in question is probably https://en.wikipedia.org/sec-warning Eman235/talk 07:27, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
Can we stop this message? It's coming on Opera 12.16 Smarkflea (talk) 00:33, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
According to this opera.com page and the History of the Opera web browser WP page, version 12.16 is more than six years old. Based on the information in the page linked above, it looks like you need version 15 (also released in 2013) or higher. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:00, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
I don't want the message. Smarkflea (talk) 12:51, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Then update your browser. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 13:39, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
There's no reason to. I know it's out of date, I don't need a warning. Smarkflea (talk) 21:12, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Smarkflea: The reason to update your browser is that you don't want the message, as you stated above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:05, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Smarkflea: If you don't want to update your browser, at least change what it reports as. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:17, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
That won't help. The warning appears if the browser is requesting TLSv1.0 or TLSv1.1, it doesn't look at the user agent. Smarkflea: You need to update your browser, or you will soon not be able to access Wikipedia at all. the wub "?!" 11:25, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

I wonder if he did that on purpose

Jimmy Wales has started a new thing, WikiTribune Social, or more commonly WT:Social. Creating the later as a redirect is a little special, since our software knows that anything that starts with wt: is outside mainspace. I created WT:Social (actually Wikipedia talk:Social) anyway. If you search for it you arrive at the right article.

However, the suggestions shown by the searchbox for WT:Social all look unrelated to this topic (of course). The top one leads you right, but there is no reason a reader should assume that. So my question is, is there something better to be done, or is this as good as it gets? Ideally, the top suggestion should be WT:Social. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:01, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Nope, good as it gets. I also 100% question creation of WT:Social, which I would guess most people will expect to end up at WT:NOT via WP:NOT#SOCIAL. --Izno (talk) 17:45, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
WP:Social should probably be salted as a precaution/headache prevention. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:27, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
I've created it as a redirect to the article in order to prevent confusion and inadvertent use of the page for something else. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 14:54, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Help! All the editing bits above the editing window have disappeared for me when I am using Chrome.

I logged out and back in...tried to ask for help in #wikipedia-en-help and in #wikimedia-tech but no one could tell me how to fix this or what is going on and they said I should ask here. Apparently this is an issue that is only affecting me or maybe only my computer (but apparently not people using Chrome?...I dunno. I did try another browser (ancient version I keep around) and that works. Anybody have an idea as to what is going on? What has disappeared is the stuff seen here ->> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shearonink/ref All the Advanced, special characters, error check, etc., etc. Help! Shearonink (talk) 05:46, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Normally I would guess you had somehow disabled the editing toolbar (Preferences -> Editing -> second section), but if it works in another browser... just to verify, you tried editing while logged in in that other browser, right? AddWittyNameHere 05:57, 24 November 2019 (UTC) (EDIT: Fixing mangled ping: @Shearonink: AddWittyNameHere 05:58, 24 November 2019 (UTC))
Yes. I was logged-in on the other browser (though I do see that there are other recent Chrome issues posted on this page...). If someone is using Chrome and everything is peachy-keen for them at the moment, could they close their WP tab/s and then open up WP again and see if the editing preferences have disappeared? I am thinking maybe there is some kind of recent WP-update that is not playing nicely with Chrome or maybe Chrome is just not playing nicely with WP?... I dunno, this is a new one on me. Shearonink (talk) 06:06, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
I just checked and my Enable the editing toolbar is enabled. Shearonink (talk) 06:08, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
@Shearonink: Okay, then that's at least one thing that shouldn't be causing it. Chrome works as should for me, both as IP and logged in. Curious. Have you tried disabling your browser extensions to see if the toolbar reappears? AddWittyNameHere 06:35, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
AddWittyNameHere Don't laugh. Please. But how do I do that?... Shearonink (talk) 06:45, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
Nevermind I found how to do that, trying it out now... Shearonink (talk) 06:52, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
@AddWittyNameHere: That didn't change anything...the editing helps are still MIA. Oh, and I also turned off and then turned back on my computer as well. Shearonink (talk) 06:54, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
PS - Earlier today everything was *fine*. This is becoming very frustrating. Shearonink (talk) 06:56, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

@Shearonink: Okay, that's another thing to check off, then. (If you didn't yet, remember to toggle the extensions back on since apparently they're also not the cause). Can you think of anything you did between when it was working and when it stopped working? (Update anything, change any settings, stuff like that) And yeah, it certainly sounds frustrating. AddWittyNameHere 07:05, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

I can't think of a thing. I didn't change any Chrome settings and I hate updating anything (like software etc) so I avoid updates as long as possible. This is bizarre...I keep checking to see if they came back and still nothing nada zilch. Shearonink (talk) 07:10, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
Shearonink One more thing I can think of... In Chrome, go to Settings -> Advanced (in the left-hand bar a bit below the other categories) -> Privacy and Security -> Site settings. You now get a list of various permissions. Somewhere in there is JavaScript. What does it say just below? AddWittyNameHere 07:25, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
AddWittyNameHere Allowed. Shearonink (talk) 07:48, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
AddWittyNameHere oh and I just tried bypassing my cache and those editing bits are still MIA. I give up for tonight. I'd sure like to know how to fix it or even what caused it. Shearonink (talk) 08:04, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
​Just to be sure: If you click on the JavaScript setting, it hasn't somehow added wikipedia to the blocked sites list, has it? If not, then hopefully by the time you log on tomorrow it'll either have resolved itself or someone who has further ideas about what it might be has commented. AddWittyNameHere 08:10, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
AddWittyNameHere All are allowed, none are blocked. Shearonink (talk) 08:33, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
Shearonink Well, I'm all out of ideas. Going to have to wait for one of the real technical editors, then, rather than just a "can troubleshoot some of the more obvious issues" editor--the latter of which is what I'd consider myself to be. AddWittyNameHere 08:38, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
AddWittyNameHere Thanks for trying. At least I know I wasn't just shouting into the wind. I mean obviously (more likely) 1)I've done *something* (though I don't know what) or (less likely) 2)Chrome and/or WP has done something. Code & texts & gadgets don't just disappear without some cause. If others had shown up here saying "editing bits above editing window have disappeared using Chrome" then I'd think it was some coding change on WP or some tweak/update to Chrome. But, I am alone in my editing bits-less state... ugh. Night Gracie. Shearonink (talk) 09:07, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

In case anyone is paying attention to changes in this page today...yeah, those editing bits are still missing, but just on Chrome. They are there in my ancient & creaky version of Safari. It's just Chrome. Shearonink (talk) 15:07, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

The problem does seem likely to be related to the Enable the editing toolbar option, yet for some reason this isn't enabled even though you have the option selected. Persumably this option enables some javascript, which is not working for some reason. Could there be a JS conflict? Something in your commons.js, possibly? Could it be skin specific? Not that I have any suggestions, but just pinpointing what isn't working might help.   Jts1882 | talk  15:31, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
@Shearonink: Does it show up when in the safemode? What skin do you use? Does it show when you use a different skin Also, is your version of Chrome up-to-date? SD0001 (talk) 15:47, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
SD0001 -
  • Does not show up in safe mode when using Chrome.
  • I am using Vector.
  • oh my word...the editing bits are back when using Modern. But not in Vector. (?)
  • Chrome is up-to-date.
Thanks - I feel like this is progress. Shearonink (talk) 18:01, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
OMG. All I did was your detective work, checked the skin, switched it from Vector to Modern and back to Vector, checked to see what version of Chrome I had my version and NOW the editing bits are BACK. HALLELUJAH. Still don't know why they decided to go MIA...it's just another mystery. THANK YOU SD0001! Cheers, Shearonink (talk) 18:06, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Unable to access Wikipedia from Google Chrome

As of 13 November, I can not access Wikipedia from Google Chrome. I get an error message that reads

www.wikipedia.org normally uses encryption to protect your information. When Google Chrome tried to connect to www.wikipedia.org this time, the website sent back unusual and incorrect credentials. This may happen when an attacker is trying to pretend to be www.wikipedia.org, or a Wi-Fi sign-in screen has interrupted the connection. Your information is still secure because Google Chrome stopped the connection before any data was exchanged. You cannot visit www.wikipedia.org right now because the website uses HSTS. Network errors and attacks are usually temporary, so this page will probably work later.

If there is anything I can do on my side that will address this issue, please let me know. I am using Microsoft Edge right now, but I really would prefer to use Chrome. --PuzzledvegetableIs it teatime already? 02:02, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not on www.wikipedia.org. It's actually on en.wikipedia.org, so the reason you got the message is probably because www.wikipedia.org is a virus site. Hope I helped. TL The Legend talk 21:46, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
TL The Legend - https://www.wikipedia.org/ is the main website for all different-language projects....... –Davey2010Talk 21:54, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
TL The Legend, that is not true. www.wikipedia.org is the main portal for all the different language sites and a proper and valid domain for wikipedia
Puzzledvegetable If you received that error, then you should read it: "This may happen when an attacker is trying to pretend to be www.wikipedia.org, or a Wi-Fi sign-in screen has interrupted the connection." Either intentional or unintentional, there was something interfering with the security of your connection. Chrome protected you from that interference. "Network errors and attacks are usually temporary, so this page will probably work later." —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:56, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

missing url-status parameter when editing "cite" template selections

This was asked at the teahouse, but did not get a resolution. I did come to realize that there are multiple "tools" for constructing a cite template, which created a lot of confusion. The "tool" I am using is accessed by clicking on the "cite" link at the top of the editing area, which then causes a "templates" selection list to display on the following line. The template selection list includes the following choices:

  • cite web
  • cite news
  • cite book
  • cite journal

If I select cite web, a "web citation" pop-in displays with about a dozen fields; if I then click on "show/hide extra fields", another dozen or so fields display, including:

  • archive url
  • archive date
  • url-status

If I select cite news or cite book, a "news citation" or "book citation" pop-in will be displayed with about a dozen fields; if I then click on "show/hide extra fields", another dozen or so fields display, including "archive url" and "archive date", but the "url-status" field does not display.

I presume that these three fields ("archive url", "archive date" and "url-status") should be treated as a group, since url-status affects how the "url" and "archive url" fields are displayed. If this is in fact an oversight, please suggest where this should be reported so that it can be fixed. Thanks. Fabrickator (talk) 20:16, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

The tool you are talking about is RefToolbar. Url-status is not in RefToolbar for cite book, since there was only an discussion on adding it to cite web. Additions are discussed first, and then if there is an conseus, then it is added.--Snaevar (talk) 23:55, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Edits disappearing into thin air?

I positively remember making a few edits earlier today (around 02:00 UTC) which seem to have disappeared into thin air. It's possible that I messed things up (e.g. didn't actually click submit, closed the wrong tab, etc.), but asking just in case. Has anybody experienced something similar? --Paul_012 (talk) 14:53, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

@Paul 012: Perhaps you were logged out? If you remember the article you edited, check the article's history page to see if there was an edit by an IP. Also, were you maybe thinking of your edits to Commons? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 05:33, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
AlanM1, no and no. I know exactly what edits I was making; they're not in the page history. If there's been no wider anomaly, the error was probably on my part. Maybe the server threw an error which I closed without noticing. --Paul_012 (talk) 12:23, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
@Paul 012: When I have a long edit session, when I attempt to save, it fails with a page that is not terribly obvious (maybe it should have more red in it or something) and I have to save again to use the new session key. I may have noticed that occurring unusually quickly once in the last few days. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 22:46, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

This happened to me this afternoon. I added a paragraph to the article Citizen Science but it did not appear for an hour or so afterwards (added: 4:11pm appeared approximately 5pm), together with another citation bot edit before mine. I could see the edits published but only when logged on. Tried "Purge" without success. Odd. Richard Nowell (talk) 17:28, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

@Paul 012: There is a known and unfixable system bug whereby an edit can be reversed as part of a subsequent edit. The only way to detect this is to look closely at the diff of the subsequent edit, so it helps to have specific examples of edits which seem to have disappeared into thin air. If you can be certain a week after the fact, that would still be useful now. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:41, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Mandruss, the edits were to Thai wine and Suppapong Udomkaewkanjana. They do not appear in the history at all, so it's probably not what you're describing. --Paul_012 (talk) 18:02, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Ok. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:04, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Bulleted list – line spacing problem

Any further ideas? (For reasons of transparency, please post there. Thank you.)--Hildeoc (talk) 20:25, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Scripts not working

I was directed by another user from the Teahouse to here. (See WP:TH#Scripts not working.) In short, all of my user scripts, except the prose size script, are not working no matter what I'm using: Visual Editing, Source Editing, Google Chrome, Edge... Have any other users experienced this issue? Perhaps there's a tutorial or an FAQ somewhere, but I can't find it. Bobbychan193 (talk) 20:04, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

We need a Help:Troubleshooting broken scripts or something. blgh --Izno (talk) 20:11, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
WP:SCRIPTREQ might be a place for that? Maybe? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:17, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
@Izno: is mw:Help:Locating broken scripts what you are looking for? — xaosflux Talk 00:28, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
I think I figured it out... It finally worked after I disabled the beta features I had on. FYI, I had the New wikitext mode and Two column edit conflict enabled. If I were a betting man, my guess would be the former. Bobbychan193 (talk) 04:09, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
I think that User:Johanna Strodt (WMDE) will know whether this problem has been previously reported for the two-column edit conflict tool. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:57, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Watchlist does not update

For many weeks now, my watchlist does not update except through a manual refresh. This is happening on a variety of computers, using Firefox. Clean Copytalk 11:12, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

It's caching the page. I find it quite useful, because I can be going through my watchlist as (click) - read the diff - back - (click) - read the diff - back - (click) - etc. and if the watchlist is reloaded after every "back", that slows the process down considerably. If you really want a reload on every "back", use IE. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:28, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Was there not a live feed feature originally? Or do I totally misremember this? Clean Copytalk 13:10, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Clean Copy, there is a live feed, at least in the "new" (big-button/OOUI style) watchlist. Maybe check Help:Troubleshooting broken scripts if you're not seeing it? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:05, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-48

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 mobile beta mode will be disabled to have less maintenance. The developers will focus on the desktop improvements project. You can turn on advanced mobile contributions mode if you want to see the categories. You could also jump back to the top. This can instead be done with a gadget or user script. [28]
  • Parsoid is software we use for the visual editor, content translation, Flow and the Android app. This has been rewritten. It will come to the wikis gradually over the next two weeks. It has been tested, but there could be some diffs or previews that don't look right. If you see any you can report them. [29]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 November. It will be on the other wikis next week (calendar). This is because of holidays.

Meetings

Future changes

  • You will switch between the article and the talk page in a new way in the mobile view in the future. It will use tabs. This is more like in the desktop view. [30]

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

16:51, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

If you see problems that you think are related to the Parsoid change, then you can file bug reports in phab: yourself, or you can {{ping}} me on wiki, and I'll make sure that the Parsing team sees them. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:15, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

New gadget suggestion (editProtectedHelper)

(pinging @Jackmcbarn: because it's their script)

I'd like to suggest editProtectedHelper as a gadget, since I think it would be useful to have as a gadget (as its a useful script), and it would be nice to have it as a gadget, so it can be easily enabled. --Terra (talk) 06:37, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Moving accidentally created talk page to user talk page

Hi, I messed up – I was trying to create an archive for my user talk page, and instead of creating User talk:Richard3120/Archive 3 I created Talk:Richard3120/Archive 3. My sincere apologies – is there any way the latter can be moved to the former, or failing that, can it be deleted? I have the text in my sandbox, so deletion isn't a problem if it has to be done that way. Thanks. Richard3120 (talk) 12:37, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@Richard3120: I moved it to User talk:Richard3120/Archive 3 for you. — xaosflux Talk 13:56, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Thank you so much... sorry to cause this problem. Richard3120 (talk) 14:03, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Scraping with R

When I scrape Wikipedia using the R rvest package, it sometimes gives me an old version of a page, not the current one. Is this a problem with Wikipedia or R, and is there anything I can do about it?

Here is code: 

library("rvest")

url<-"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election"
H<-read_html(url)
tables<-html_nodes(H, "table")
Z1<-html_table(tables[2], fill = TRUE)[[1]]

− Cutler (talk) 13:58, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@Cutler: If you copy a page, and that page is later edited, your copy becomes outdated. Have you eliminated that as a potential reason? GUYWAN ( t · c ) 15:08, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Also you might want to use the REST api instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/ —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:36, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protect with IP range?

Sometimes, you've got a vandal who is IP hopping within a broad range. In the example I was looking at today, it's a /21, with lots of other legitimate activity in that range, making a range block unattractive. The target was a page that's very popular, so semi-protection is likewise unattractive. The obvious answer is the intersection of the two; nobody within a specified IP range can edit the page. Has such a capability ever been discussed? -- RoySmith (talk) 17:05, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

This would be supported by partial blocks, but I don't know the status of bringing that to enwiki. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 17:33, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Could also be done by an WP:edit filter; if the page is used as the first test, it would only slow down editing the page. I don't fully understand the costs of an edit filter, though. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:44, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
The isn't much cost to one single-page filter. But, what if everyone did that? A thousand active filters (even trivial ones) would substantially slow down every edit. Single-page filters should generally be restricted to a few cases where semi-protection is really undesirable, and vandalism is really frequent, e.g. WP:AIV, sandboxes, or user talk pages of long-term harassment targets. @RoySmith: What page did you have in mind? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:01, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Well, it came up at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/AOKuneff, but I was thinking more generally. RoySmith-Mobile (talk) 18:34, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I was looking for pages that link to, or cite, BBC News. The external link search at

only gives 53 results and the https equivalent:

only 11.

These figures seem implausibly low. Am I missing something? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:49, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

news.bbc.co.uk. I found this subdomain by going to a likely article, John Major, and perusing the links there. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:56, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Try with http://www.bbc ...
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:57, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Or with this. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:58, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Use wildcard in the search ie. http://*.bbc.co.uk -- GreenC 17:15, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Certainly more than 500 times (and in the English mainspace only!): https://tools.wmflabs.org/linksearch?lang=en&wiki=en.wikipedia&target=%25.bbc.co.uk%25&namespace=&submit=1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guarapiranga (talk • contribs) 01:43, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
1) bbc.co.uk/news/ is not the URL in many/most cases. Second, I prefer Special:Search, which is always more powerful since you can do things like filter in namespace and look for both HTTP and HTTPS at the same time: 134k pages. --Izno (talk) 03:10, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Thank you (everyone); but a http://*.bbc.co.uk search gives me all BBC pages, not just BBC News. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:45, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Does Special:LinkSearch for http://*.bbc.co.uk/news not give you what you want? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:08, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Pigsonthewing, you have been given many different answers above, but you appear to be rejecting just one of them as not useful. Do the other suggestions get you what you need? Have you tried an insource search (72,000 hits for me in article space)? – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:58, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
+78,000 for me, and, curiously, +86,000 with quotes in place of slashes. Plus another +44,000 for "bbc.co.uk/news". Guarapiranga (talk) 22:07, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Sticky table headers: Firefox vs Chrome

I noticed in Firefox table headers remain fixed at the top of the page when scrolling through a long table (albeit with no separating line between header and table), but not in Chrome-based browsers. Is that a Wikimedia or Firefox feature? Cheers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guarapiranga (talk • contribs) 22:11, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Firefox. MediaWiki emits a tbody element, but not a thead element - the row containing the th elements are inside the tbody and not where they ought to be, in a thead. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:34, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Is that bc any row can be made header row in wikitext?
Either way, that's a really cool FF feature. Might swing me back to using it instead of Brave. Guarapiranga (talk) 05:03, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia app ad

1. Can you tone down the frequency of the ads for the app on mobile? They're really annoying, I must've seen them like 20 times today until they stopped showing up. They only went away after I misclicked the link and got taken to the Scroogle Play page. 2. Consider linking to F-Droid instead? It's FOSS like Wikipedia and unlike $croogle. 93.136.16.102 (talk) 04:45, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

According to List_of_Wikipedia_mobile_applications the official Android app is already on FDroid. RudolfRed (talk) 21:17, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

List of past edits?

The recent changes list apparently only extends 30 days in the past. However, this data must be in the database in order to display page histories. Is ther a way to see a list of changes made starting at s specified time and date, going back months or preferably years? This would be for statistical analysis of Wikipedia edits, in an attempt to repeat User:Opabinia regalis/Article statistics with a larger data set and a wider spacing of sampled times, although I can see other possible uses. Does the interface make this available in any way, or would one have to download a data dump and query it? DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 20:49, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

@DESiegel: Most of what I see at User:Opabinia regalis/Article statistics could be queried from the database directly, such as with Quarry. The kind folks at WP:RAQ I'm sure could help you construct some queries if you're having trouble. Exceptions are things involving content itself, such as detecting vandalism reverts (you could count usage of Rollback/Undo but that's not necessarily reverting vandalism), and detecting copyediting/formatting/template changes. The latter is probably still doable but would involve complicated and inefficient scripting. — MusikAnimal talk 21:42, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, MusikAnimal, that is new to me. I'll have to explore. What I am aftre is a lsit of diffs with matching timestampa 9or version IDs from which diffs could be created. If the relevant user ID and namespace could be returned or filtered on, that would be even better. Once I ahve those classification will probably be manual. Thanks. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 21:47, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

New video player beta feature updates

I've posted a quick note on upcoming changes to the "New video player" beta feature, which we're hoping to take out of beta soon. I've made some major changes to show a larger player, have less impact on JavaScript download size, and work more comfortably on mobile. Please keep giving feedback either through the feedback page there or as tasks on Phabricator; there's plenty to keep improving! --brion (talk) 22:02, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Reload icon and right arrow in sr.wikipedia mobile history desc

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T238681

Could someone here on English Village Pump know why is reload icon in sr.wikipedia mobile history description (left of the "Ову страницу је последњи пут уредио..." text) only partially visible (its right part is cut off)? Also, the small right part of the arrow on the right is cut off. This happens for me on my mobile screen mobile (m. in URL) reading and if I enable rotation and rotate the screen, everything gets fully visible. If someone could help to report the bug or fix it, it would be useful. Width of my mobile screen is about 6 cm (height 11 cm, becomes width when horizontally orient rotated screen), latest Android (if that would help replicate the problem). --Obsuser (talk) 23:09, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

This has been reported at phab:T238681. It's not specific to that wiki. – Ammarpad (talk) 11:16, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Twinkle not working

So I log on to Wikipedia one day and go to the recent changes page to undo some vandalism. I control-click on a "diff" button to open the edit in a new tab, click on the rollback(VANDAL) button, and Twinkle, as usual, opens the vandal's talk page so I can warn them. But, much to my surprise, the button on the side to warn, welcome, etc., are not there! So, I warn them manually, go to my Preferences page, and Twinkle is turned on. I try turning it off and on, and it still doesn't work. Twinkle's undo mechanism still works normally, but the buttons on the right side are all gone! Does anyone know what happened? TL The Legend talk 21:41, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

@TL The Legend: Is this still troubling you? GUYWAN ( t · c ) 19:58, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
@Guywan: No, I found the buttons near the bottom, on the left side of the page. TL The Legend talk 04:00, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
What skin do you use, TL The Legend? Timeless? SD0001 (talk) 06:00, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
@SD0001: Yea.TL The Legend talk 03:12, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@TL The Legend: In Timeless skin, the Twinkle links are located within the "Page tools" portlet (menu); the location of this depends on the window size. Its in the right sidebar if the window is large enough. For medium-sized windows, all the right-column links (including the Twinkle links) are shifted to the left column. In smaller windows (and tablet-sized devices), they become dropdown menus along the top (and for very small/mobile devices symbols are used instead of words for the menu titles).

  • Large window: "Page tools" is on the right
    Large window: "Page tools" is on the right
  • Medium window: "Page tools" is on the left
    Medium window: "Page tools" is on the left
  • Smaller window: "Page tools" is a dropdown menu
    Smaller window: "Page tools" is a dropdown menu

- Evad37 [talk] 13:16, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

SineBot down again

It appears SineBot (talk · contribs) has died again and hasn't been signing posts for the past week.

In an attempt to be a bit more pro-active about the issue, I have created prototype of an open-source replacement in PyWikiBot. The code is at User:Ritchie333/arcsinebot.py; it doesn't do anything more than check common talk namespaces edited in the past five minutes, and reports any diffs it thinks might need to be signed. It doesn't do anything sophisticated such as check if the diff is editing an existing post, for example, which absolutely has to be done before it can be considered usable.

I realise this is reinventing the wheel somewhat, but with an open-source solution, we can all collaborate in fixing it so it works properly, and the code can be migrated across to other servers (ideally Labs) so this will stop being a long term issue. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:39, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

@Enterprisey: I seem to recall you were interested in a project like this. I don't particularly want to do this, and what I've created is merely the result of tinkering over lunch, but necessity is the mother of ... Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:57, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
FWIW it's up again, as of about four hours after this post. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:48, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Reset password without email

Hello. My friend has changed his password a few years ago and don't remember it now. Is there any way that he can reset it without email? I know that it would be easier to just open a new user account but he wants to keep all his edit history, watchlist and so on. I'm from hywiki and since it is a small community many active users know him personaly and can guarantee that no one wants to steal that account. I know that this is not the best place to ask this kind of questions but I don't know a better place. --ԱշոտՏՆՂ (talk) 11:34, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, if he doesn't remember his password, and didn't give an email address (or no longer has access to this address), there's no way to prove to the software that he's the same person. 37.26.149.183 (talk) 12:17, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
Sometimes devs/sysadmins can reset password if people vouch for the person. –xenotalk 12:47, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
CheckUser can be reliably used to verify his identity in cases like this. It's the best, however, if the person has some sort of identity code and can use it to establish his identity or if it's a known person in real life and another user in good standing can confirm his identity. 37KZ (talk) 13:33, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
Thank you!. @xeno, should I open a phabricator task for that?--ԱշոտՏՆՂ (talk) 14:55, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
I think that is the process but I wouldn’t know what tags to apply etc., xaosflux any idea? –xenotalk 18:25, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
You can try the Trust-and-Safety phab tag, and it is in no way guaranteed. — xaosflux Talk 19:41, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

PROD with Twinkle

When I try to nominate an article for PROD with Twinkle, I get this: File:PRODError123.png. I waited a while, but I still have the same screen. Something similar happens with BLPPROD. Do you know why that is? Please make sure that you view the file because I'm going to have an admin delete it soon. This happens with any article I nominate. Interstellarity (talk) 20:43, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I just tried it on this file, and it worked okay. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 20:50, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
Deacon Vorbis, If it works for you, what could I try to fix it? Also, in the future, please ping me in your responses. Interstellarity (talk) 20:57, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
What's your OS name, OS version, browser name, and browser version? -FASTILY 07:03, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
Fastily, Windows 10 Home 1903 and Firefox 70.0.1 Interstellarity (talk) 12:08, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
​If it happens again, can you add the console errors from steps 6 of WP:JSERROR? That'd help diagnose the issue, especially given that your NPPSchool instructor was able to do so on the article in question. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:49, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
Amorymeltzer, TypeError: ts.setLookupNonRedirectCreator is not a function Interstellarity (talk) 12:10, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
I tried to see if I could repeat the issue in Chrome. I did. Interstellarity (talk) 13:10, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
@Interstellarity: This (and I presume your related AfD issue) is because of a hotfix for User:SD0001/DYK-helper.js that SD0001 put in. Basically, DYK-helper wasn't working, so now that script is importing an outdated version the morebits library, which is overriding the Twinkle gadget and causing certain functions that were recently added to fail. Until that is fixed, disabling DYK-helper should make your PROD and AfD work. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:43, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
I have had a similar problem for the last few days with PROD. The initial TW window opens and then nothing else happens (I don't see any error message). With AFD, I get the same problem as described below. The AFD is created/added to the log but the final step to put the notice in the article just hangs. Windows 10 Home/Firefox. MB 16:36, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
Same issue: you also import User:SD0001/DYK-helper.js in your common.js. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:00, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
I fixed the problem. Thanks, Amorymeltzer. Interstellarity (talk) 19:26, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
@Interstellarity and MB: Should be fixed now. Sorry for the trouble. You can add back the DYK-helper if you removed it, it should now work w/o interfering with TW. Thank you Amorymeltzer. Dunno how I didn't think of it earlier! SD0001 (talk) 19:30, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
You did write it, after all! 😛 ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:13, 28 November 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amory (talk • contribs)

Twinkle and AfD

This is related to the issue above about with PROD. When I nominate an article it works as intended except put the notice in the article. The article is: Random (compilation album). I manually added the notice. Please ping me in your reply. Interstellarity (talk) 13:39, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Question

I get errors similar to this (in my browser's console):

load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery|jquery.ui|mediawiki.toc&skin=vector&version=10g3d:130 [Report Only] Refused to connect to 'https://xtools.wmflabs.org/api/page/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)?format=html&uselang=en' because it violates the following Content Security Policy directive: "default-src 'self' data: blob: skyyan.com https://commons.wikimedia.org meta.wikimedia.org *.wikimedia.org *.wikipedia.org *.wikinews.org *.wiktionary.org *.wikibooks.org *.wikiversity.org *.wikisource.org wikisource.org *.wikiquote.org *.wikidata.org *.wikivoyage.org *.mediawiki.org wikimedia.org". Note that 'connect-src' was not explicitly set, so 'default-src' is used as a fallback.

What does it mean? Regards, GUYWAN ( t · c ) 21:16, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Ah, it appears to be caused by the mw:XTools gadget for some reason. (Disabling XTools stops the error.) GUYWAN ( t · c ) 21:25, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@Guywan: XTools is being loaded from a domain that isn't whitelisted, so it gets reported by the Content Security Policy directive shown in the error message. But since it's currently in Report Only mode, XTools (and anything else generating similar errors) still actually work – for the moment anyway. See phab:T220475 for the task for XTools, and phab:T28508 for the general task for the Content Security Policy. - Evad37 [talk] 00:10, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

IP tools option missing on contribs and user pages for ranges

On a user or contribs page for a single IP address (e.g., Special:Contributions/192.168.1.1), the "User" tab at the top of the page has an "IP lookup..." option with "WHOIS", etc. on it. However, if you specify a range in CIDR notation (e.g., Special:Contributions/192.168.1.1/16), the "User" tab is not present. Is there a reason for this? I commonly need this functionality, and imagine others do too.

I can (try to) put together some JS to do it, but before I do, is there an existing workaround? Should it be requested at phab (or has it been)?

P.S. Note the odd presence of what are apparently user accounts masquerading as IPs. Is this an issue? As always, thanks. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 00:18, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@AlanM1: I don't see a "user tab" on either of your examples - is this something you are getting from a script? (e.g. Look in safemode) If so, do you know which script is making that for you? — xaosflux Talk 00:30, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
If you mean the WHOIS link in the footer at the bottom of the page, we could add that (MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer-anon vs MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer-anon-range) — xaosflux Talk 00:32, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
Actually - I just added that there, seems useful. — xaosflux Talk 00:33, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
(ec) @Xaosflux: Doh! Don't know why that didn't occur to me. Must be a user script. I'll dig into it.
I didn't even notice the stuff at the bottom. I guess the issue exists there, too, though. (Time passes ...) and now it's resolved there. Thanks! —[AlanM1(talk)]— 00:38, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
Apparently, it's in meta:MoreMenu. Reported there. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 01:01, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
I commented at meta, but I believe it's because wgRelevantUserName doesn't exist for ranges. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:46, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Articles in watchlist continue to show as unread (bold) even though I've gone thru (visited) the diffs in these articles

This has probably come up a number of times in the last few months, and I recall seeing this here back in March and April (Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 173#watchlist articles not being marked as read after having been seen/visited, Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 173#Seen changes not marked as such in the watchlist, Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 173#Changes not being marked as read immediately). From time to time, even now, the bug will show up where entries in my watchlist that I have gone thru will continue to show as unread. Actually, only the entries for the article I had just visited will be marked as read, while all the new entries for other articles after refreshing my watchlist, following a notice that changes have occurred to articles in my watchlist, will continue to show in bold (unread). So it will briefly show one article's entries as being read, but after going to another article with changes, the first article's entries will go unread again following a refresh of the list.

As I said, this happens on occasion, not all the time. Sometimes, the watchlist behavior will be normal as expected, where all entries that have been visited/read will stay that way, but other times, this bug, which has apparently been around for months now, will come up. MPFitz1968 (talk) 19:11, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Can confirm I've been having the same issue today. Ionmars10 (talk) 19:18, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Correct way to merge 2 infoboxes without throwing warnings on a biography

Hi all, I wanted to merge {{Infobox officeholder}} and {{Infobox criminal}} and use together as 1 infobox in a biography article. But it keeps throwing warnings or it comes as a layout error. IS there a way to seamlessly merge and present 2 infoboxes into one. Both these 2 infoboxes are derivatives of {{infobox Person}}--DBigXrayᗙ 13:16, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

The documentation might help. Look at Martin Rees for an example. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:19, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks a lot Jonesey95. It did help. Marking as resolved. --DBigXrayᗙ 20:20, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
Resolved

Collapsible content on mobile browsers

I noticed collapsible templates don't work on mobile browsers (e.g. Vaccination policy). Is that intentional? Guarapiranga (talk) 04:50, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 174#Collapsible blocks in mobile version. Perhaps somebody kind would add a note to Help:Collapsing#Limitations. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:00, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Redrose64. Done. Guarapiranga (talk) 12:16, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Unable to view deleted articles

I am an administrator and sometimes wish to view deleted articles, usually in response to "why was my article deleted?" inquiries at the Teahouse. Recently, I have received error messages like the following:

"Internal error Jump to navigationJump to search [XeLZEApAAEEAADj@w3MAAAEW] 2019-11-30 21:03:12: Fatal exception of type "InvalidArgumentException"

I have used a Google Pixel 2XL smartphone for about 18 months with no similar problems until recent weeks. I use the desktop site on my phone. Can anyone shed some light on this problem? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 21:11, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Is this only when you try to view a diff? If so, it's a known problem. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:37, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
(ec) I have not had a problem viewing deleted articles lately, but there is a bug bug in looking at diffs among deleted content (phab:T237709). Could you give us a specific set of actions (for example, a redlink wikipedia link to the article-name that admins would click that would/should give us the deleted history) to demonstrate what problem you see? DMacks (talk) 21:39, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
The most recent example was GO Technologies, which is now being discussed at the Teahouse. Yes, my standard method of viewing deleted articles has always been to look at the most recent diff. Thanks for that link, Redrose64. I now know that I can click on the date/time and accomplish the same thing. Thanks to all for your assistance. I am grateful. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 21:49, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

See article sizes in difference view.

There is a clear consensus that the difference viewer should show both the size changes and absolute sizes before and after the edit for comparison, just like in the version history (list of revisions).

Cunard (talk) 09:29, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A request for article size change to be noted in the diff viewer as it is in the history, see below. Relisted to generate more discussion ~ R.T.G 07:51, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

I suggest that the difference viewer shows both the size changes and absolute sizes before and after the edit for comparison, just like in the version history (list of revisions).

 –– Handroid7  【talk】 12:24, 17 October 2019 (UTC)OP was a sock please ignore the OP ~ R.T.G 11:48, 29 November 2019 (UTC)


This was proposed on VP/Proposals. There didn't seem much point to it beyond amusement. I was almost going to support it for that reason myself but it's not really appropriate. Now I have a reason. Some editors like to edit a whole big long article in one edit. I do it sometimes to move the references to the reference area. People do it just to edit anything in the article and what happens is, the formatting breaks for the diff display and you can't easily tell how much info has been added and removed. Indeed, having the change amount showing in the diff, as it is in the history, would improve the ability to gauge how much change a particular edit has made. This was listed at VP/Proposals and practically nobody answered it, but this is a technical request. @Ahecht, GenQuest, Handroid7, and Bd2412: (If someone knows how to format a relisted request like this, please do because I don't...) ~ R.T.G 07:51, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

  • Support ~ R.T.G 07:51, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @RTG:, why have you pasted this here, when it was originally at WP:VPR (from where it was archived more than three weeks ago)? Are you aware that it was originated by a user indef blocked for sockpuppetry? Did you notice that |Wikipedia technical issues and templates is not a valid parameter, so it's put the RfC into Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Unsorted - did you check how it shows there, there isn't even a meaningful statement, contrary to WP:RFCST. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:27, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
    • Because it is a technical request more suitable to this place than proposals. No, I suspected only good faith. I don't think I've done an RFC before. I went to the template page. It said something like, "put {{ref|''Category''}}. There was an infobox listing RFC categories. I assumed those were the categories from which to choose (this is not an uncommon issue). I've asked quite clearly for help wit this if that's what you're trying to do... I'll go and check the links you gave and format it the best I can from that based on that. bd2412 certainly isnt a sockpuppet. I don't know about the other two. ... So you've already changed the RFC template for me thank you but, this doesn't relate to a single page does it? Is it possible for me to list the same RFC template on Help:Diff as is listed here? Help:Diff is like new editors first help. It's not going to benefit this request very much..? @Redrose64:, I haven't changed anything... am I still breaking stuff? I'm sorry I've seen a hundred relisted discussions and RFCs but I haven't felt the need before... Nobody wrote on it that it was a sock. It sat there for weeks. I assumed good faith, sorry. I'll er, well, Is it still broken or anything I've added a statement? Let's strike the OP. ~ R.T.G 11:48, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
      Proposals for new features don't belong here. It's phab:T172698 from 2017 (only mentions size change and not absolute size). PrimeHunter (talk) 12:13, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
      At WP:RFCST, item 2 explains the markup and provides an example; the table (which is not an infobox) shows that to put something into Wikipedia technical issues and templates, the markup is {{rfc|tech}}. I never claimed that bd2412 was a sockpuppet, I stated it was originated by a user indef blocked for sockpuppetry and the originator is the person who made the post having the earliest timestamp (12:24, 17 October 2019 (UTC)), therefore Handroid7 (talk · contribs). I don't see what Help:Diff has to do with this, it neither gives advice for RfCs nor is it a discussion page. As PrimeHunter notes, this is a phabricator matter. We cannot change the software on this side, even if we have a RfC with hundreds in support and no opposition. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:32, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. I've long found it frustrating that this information is visible in the history list but not in the diffs; many of us page through diffs rather than scrolling up and down in the history list (or after doing so, rather). I'll go comment at the Phab ticket. Not interested in the back and forth above, about RfC documentation.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:34, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Show Changes and Old Pages

How exactly does Show Changes work when editing on old revision of a page? It seems to compare the old revision against the current revision, rather than the previous revision (relative to the old revision). That's rather counterintuitive, isn't it? The tooltip says Show the changes you made to the text, after all. Confused regards, GUYWAN ( t · c ) 14:22, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

It always compares to the current revision. See phab:T37067 and phab:T31674 for old MediaWiki requests, User:Js/ajaxPreview#Extra features for a user script I haven't tried. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:41, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
I see. Thanks for the info, PrimeHunter. GUYWAN ( t · c ) 19:13, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Bug in source editor - related to line wrapping?

Hi, I'm just trying to edit some articles, and there appears to be a bug in the source editor that's driving me crazy. The symptom is that the cursor will appear in one place in the text, but when I type or hit the backspace key, characters are actually added or removed at a different place. Here is some example text that causes this bug on my system (Macbook with macOS 10.14.6 and Chrome 78.0.3904.108):

The plant has many traditional medicinal uses. In Madagascar, the crushed plant is used for skin parasites. In Mauritius, the sap of crushed leaves mixed with salt, or a decoction of plant, is used for scabies and other skin problems. In the Seychelles and Reunion, a root infusion or decoction is taken for asthma, and also to clean the liver and kidneys.

When I edit the first or second lines of that, it works correctly, but when I edit the third line, the cursor is way off. I guess it might not reproduce on your system unless your font and browser happen to be the same size... but is anyone else seeing this behavior? —Keenan Pepper 22:56, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Does it happen if you are logged out? What if you try a different browser? – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:23, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
No, it doesn't happen when I'm logged out - when I'm logged out, for some reason that line wraps differently (the word "root" is on the 3rd line not the 2nd), and everything works correctly. But logging out and back in doesn't fix it - the issue returns when I log back in.
I tried editing some articles in Firefox but I couldn't find any with the problem. The font size is different though, so nothing wraps the same exact way. —Keenan Pepper 21:03, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Can we get a new list for Wikipedia:Templates with red links?

As far as I can tell, the current sets of links are from 2011. Can a new and correct set of lists be generated for templates now containing red links? BD2412 T 22:42, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

It looks like EmanWilm might know a bit about this? — xaosflux Talk 00:22, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
It doesn't seem like it should be that hard a task. BD2412 T 23:53, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikispecies infobox

I have been updating the Betta articles. There is quite a bit of information that would be better summarised about the fish in the infobox, however I don't want to take away the Wikispecies infobox as this is more important in my view. How would I extend the infobox? Can I create a new Betta infobox template and incorporate the wikispecies infobox around it, and include new fields? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 04:50, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Nearly all articles on living species or groups of organisms have a taxobox, which is an infobox primarily summarising taxonomic information, but also including images, range maps and conservation status. The are part of the recommended structure for articles covered by WikiProject_Tree_of_Life. These should not be removed without discussion.
The taxoboxes predate the {{infobox}} so don't use the same structure as most other infoboxes. It would be difficult to combine the two. I should also add that these taxoboxes have nothing to do with Wikispecies, which is another Wikimedia project.
What sort of information were you thinking of including? There might be a case for also including a different type of infobox, although this should probably done with consensus of the relevant project.   Jts1882 | talk  15:30, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
There is some addition information at WikiProject_Aquarium_Fishes.   Jts1882 | talk  15:34, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
I think the info in the wikiproject is very helpful here, I'll use their suggested structure. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 06:45, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I was referred here: Wikimedia Foundation error

My question is- what can I (or somebody at Wiki) do about the "Wikimedia Foundation error" problem I've been encountering on and off, since late November. Details are at: Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2019_November_24#Wikimedia_Foundation_error,_relatively_recent_possible_parameter_change/adverse_effects Pi314m (talk) 03:18, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

  • update* The most recent attempt/failure as of this moment is:
Wikimedia Foundation 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.

THERE may be a related item at Slowdown on WP (start-of-problem time frame seems related) Pi314m (talk) 22:36, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pi314m: Please post a link which names the section, don't use edit links, they will fail when the page is next archived. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:48, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
done. Thanks. Pi314m (talk) 09:17, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

archive.today

Sorry if this has been raised before, but is archive.today actually working at the moment? I can't get https://archive.today/ or any of the links to work. This is a problem, because I have archived various cites with it.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 11:11, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

It's working now, but seems to have had quite an extensive outage in the last 24 hours.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 11:28, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Admin access via the API?

I'm writing some code which looks at user editing history, with an eye towards sockpuppet detection. So far, I've been working with publicly available data, but eventually will want to get at things like deleted contributions, and other information only available to admins. How does one get access to that via the API? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:33, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@RoySmith: That is part of the standard API (c.f. mw:API:Deletedrevisions) (e.g. see here). The access you have to the API depends on your session, and may be filtered if using a grant or botpasswords. — xaosflux Talk 14:40, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: deletedrevisions gives you the deleted revisions for a page. I'm looking for the deleted contributions for a user, i.e. what Special:DeletedContributions/RoySmith-testing would give you -- RoySmith (talk) 02:53, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
@RoySmith: Use mw:API:Alldeletedrevisions (e.g. yours (click MakeRequest)). — xaosflux Talk 03:04, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Ah, so in mwclient-land: 

deleted = site.get('query', list='alldeletedrevisions', adruser='RoySmith-testing')

which of course gets me: 

mwclient.errors.APIError: ('permissiondenied', "You don't have permission to view deleted comments.", ...

when executed as an anonymous client, which gets me right back to having to set up a bot account and get that account the required permissions. -- RoySmith (talk) 03:33, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

@RoySmith: there is no need for a "bot account" to just make a query - you would have the exact same issue you are having right now - you didn't log in. Just like when using the WEBUI, with the API you have to logon, and get an authentication token for future requests. In the WEBUI this is a cookie and your browser handles it for you, in the API you have to handle it yourself. See mw:API:Login and all of its related topics. — xaosflux Talk 13:17, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
My apologies, I explained that poorly. I'm looking for a way that will work with an automated process that's running in the tools environment, not as part of a session where I'm logged in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith-Mobile (talk • contribs) 16:36, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
@RoySmith-Mobile: it is the exact same API as for non-admins, just additional items that will return once you authenticate. Help:Creating a bot may be a good place to start learning. — xaosflux Talk 00:26, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
Ah, OK, this is starting to make sense. Looks like what I'll want to do is create a bot account, and then get that bot admin rights. I'll never be making any edits, so I'm thinking maybe indef block it, as a precaution against accidental edits due to programming errors? I had associated bots with, "things that make edits", in my mind, which led me to think a bot wasn't what I wanted. I've got plenty of work I can do with the anonymous API access I'm using now, but at least now I know where this is heading. Thanks for the help. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:47, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
"BotPasswords" is a somewhat misleading name --- the feature is in no way tied to bot accounts. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:51, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
You don't need a "bot account" to use the api - just that many bots use the API and your question is really seems to be more of a "how do I learn about the API" type then a specific function call issue. — xaosflux Talk 02:05, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

@RoySmith: also take a look at mw:API, WP:EXEMPTBOT and WP:BOTDICT#Bot flag. If your bot doesn't do any edits, and doesn't need access to higher limits (both admin privileges and advanced API options), then you likely you wouldn't even need a bot account. However, if you want the bot to have admin privileges, you'll need to comply with WP:ADMINBOT. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:18, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Cross-post notice: WMF Fundraising on en.wiki

See: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#WMF_Fundraising_on_en.wiki

Seddon (WMF) (talk) 14:02, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-49

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

Recent changes

  • Mix'n'match is a tool to connect Wikidata items to information in other databases. It can be used to find subjects that are missing in a Wikipedia. It now has more than 3000 datasets. Before it was closer to 2000.

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 December. It will be on all wikis from 5 December (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • Advanced item There will be a new schema for XML dumps. Scripts and apps that use them will need to be updated. If they are not updated they will no longer work. [31]
  • Advanced item The {{REVISIONID}} magic word will no longer work in the content namespaces. This is for performance reasons. When you preview a page it returns "" (empty string). When you read a page it returns "-" (dash). In the future this will also affect other namespaces. The next ones are file and category namespaces. [32]

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

16:57, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Difficulty connecting

A reader ticket:2019120210008574 is having difficulty connecting to Wikipedia. The message they received says: "You tried to connect wikipedia.org, but the server presented an expired certificate."

Normally, I'd ask them to visit this forum but by definition they cannot. Any thoughts?S Philbrick(Talk) 22:27, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Sphilbrick, Possible that their computer's date is wrong? The cert expires 11/22/2020. SQLQuery me! 22:34, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
SQL, Interesting possibility; I'll check. S Philbrick(Talk) 00:55, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
Also, ask what their browser and browser version is, see if it is a "modern" browser. — xaosflux Talk 01:05, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Linking signature timestamps to diffs

Is there a way (a script perhaps) for linking the signatures timestamps in talk pages to their diff? Guarapiranga (talk) 23:05, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

That would be cool. If there isn't, a starting point for code that could be modified (for someone without familiarity with the API) is User:Anomie/unsignedhelper.js, which finds the edit in which a selected piece of text was added. It might be a performance problem to walk through a whole page to link all the timestamps, so you probably wouldn't want to do it automatically. Best to select the desired sig and then run the tool for that one only, I think. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:50, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
I wouldn't recommend walking the whole history like the unsigned script does. Often you can probably find the right revision by looking for the one with the matching timestamp. Occasionally it might be off by a few seconds, or occasionally there might be multiple revisions with the same timestamp. Anomie⚔ 12:52, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I do that manually (like literally ctrl-C + ctrl-F). As AlanM1 said, it would be cool to see the link already there on the screen (rather than searching through the history). Alternatively, the diff link could be hardcoded to the timestamp by the ~~~~ signature. Guarapiranga (talk) 03:40, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Can Sinebot do that, slakr? Guarapiranga (talk) 01:45, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
The mw:Editing team is looking at the next step for the mw:Talk pages project. They're talking about making some changes to wikitext (AFAICT, we still type the same four tildes, but it would automagically expand to something a little bit longer to have an official "end" marker to a comment). It's at least possible that their changes could make it a bit easier to do this. User:PPelberg (WMF), what do you think about this idea? It'd be handy to at least me to have the diff right there (good for troubleshooting the visual editor, and convenient for thanking people for their comments). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:02, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
The whole tilde signing charade and drama when people forget to sign, and why it's not simply part of the message container like in every other discussion platform is beyond me, Whatamidoing (WMF), but that's another topic. Guarapiranga (talk) 21:51, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
@Guarapiranga:, this is an interesting idea. Are you able to share what triggered this thought? The first use case that comes to my mind: making it easier to cite the specific comment you're responding to. Although, I wonder if there are other workflows you'd find this kind of functionality valuable for? And same questions to you, @AlanM1:...
Now to wikitext and signatures, I'm glad you raised this, @Whatamidoing (WMF):...
To add a bit more context: the mw:Editing team is considering creating a proposal that would involve slightly changing the wikitext generated by signatures.
The purpose for this potential change would be to make signatures on talk page more machine readable (important for functionality like mw:Talk_pages_project/replying to work reliably) and to allow for signatures on old talk pages to be updated automatically.
With the above said, the team has not yet reached a consensus about whether such changes are necessary. If you are curious to learn more about these potential changes or have thoughts to share, visiting this discussion in Phabricator is a great place to do so: T230653. @PPelberg (talk) 17:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
Precisely what you did there, PPelberg (WMF), linking my comment's diff. In other discussion platforms, e.g. facebook, to link someone else's comment, one typically right-clicks that comment's date and copies over the url. Can't think of any other use case, as signatures are typically restricted to talk pages, unless you want to broaden the discussion to linking each part of an article to its latest edit and author (much like MS Word's track changes). That would be awesome! Guarapiranga (talk) 23:58, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
Guarapiranga, understood! Thank you for sharing this context. It's encouraging to see you express a need for enhancements intended to make it easier to refer to specific comments within a discussion and by extension, better understand/follow what is being talked about in talk page conversations. [1]
I say this because these are two areas we hope to improve as part of the mw:Talk_pages_project. With this said, "What enhancement(s) might we implement to make it easier to refer to specific comments within a discussion and by extension, better understand what is being talked about in talk page conversations?" is still an open question.
If you'd like to stay up to date on our progress towards answering these, you might follow the mw:Talk_pages_project/Updates page – we use this page to share information that includes what features we are considering working on and when.
1. If I've misinterpreted your intention here, please do tell me.
@PPelberg (talk) 01:46, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Weird number of pages in a category

Please see User:JIP's notes at Wikipedia:Help desk#Weird bytecount in page history - Category:Online entertainment says its subcategory Category:Entertainment websites‎ contains MINUS SIX pages!

Anybody able to explain....? --CiaPan (talk) 21:43, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

@CiaPan: "pages in a category" is notoriously unreliable (c.f. phab:T18036). — xaosflux Talk 01:10, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: I didn't know. Thank you for info. --CiaPan (talk) 07:44, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Weird bytecount in page history

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T239717

Please see User:JIP's notes at Wikipedia:Help desk#Weird bytecount in page history - there are two consecutive edits in User talk:PaxEquilibrium, one adding a section on 30 November, the next one adding a reply on 2 December. The first one has apparent size of ZERO bytes (even though it obviously ADDED a section), the other one has size apparently equal the net change made by both edits together.

Anybody able to explain the phenomenon? --CiaPan (talk) 21:37, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Even weirder, the API says the revisions have the same SHA1, which is impossible. Maybe something went wrong during the rename from Geolodus to Glades12? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:52, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow: As you can see in the thread at HelpDesk, the effect was observed before the user's rename. --CiaPan (talk) 21:57, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, misread the timestamps. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:00, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
No need to study timestamps, just note that User:JIP uses the old name of the other User when referring at WP:HD to their edit. :) --CiaPan (talk) 22:16, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow: Well, it is well possible for two different packets of data to have the same hash value. It's just rare in random data and very hard to achieve intentionally - but not impossible. And if the Wiki software used the hash value as a key for indexing a database, then such two edits would be indistinguishable, and that would could explain why two revisions return the same page length, resulting in a ZERO increment... --CiaPan (talk) 22:12, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
SHA1 is a 160-bit hash, so the probability of that is about 10-48. But, just checking anyway:
$ curl -s 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:PaxEquilibrium&oldid=928894386&action=raw' |sha1sum
d2a13183ec9fd859a8cc10164f4e2fbf58fc2d00  -
$ curl -s 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:PaxEquilibrium&oldid=928622565&action=raw' |sha1sum
a7e7aad391df4fc2132413e730d9007d1927078f  -
$ curl -s 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:PaxEquilibrium&oldid=928364063&action=raw' |sha1sum
30c6157b4f443428196a56bfe1e06876a18a9dd0  -
The other revisions have the correct hash; just not Geolodus/Glades12's. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:36, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow: I do not discuss how small or how big the probability of collision is. I just pointed out it is greater than zero, hence the event is possible. --CiaPan (talk) 07:38, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
Infinite monkey theorem discusses how a "possible" event is in fact not going to happen, as Suffusion of Yellow accurately pointed out. Using the ordinary meaning of the word impossible, it is impossible for two different pages at Wikipedia to have the same hash. Johnuniq (talk) 09:47, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
@Johnuniq: Possibly monkey theorem discusses how it is impossible. And Internet demonstrates how it is possible: SHAttered, The Register, ZDNet; more at Google. The ordinary meaning of 'impossible' is not relevant if we talk about guaranteed uniqueness. Anyway, the whole question on im/possibility is not relevant to this discussion — as long as it is not proven the hash was erroneously calculated or erroneously assigned to one of the page revisions, the logs above ARE an example the collision is possible. And monkeys may go type Hamlet. --CiaPan (talk) 10:31, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I confirmed Suffusion of Yellow's findings by checking that the most recent items in the history at User talk:PaxEquilibrium have the oldid values and sha1 hashes shown. The size of the downloaded file is shown in the following table.

timestamp oldid sha1 bytes
2019-12-02T09:51:18Z 928894386 d2a13183ec9fd859a8cc10164f4e2fbf58fc2d00 185,074
2019-11-30T15:26:46Z 928622565 a7e7aad391df4fc2132413e730d9007d1927078f 184,778
2019-11-28T16:22:52Z 928364063 30c6157b4f443428196a56bfe1e06876a18a9dd0 183,755

The history shows "09:51, 2 December 2019 ... (+1,319)". That byte difference is 185074 − 183755 = 1319.

The history for the above three items shows:

09:51, 2 December 2019 JIP 185,074 bytes (+1,319) Archiving needed: reply to Geolodus
15:26, 30 November 2019 Glades12 183,755 bytes (0) Archiving needed: new section
16:22, 28 November 2019 JIP 183,755 bytes (+8) Thanks: added closing ...

Johnuniq (talk) 03:47, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Table display

I have had problems with the display of a table, and realise that it displays as intended when I'm logged out, but not when I'm logged in. The table is here and the rendering when I'm logged in is at File:Table logged in.jpg and when logged out is at File:Table logged out.jpg. Can anyone please explain what may be wrong with my settings to cause this? --David Biddulph (talk) 08:37, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I am seeing the same thing as you, logged in and logged out. – Ammarpad (talk) 09:22, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
Looks like a problem with spanning – note how the middle row cells get into the separating space between the 'Host' column and the 'Final' group and between the 'Final' and the 'Third place play-off' group. --CiaPan (talk) 11:34, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
@David Biddulph and Ammarpad: I tested available skins, but that didn't help. However, the problem seems to have something to do with testing gadget options – when I went to preferences/gadgets and unchecked the 'Make sure that headers of tables remain in view as long as the table is in view (requires Firefox v59 or Safari)' in the 'Testing and development' section, the problem disappeared (I'm using Google Chrome at the moment). I suppose this option is not available for logged-off users, hence logged-off can see the table correctly.
Try using a browser compatible with the option or try switching the option off. --CiaPan (talk) 11:50, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
I can confirm it's that option. If I turn it on, I see the malformed table (both on Chrome 78 and Firefox 70). The problem is that with the StickyTableHeaders gadget turned on, the table is split into a <thead> and <tbody> element, which apparently causes the rowspan to break. I don't know if that's a bug in the rendering engine, or in the MediaWiki parser, or somewhere else, but it's certainly a bug. rchard2scout (talk) 12:02, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
@Rchard2scout: So we can get rid of the problem by removing rowspan=4, or at least reducing it to rowspan=2, and filling rows 3. and 4. with empty cells (at the cost of displaying unnecessary cells' borders). --CiaPan (talk) 12:15, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
@David Biddulph, Ammarpad, and Rchard2scout: I implemented a fix described above, by truncating the gap fillers in the header area from 4 to 2 rows and adding 2-rows-high gap fillers in the data area: Special:Diff/929064299.
Please verify how it works in your browsers: Special:Permalink/929064299#Results of Nations League Finals. --CiaPan (talk) 12:36, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
I am using Chrome. Yeah, it's fixed. But I think the one by Jts1882 below is even better. I notice it eliminated the superfluous incomplete shading of the two empty demarcation columns. – Ammarpad (talk) 21:50, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
It's a known limitation in the gadget when there are header cells with rowspan. See MediaWiki talk:Gadget-StickyTableHeaders.css#Bug: rowspan in headers does not propagate into table. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
Besides the above, I've tweaked the table to make it a better simple data table. It's generally more interoperable and better represents what you are trying to display. --Izno (talk) 14:02, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
Following the suggestion in the bug report, just changing the rowspan header cell to a regular td cell gives the following:
Season Host Final Third place play-off
Winner Score Runner-up Third place Score Fourth place
2018–19
Details 		 Portugal
Portugal 		1–0
Netherlands
England 		0–0 (a.e.t.)
(6–5 p)
Switzerland
2020–21
Details 		TBD
This seems to work with the gadget.   Jts1882 | talk  14:11, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Consecutive edits merged by editor on history page

Is there a script (or option) to see consecutive edits by the same editor merged into a single entry in articles' history page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guarapiranga (talk • contribs) 22:46, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Check out User:Alex Smotrov/histcomb. User has long since stopped editing, but it should be working. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 02:17, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Fantastic! Precisely what I wanted, Amorymeltzer. Here's my vote to make it a standard feature/gadget on preferences. Guarapiranga (talk) 04:15, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
No wonder I didn't know about it; it wasn't on WP:USL. Now it is. Guarapiranga (talk) 04:42, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Ill-formatted maintenance category

I discovered that Leeds is currently placed in the non-existent (and non-hidden) category Category:Articles with disputed statements from November 2,019. It seems like it came about from {{doubtful|date=November 2019}} (that is, I can remove the category by removing the templates), but I can't figure out why the output is formatted incorrectly. kennethaw88 • talk 08:52, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Something in {{Infobox settlement}} is cleverly formatting numbers for the population_metro parameter (and some others). For example, if you edit the line to read |population_metro=2638127 and preview it, you will see the population shown as 2,638,127. That is, something inserts the commas. The category includes 2019 and the clever code is inserting commas in that as well. A quick looks suggests it is {{formatnum:{{{population_metro}}}}}. The doubtful tag probably should be in the population_metro_footnotes parameter. Johnuniq (talk) 09:22, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Yes, use |population_metro_footnotes=. This matter is covered by the first bullet of Template:Infobox settlement#Usage, although not obviously so. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:05, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Fixed it. I didn't really pay enough attention to where in the text the tag was being used, although I wouldn't have been able to figure out the formatnum code, anyway. Thanks. kennethaw88 • talk 20:36, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

'Redirects from' template?

Is there a template (or magic word) that will return the name of the template a given template name redirects to? (e.g. {{redirects from|Brazil}} → BRA). Guarapiranga (talk) 05:23, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: Module:Redirect can do part of this, but I haven't found a template that does exactly what you need. {{#invoke:redirect|main|Template:Brazil}} → {{#invoke:redirect|main|Template:Brazil}} -- John of Reading (talk) 12:57, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
The problem here is that any given page can have more than one redirect - it's a many-to-one relationship, consider this list. Incidentally, BRA is not there because it is not a redirect but a dab page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:08, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Redrose64, what I'm looking for is the mapping in the opposite direction: what does a redirect page redirect to? From that list, it would, for instance, return Brazil when called over Republic of Brazil: {{redirects from|Republic of Brazil}} → Brazil. Guarapiranga (talk) 20:39, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, John of Reading! Just created {{redirects from}} as a wrapper over it, to be used as an alias. I'm not sure it'll work for what I wanted—subst'ing country names with their ISO codes, without invoking Lua (which requires 2 subst's and always times out on long lists of countries)—but I'll try. Cheers. Guarapiranga (talk) 20:51, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Diagnosing bad preview image on Page Preview card

When I hover on the link Statue of Liberty the preview image is File:USA New York City location map.svg, a generic map of New York City (which doesn't even have the location of the statue marked! The pin is overlaid in the infobox using some template magic). I think it would be much more appropriate to show an image of the statue itself. mw:Page Previews/Functionality#Article image: suggests that the "first image that appears in [the] infobox" should be chosen. However, in this case, the first image in the infobox is File:Lady Liberty under a blue sky (cropped).jpg. Is there some undocumented rule that images with very tall aspect ratios are ignored? Is this just a bug? Colin M (talk) 16:18, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Is there some undocumented rule that images with very tall aspect ratios are ignored? Yes, actually, certain aspect ratios are ignored. You might try searching the archives to see what those are. --Izno (talk) 16:48, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Resolved-ish
Oof, looks like it's actually worse than that. Candidate images are scored by some (fairly opaque, presumably subject-to-change-at-any-time) algorithm, and the highest-scoring image is used. The main infobox image on that page isn't so skinny that it's completely ruled out as a preview image, but its point boost for being the first image is less than the bonus the map gets for having a squarish aspect ratio. I've corrected the docs at mw:Page Previews/Functionality#Article image: for now. It would be nice if there were a way to give the algorithm a hint without changing the appearance of the article (short of globally blacklisting the unwanted image from previews), but I'm not holding my breath. Colin M (talk) 17:49, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
I am fairly certain there was a task in Phabricator to add a "hey, don't use that one" but a brief search yields little. --Izno (talk) 22:32, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
See also mw:Extension:PageImages#Image choice. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:05, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

BLP noticeboard not search engine indexed, but many archives are

I noticed that, while WP:BLPN is not indexed on search engines (and to my mind, certainly shouldn't be), many of its archives are: [33]. Those often include discussion of potentially sensitive BLP matters. After a discussion with Xaosflux, it seems that, while the robots.txt exclusion file is set up properly, being transcluded or linked elsewhere still might lead search engines to crawl these, even when they're intended not to be. On Xaosflux' advice, I'd like to get a few opinions about the best way to handle this so that these will be reliably excluded from search engines, and I'm not fully conversant with exactly how Mediawiki handles that. Any expertise in that would be much appreciated. If there is a solution to ensure newly created archives are also not indexed, that would be even better. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:14, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

The archives currently don't have NOINDEX - no Category:Noindexed pages - and the entry on robots.txt is formatted in such a way that it won't cover subpages if my understanding of the syntax is correct. I dunno if the correct solution would be to edit MediaWiki:Robots.txt or a Phab level solution is needed (or a bot directed addition of NOINDEX to each archive). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:30, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
We could easily have a bot add something to those pages for now, but getting the future archives to auto-have it like how ANI's do may be better. — xaosflux Talk 19:32, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
For what it's worth, ANI archives are NOINDEXed through Template:Administrators' noticeboard navbox all, which the archive bots add to each archive as they are directed by the {{{archiveheader}}} parameter in {{User:MiszaBot/config}}. So one way to do NOINDEX for all BLPN archives created in the future would be to append {{NOINDEX}} to the same parameter at WP:BLPN. Of course, one would have to update all the past archives as well. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:53, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
That's an easy enough bot run if this will be the "fix". — xaosflux Talk 20:19, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
@Jo-Jo Eumerus: (also see note above) - robots.txt matching should be midstring greedy and match those pages - but if you see a specific syntax error with it please let me know! — xaosflux Talk 19:31, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Many of the archives are indexed because of url variations with percent-encoding. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ABiographies_of_living_persons%2FNoticeboard%2FArchive165 is indexed by Google while the canonical url https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive165 is blocked by https://en.wikipedia.org/robots.txt. %3A instead of colon is covered by an extra entry in robots.txt but %2F instead of slash is not. I see five potential ways to fix or reduce such problems:
  1. Add __NOINDEX__ to the wikitext, typically via a template adding {{NOINDEX}}. This will place noindex in the html of any url variation (except some external mirrors).
  2. Add more url variations to robots.txt (or cut url's off before characters with url variations).
  3. Find out where search engines see the url variations. If the origin is under our control then replace them with the canonical url's.
  4. Get MediaWiki to automatically noindex non-canonical url's.
  5. Get MediaWiki to automatically redirect non-canonical url's to the canonical url which is covered by robots.txt.
Option 4 and 5 would be Phabricator requests and cannot be done locally. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:04, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter: are you confident about the %2F problem - it is hard to think it has never come up before? — xaosflux Talk 01:22, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
It came up at MediaWiki talk:Robots.txt#Google thinks it's cute, we need to blacklist Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_deletion%2F. I don't see another explanation. Consider Archive165 site:en.wikipedia.org. If I click the little green triangle and then "Cached" at the entry for "Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive165" then I get "This is Google's cache of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ABiographies_of_living_persons%2FNoticeboard%2FArchive165". If I do the same for "Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 164" (which is allowed by robots.txt) then I get "This is Google's cache of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive_164". https://de.wikipedia.org/robots.txt has some entries from de:MediaWiki:Robots.txt with all four combinations of %3A versus colon and %2F versus slash. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:00, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter: thanks for the update.
  • I've added the %2F version to the robots file, this will take a bit to propagate. I think the NOINDEX options are better for this use case though, if someone wants to get it fixed for future archives we can run a bot after the old ones very easily. — xaosflux Talk 03:35, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
    If a bot's going to do that, then maybe it should NOINDEX all the Talk: archives of BLPs as well. There are probably tens of thousands of BLP talk pages with archives, and most are more poorly watched than BLP/N. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:49, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
    @Suffusion of Yellow: a bot run to put a future-standard template on ~200 pages is one thing, dealing with a huge number of talk pages is another - I'd be more supportive of a phab change to make "Talk namespace subpages" be NOINDEX by default. — xaosflux Talk 04:00, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
  • I think this should fix it so far as future pages [34], though please check to make sure I didn't do anything dumb. If we can do the old pages by bot, hopefully that should take care of it? Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:04, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Whitelines before and after template

Why are there whitelines before and after the {{Schneersohn family tree}} template, see e.g. Schneersohn. Debresser (talk) 23:48, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

@Debresser: Well, it's happening because when there is no |align= specified, the template sets a style of margin: 1em auto;. Why, I do not yet know, but I'll look further at the history. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 00:20, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
@Debresser: At this edit, the behavior was changed so that, if |align= is not specified, the style margin: 1em auto; is set. Previously, it looks like the style was a margin of 0, which is typical for a navbox. The current version produces a 1em empty space above and below. I'll also note that it has a white background by default, instead of the usual purple-ish used for navboxes. I'm inclined to remove the margin style or put it back to being an unconditional 0, as it was before the edit. Also, I think the background color should default to that of other navboxes, as it's kind of ugly when the margin is removed IMO. I'm concerned that I don't have the time at the moment to research how it's used everywhere. Would someone more familiar with navboxes handle this and/or comment? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 00:45, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Thank you for your comments. I removed the culprit.[35] Can somebody please make the edit to add the blue color, in line with other navboxes? Debresser (talk) 19:21, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Too often I get this "Edit conflict: Talk - Someone else has changed this page since you started editing it, resulting in an edit conflict."

Whenever I help out editing an article or talk page, I nearly always get this notification "Edit conflict: Talk - Someone else has changed this page since you started editing it, resulting in an edit conflict." I've learned to live with it and work around it:

  1. copy/pasting my text and then hit the blue "Publish changes" button a second time; sometimes it then publishes my text;
  2. if it doesn't, I have my text in the copy/paste memory of my computer and can again paste my text and then hit the blue "Publish changes" button a 3rd time and then mostly my changes are finally in the article or talk page.

Anybody know's what's going on? Is it because I have too many observations and reversed edits by moderators? I really study the reasons in case my additions are not accepted, at times I don't agree and I find the - how are these wikipedians called - I think "arbiters" - extremely blunt - especially when I've put 10 minutes to an hour of editing and documenting an article or clearly stated I wanted to start an article and need to park it somewhere to continue it later because my kids of wife walks in and need my attention. Anyway - thy. --SvenAERTS (talk) 08:27, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

It often happens to me when I've spent time making a single substantial edit while other editors are making many small edits. So, where possible, the solution is to reduce the size of your edits: work by making many small edits rather than a few longer ones, then you're less likely to be interrupted in this way. Where this isn't possible, you just have to get round it as you say you do. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:16, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
What's happening is described at Help:Edit conflict. If you're planning on making a long edit, make a small edit first to add the {{inuse}} tag to the top of the page. Don't forget to remove it afterwards, though. Yunshui 雲水 10:30, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
@SvenAERTS: This edit suggests that you clicked Publish changes twice, perhaps inadvertently - I have a mouse that sometimes double-clicks when I intended a single click, because of contact bounce. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:21, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
@Redrose64: @Peter coxhead: @Yunshui: thx all. By the way, what is the name of the coding language with these double accolades and piping - is that java or php or python? ThySvenAERTS (talk) 09:44, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
Technically it's a markup language rather than a programming/coding language - it's called Wikitext. Yunshui 雲水 09:47, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Constant edit conflicts

So it seems, every time I make an edit, even if the last edit was months ago, that when I click "Submit", I get the edit conflict screen. I've disabled any of the functions in Beta and Preferences that might have caused it, and I still get it. Anyone know why? And for that matter, it seems the wiki software will immediately revert the edit in my name so I'll in in the history "PrussianOwl +380", and in the next line "PrussianOwl -380". I asked this at the Help Desk and they said to try asking here. Thanks, PrussianOwl (talk) 02:39, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@SvenAERTS: especially when I've put 10 minutes to an hour of editing and documenting an article or clearly stated I wanted to start an article and need to park it somewhere to continue it later because my kids of wife walks in and need my attention.
In that case you should first flesh out the whole article in a subpage of your user page, either as a draft or in a sandbox, before submitting it for publishing in the main space. Guarapiranga (talk) 11:02, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
PrussianOwl, have you tried editing in mw:safemode? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:22, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll have to try that! UPDATE: It works! It must be a script I'm using then right? UPDATE 2: So I tried removing all the scripts I installed one by one since I started seeing the problem, and I still saw it. I also made sure to delete my cache between each attempt. I already checked my Beta and preferences and disabled anything involving edit conflicts or saving edits, so I'm out of ideas. Also, if I click away from the edit conflict screen, my edits show up on the page as live. PrussianOwl (talk) 02:28, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Do you have anything (especially anything that isn't popular) enabled in the gadgets for Special:Preferences? Or global scripts (on Meta) that you might have missed? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:19, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
Nothing global, but quite a few gadgets on. Nothing that involves saving or edit conflicts though. PrussianOwl (talk) 03:10, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
@PrussianOwl:. I have seen totally unrelated gadgets break the strangest things. If you haven't solved the problem yet, you might try turning off all the gadgets in a particular section of gadgets and see if that helps. Then if that doesn't work try turning off another section of gadgets. Eventually you will find the section of gadgets where the problem lies. Then turn off the gadgets in that section one by one. Before doing any of this take a screenshot of the whole gadget preferences page. So you can remember how to get back to what you like. Firefox has a built-in screenshot tool that lets you get the whole page including the part of the page not showing on the screen. -- Timeshifter (talk) 23:57, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
@Timeshifter: Good idea, I'll have to try that! PrussianOwl (talk) 01:52, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
@PrussianOwl: Or you could just save the gadget preferences page before you start changing it: Firefox > File menu > save page as > web page, complete. I tried it, and it works fine. Some pages don't save well, or the saved page does not open correctly. -- Timeshifter (talk) 15:00, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Getting signed out when moving between projects

I'm quite certain this has been beaten to death before. But has anyone else been sporadically getting signed out when moving between enwiki and Commons? Frequently when I find self-written vanity articles or drafts that contain Commons images, I'll open the images and cross over to Commons to nominate them for deletion. Suddenly, this is sporadically causing me to be "logged out" when I get to Commons (or enwiki, if I'm moving the other way). If I click "Log in", it seems to "kick" immediately and show that I'm logged in to my account (I don't have to enter a username or password at all, it just goes right away). Last evening, this problem resulted in my IP being accidentally revealed on multiple pages (used a script to nominate an image) and I had to discreetly get ahold of an oversighter on Commons to hide it. I use Windows 10 64-bit with Google Chrome, and haven't noticed any problems up until recently. Anyone know what gives? Home Lander (talk) 17:56, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

  • I have had this happen at least half the time when moving between projects over the past two weeks - probably 5-6 times/day. About half the time, I will get the message saying "refresh, you're logged on centrally", but the other half of the time, I need to actually go through and log in with my password. Windows 10, current Firefox. Risker (talk) 19:44, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
    Risker, I don't recall that I've ever even seen such a message. Usually once I sign into one project, I'm signed into anything I cross over to. Home Lander (talk) 21:09, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
    Usually when this happens, I just have to wait a few seconds for it to fix itself. Occasionally, the not-too-drastic WP:BYPASS is necessary. Tip: set a global user preference that makes it immediately obvious whether you are logged-in or not - I have set MonoBook skin, which means that if I see a page that is displayed in Vector skin, I'm not logged in so know not to make edits. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:40, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
    @Home Lander: The message that Risker mentions reads

    Central login
    You are centrally logged in as Redrose64. Reload the page to apply your user settings.

    it's in a small box upper right, just below the Search box, and about the same width. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:13, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

AfD stats down?

Is AfD stats at tools.wmflabs down? I havent contributed to much other than AfD's recently. So one can easily see AfD votes in my contrib history, but they are not being reflect at wmf tools. —usernamekiran(talk) 17:19, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

pinging Enterprisey. —usernamekiran(talk) 17:22, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
its working again. But I think Enterprisey should see this. He seems to be offline since 2 days now. —usernamekiran(talk) 20:55, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
That's interesting - there's nothing in any of the logs from the 29th. usernamekiran, are there any specific contributions that aren't showing up on your stats page at the moment? Enterprisey (talk!) 21:42, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
@Enterprisey: hi, apologies for the delayed response. I am not sure what logs you are referring to. When I first posted here, my afd contributions (votes), were not being showed up for 2-3 days. Later they all appeared, and I again posted it here. —usernamekiran(talk) 02:30, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Prosesize as gadget

Hello, I've rewritten User:Dr pda/prosesize.js to be more modern and maintainable at User:Galobtter/scripts/prosesize.js. Most of the changes are internal, with the main user-facing changes are to remove the arbitrary disabling of the script on certain skins (e.g timeless) when the script works just fine on all desktop skins and a fixing of a bug in the calculation of reference text size. As prosesize is a very widely used user script (>2000 uses [36]), it seems an ideal candidate to become a gadget. If this becomes a gadget, I also propose replacing the content of User:Dr pda/prosesize.js to be mw.loader.load( ['ext.gadget.prosesize'] ), i.e to load the gadget directly so the old code no longer needs to be maintained. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:31, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

If this becomes a gadget, I'd instead suggest changing User:Dr pda/prosesize.js to: if ( mw.user.options.get('gadget-prosesize') === null ) new mw.Api().saveOption('gadget-prosesize', '1'); instead, so that the gadget gets enabled directly rather than get loaded via the user js page; and Special:GadgetUsage would also show an accurate number of usages. SD0001 (talk) 08:07, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
That seems reasonable. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:00, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
There is a typo at <small><i>(See <a href="//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Prosesize">here</a> for details.)<i></small>; should be a closing </i> there. Also, color me salty about mw.notify( 'Prosesize does not work with the Visual Editor.' );, but can't do anything about that on my part. --Izno (talk) 23:23, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, fixed. Word count should at least be workable with VE (html size cannot be due to the differing html used by VE and the regular editor); it is my intention to get prosesize working with VE eventually but the last time I tried to deal with anything VE it went badly so I'll need to find the time to do it properly. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:52, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Izno and Galobtter, there is a page at mw:VisualEditor/Gadgets that allegedly contains some useful information and a couple of worked examples, whenever you feel up to tackling it. Ping me if you get stuck, and I'll see if I can find someone who understands it for you. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, I will see if I'll find the time to do so (definitely would be nice). Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:22, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
Highlighting in the new script seems busted. Also, there's a (somehow blue) link to Wikipedia:Prosesize, which is obviously wrong/missing something. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:35, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
Headbomb, oops, the code for loading the css was broken. I haven't created the page yet, but Wikipedia:Prosesize would be the page describing the gadget. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:47, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
@Galobtter: working now, thanks. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:50, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Quick bump for more comments before this gets archived. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:22, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
Support gadgetizing (gadgetifying?). User seems relatively inactive and community maintenance would be a good thing for the 2k users. Wug·a·po·des​ 03:41, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Equation \operatorname macros?

For writing is there a standard way to use \DeclareMathOperator or \newcommand to avoid typing \operatorname{E} all the time? Wqwt (talk) 22:10, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

@Wqwt: Even if you could, it would only be effective within the same <math>...</math> tags. Each block is parsed separately, there's no way for state to be preserved between them. Easiest thing might be to copy it into your local clipboard, so you can "type" it repeatedly with just Ctrl+v. Or you can look into clipboard managers or macro tools for your local browser/OS... -- FeRDNYC (talk) 07:20, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
@FeRDNYC: I see. It seems MathJax on its own (for example used in math.stackexchange.com) supports it. Wqwt (talk) 20:01, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
@Wqwt: I secretly wish for some mechanism to add a standard header that gets added to the beginning of any <math>...</math> blocks, possibly separate ones: one global, and then the ability to add per-page ones for unusual things. However, I have no idea how expensive such a feature would be, or even if it would make more sense for anything like this to be stricter and more behind the scenes. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 20:31, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
@Deacon Vorbis and Wqwt: As I see it, it's less an issue of computational expense than of other editors' ability to read and edit the formula source. The important difference between a site like math.stackexchange.com and Wikipedia is that the questions and answers at the stack exchange sites are, for the most part, single-editor content. There are some exceptions where posts have been migrated to community-ownership, and of course anyone can suggest edits to any posts there, but generally the post still has a named author who wrote the lion's share of it, and on a source-code level nobody is really required to understand it but that author.
Wikipedia, though, is a different animal entirely, and being a collaboratively-edited resource, features that allow editors to redefine the source language of the shared content would just be making it more difficult for other users to edit that content. Especially since the stackexchange MathJax implementation even allows you to do things like \def\sin{\operatorname{cos}}, and if you do then <math>\sin x</math> absolutely will show up as every time you use it. And even if it's not done maliciously, if I see some <math>...</math> in an article that includes a \gangnam operator because another editor defined it somewhere else on the page, how am I supposed to make sense of that?
It's fine if someone wants to redefine the language for convenience in their personal content, but as a contribution to a shared resource like any Wikipedia article, it misses the mark on the third pillar by a pretty wide margin — enough that you could even make a reasonable argument that it violates the fourth pillar as well.
(Stack Exchange, in fact, have had problems due to the fact that their \newcommand, \def, etc. implementations used to be page-scoped, which allowed posters to cause trouble for other posters either accidentally or maliciously. They've since locked things down so that the commands are scoped to the individual post, which helped reduce the degree to which each user's content could impact everyone else, but that's obviously not an option for Wikipedia articles because the entire page is a single collaborative document.) -- FeRDNYC (talk) 06:25, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
@FeRDNYC: I see where you're coming from. I still think source code readability is important enough that perhaps we can have a compromise like @Deacon Vorbis: said: a community-consensus list of standard macros for very common math operators, such as . Absolute value and norm are particularly annoying to do "spaced correctly" (instead of using |) and are much easier with macros: \DeclarePairedDelimiter\abs{\lvert}{\rvert} and \DeclarePairedDelimiter\norm{\lVert}{\rVert}. See https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/43008/absolute-value-symbols/416214 But I don't have the technical or bureaucratic know-how to push this proposal forward. Wqwt (talk) 06:38, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
@Wqwt: Yeah, I could get behind that. My real concern is that it's not an ad hoc thing where each editor effectively has their own dialect of the language, because that's just anarchy. But a set of standard macros, used sparingly — or, actually I mean a relatively small set of them, because they're used frequently — make sense to me.
It's too bad that templates can't work inside <math>...</math>, since that could be a solution to writing macros in a "standard" wiki-oriented way. But of course MathJax/TeX makes far too frequent use of curly braces itself for that to ever be possible. And going the other direction is typically limited to solutions that operate outside the math domain entirely, like {{oiint}}, since the template can take <math>...</math> formulas as arguments it can't easily manipulate their contents (without becoming a complete MathJax parser). -- FeRDNYC (talk) 18:54, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikitable header centering: desktop vs mobile

Continuing from Special:MobileDiff/929887874 (per Redrose64's recommendation)

 Done, Snaevar: T240106. Guarapiranga (talk) 00:33, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

So where's our visual differ?

Now that we have a much-maligned visual editor, where is the much-maligned visual diff? It would really be nice to improve the diff tool in various ways. One thing is that I can't compare A/B images that were swapped, except if I switching revision previews back and forth. And many times formatting, text flow, wrapping, all becomes an issue for newly added diffs, especially people hunting vandalism such as myself. What else would you like to see in a next-generation diff engine? Where is this in Phabricator? Elizium23 (talk) 05:22, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

mw:VisualEditor/Diffs, go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures to enable it. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:29, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-50

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  • Wikimedia projects use Translatewiki to translate the wiki interface. You can now use WatchTranslations to watch projects there. You would get an email if there are missing translations to your language. [37]
  • Advanced item There is a new dataset you can use. It shows the number of editors per country per month for a number of countries. You can read the documentation and download the dataset.

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  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 December. It will be on all wikis from 12 December (calendar).

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16:35, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Weird collapse template formatting

In Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 December 8, there's two {{collapse}} sections. In one, the "show" button is on the right margin. In the other, it's to the left of the descriptive text. What's going on there? -- RoySmith (talk) 15:26, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

It looks like the difference in positioning between using classes mw-collapsible and collapsible, although both are using the former here. If you remove the text between the two collapsible boxes the "show" is on the right as expected in preview. I'm guessing that some CSS is interfering, possibly related to the some mismatched HTML tags. The toggle for the collapsible elements is very sensitive.   Jts1882 | talk  16:12, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
The collapse template, which creates a table within a set of <div>...</div> tags, is being used within an HTML list, which looks like it is causing this strangeness. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:08, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Yes, never indent either the start or end tags for a collapsible box. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:26, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

On User talk:146.95.196.199, the link to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Macau cuisine, a existing page, is red. --146.95.196.199 (talk) 00:32, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

 Works for me looks blue when I look at it, could you hover over it, and copy the URL you are seeing to here for further research? — xaosflux Talk 00:35, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Thank you! It's blue now. The entry was created half an hour ago but my talk page leads to "title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Macau_cuisine&redlink=1" until recent no matter how many times I refreshed it. --146.95.196.199 (talk) 00:44, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
If this happens again try to WP:PURGE the page. If that doesn't work, try a WP:NULLEDIT. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:47, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Thank you! --146.95.196.199 (talk) 01:16, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Table totals and total percentages

Is there a way of making 2-step calculations in tables without running into node-count errors?

I've for instance fully automated this article, converting what previously were pasted numbers into the formulas that calculate them and pulling the input info from a single main source, but, for the life of me, can't figure out how to calculate percentages from totals without running into node-count errors. Best I could do was use a pasted running total onto the page and hide it in a span tag. I looked into doing that with subst, but couldn't figure out how. I stared at this code for half an hour, and couldn't see how it could help either. Guarapiranga (talk) 20:18, 5 December 2019 (UTC) This may be unrelated to the 2-step calc, though, as the same page for North America blows over the preprocessor node count limit even without attempting to do the 2-step calc. The culprit is obviously {{country population}} (mea culpa), which transcludes numbers from List of countries by population (United Nations). I realise each transclusion in the template adds to the load, even if it's unused in the output, and {{country population}} makes 8 of them, but I don't see how else to do it (and how that this on a list of ~200 countries adds up to +1M preprocessor nodes. Guarapiranga (talk) 01:12, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Put the data into a module and use another module to do the calculations? Seems a better way to me since all data and the calculations that depend on the data are in just two modules. Another module can be written that would take the raw data from wherever it comes from and properly format it for your application. I did something similar for the {{lang}} and {{lang-??}} templates and the modules that support them. See Module:Lang.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:29, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Trappist the monk. Had a look at Module:Lang. I see how it works, but can't see how to make it work for data that is not static like language codes. Those population numbers don't change all that often—once a year, if they don't need corrections—with the daily update being done via exponential interpolation, but if they're in a list article they can be updated and corrected by common editors, with no need of delving into Lua code. Also, not sure if this is related, but I have a heap of trouble when I try to subst Module:ISO 3166 so I can get ISO codes for labelling sections (I have to subst twice, and the page rendering times out a couple of times on a full list of countries). Guarapiranga (talk) 01:48, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
You can use the list article data from a Lua module. Load the content of the page with the title object and then just use gsub to grab the sections for the required contries. This method just loads the list article contents once and keeps the transclusion size and depth numbers down.   Jts1882 | talk  10:04, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
@Guarapiranga: I should have added that I have a rudimentary lua function that retrieves labeled sections (see function p.section() at Module:Sandbox/Jts1882/Test). Invoking it via {{section/sandbox}} can retrieve the population figures from List of countries by population (United Nations), e.g. {{section/sandbox|List of countries by population (United Nations)|BRA_0}} --> Section not found.   Jts1882 | talk  13:20, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
@Jts1882: May I ask what feature Module:Sandbox/Jts1882/Test provides that isn't supported by the built-in #section parser function. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:42, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
@Pppery:For some reason there is an issue with transcluding labelled sections from templates using other templates. So if I want to reuse section "Magnolids" in {{Phylogeny/APG IV}}, #section doesn't work, but the same labelled section can be retrieved from my sandbox or if it was the sole content of a template. The problem is something to do with the template nesting and the order of transclusion.
DescriptionCodeOutputComment
Using #section to get section from my sandbox 
{{#section:User:Jts1882/sandbox|Magnolids}}

Canellales Cronquist 1957

Piperales von Berchtold & Presl 1820

Magnoliales de Jussieu ex von Berchtold & Presl 1820

Laurales de Jussieu ex von Berchtold & Presl 1820

success
Using #section to get section from template 
{{#section:Template:Phylogeny/APG IV|Magnolids}}
 fails
Using lua module function 
{{#invoke:Sandbox/Jts1882/Test|section|Template:Phylogeny/APG IV|Magnolids}}

Canellales Cronquist 1957

Piperales von Berchtold & Presl 1820

Magnoliales de Jussieu ex von Berchtold & Presl 1820

Laurales de Jussieu ex von Berchtold & Presl 1820

success
There are also benefits on post-expand include. If I understand correctly, multiple calls with #section add the whole page size for each call, which I think is the issue in this question (as the country population list is quite large). The module version only adds the size of the content returned.   Jts1882 | talk  08:28, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
That indeed seems to be the case, Jts1882, as I quickly found out trying the same method with the List of countries by past and future population. Guarapiranga (talk) 04:17, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
The language data aren't all that static. Since November 2017, Module:Language/data/iana languages has been updated from the IANA language-subtag-registry file eleven times. That particular module is 7900+ lines so updating it manually would be a headache. So I wrote a tool, Module:Language/data/iana/make that reads the subtag-registry file and makes the ~Language/data/iana languages and the other registry-derived modules so that no one has to manually update them.
For your South American population example, the data are purportedly taken from a United Nations document – so says the citation. If the data are in a list article they can be updated and corrected by common editors then some sort of provision must be made to source those changes. It seems to me better to use the data from the 'official' source in your table. If there are other sources that disagree with the 'official' source, that should be noted and cited in the article text. Further, editors do, quite often, break wikitables so whatever it is that reads the wikitable must be very robust because a simple omission of a single pipe in a wikitable could potentially break multiple articles dependent on that wikitable. Of course the wikitable could be a protected template but that would preclude correction by common editors. What a muddle.
I cannot speak to your troubles with Module:ISO 3166 except to say that a module solution could mw.loadData ('Module:ISO 3166/data/National') and use that directly – no substing required.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:54, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Include one template inside another

Resolved

I'd like to be able to include {{Infobox nuclear reactor}} inside {{Infobox rocket engine}}. Any ideas on how this could be done? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:51, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: See Wikipedia:WikiProject Infoboxes/embed, there's multiple approaches. --qedk (t 桜 c) 23:14, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for that! Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:06, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Glad to be of help. --qedk (t 桜 c) 21:41, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Well I'm close. I've made a parent template capable of holding a module and the child capable of being one. (User:Hawkeye7/Sandbox7) The only thing I'd still like is for the child to emit a header, but only if it is a child. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:02, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
@Hawkeye7: I've made the required changes (added an optional title too since I wasn't sure which header, you can remove that). Feel free to ping me if you need any more help! --qedk (t 桜 c) 09:41, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
That's great! Thanks for your help! Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:43, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Why doesn't `bgcolor` work on this table?

Vaccination schedule#Worldwide (but works on others on the same page) Guarapiranga (talk) 01:54, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Something to do with class mw-datatable? Remove that from the table declaration and all that is supposed to be blue is blue. I don't know what that class does or where it is defined ...
I hope you are asking because you intend to make that table accessible to those who have trouble distinguishing one color from another ...
—Trappist the monk (talk) 02:07, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Aha, bingo! mw-datatable highlights rows as one hovers the cursor over them.
What do you recommend to make that table accessible to those who have trouble distinguishing one color from another, Trappist the monk? Guarapiranga (talk) 04:00, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
MOS:COLOR.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 09:09, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Guarapiranga, because bgcolor is a deprecated HTML attribute that gets overriden by inline CSS styles and default styling of tables, like for instance mw-datatable applies. It doesn't work, because it's so old that anything else takes precedence over it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:44, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
It's not just deprecated but was marked as obsolete from HTML 5.0 onwards. Instead of e.g. bgcolor=LightSkyBlue you could use style="background-color:LightSkyBlue;", or even better, set up Template Styles. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:15, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Infobox image display appears to differ between Desktop and Mobile view

I don't have this problem fully diagnosed, and I am probably off on the wrong track, but can someone please take a look at the discussion at Template talk:Infobox election#Mobile display issue? The problem is that there are three images of candidates displayed in {{Infobox election}}, and things look fine in the Desktop view, but in the Mobile view, one image is much larger than the other two. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:21, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

fatal error

When previewing Cut (Hunters and Collectors album) § References I get this oh-so-helpful error message:

[Xe-HRgpAADoAAG87AKgAAADJ] 2019-12-10 16:26:46: Fatal exception of type "TypeError"

If I remove {{reflist}} then I can preview the section. Previewing the whole page does not cause the error.

and it isn't even Thursday ...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:30, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Probably related to T240248 Reedy (talk) 16:40, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Simpler example with the same error: {{Reflist|refs=<ref name="Name">Reference</ref>}} . PrimeHunter (talk) 16:48, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Should be fixed now... Reedy (talk) 17:27, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Can this happen automatically or only manually?

At the top of this talk page edit, the revision time shows as "Revision as of 00:54, 31 October 2019”. But the time stamp in each edit segment of that edit shows as "00:30, 31 October 2019 (UTC)”. It looks like it was done manually by copying the preview of a draft done at 00:30 and pasting into an edit published at 00:54. I'm considering correcting the 00:30 time stamps to avoid confusion, but want to make sure there was no way this could have arisen automatically. Thoughts? Humanengr (talk) 18:26, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

@Humanengr: none that I'm aware of, but I don't think you should change anyone else's text timestamps. The "actual" timestamp for anything we would care about is what is in the revision timestamp. This possibly came from an edit conflict, going back, copy-pasting like you suggested, etc. — xaosflux Talk 18:29, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
It looks like they just didn't know how to sign so they manually mimicked signatures. User talk:Samp4ngeles#Signing comments supports this. Just ignore it. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:56, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
I'll note that this can sometimes happen for normal edits due to edit stashing, although the timestamp is more likely to be off by only a minute or two. Essentially, the edited page's wikitext is parsed (and the signature expanded) immediately after you stop typing, before you click "Publish". Matma Rex talk 18:24, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Did you mean ...? Showing results for ...

When I make a typo when doing a search, the suggested search term or the results I am shown is often for something entirely different from what I expect. When I try to retype, I now notice I often get what I WAS expecting immediately below.

It seems whatever comes up should be closer to what we intended.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:09, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Gadget and userscript unit testing

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

I've created a script to make on-wiki unit testing a bit easier to implement. Please see WP:IANB § Gadget and userscript unit testing, and comment there (not here). - Evad37 [talk] 01:09, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Significantly slow page opening when using FireFox and being logged in and the global language is set to British English

I asked about this at the Help Desk, but someone told me to ask here instead. It does not seem to happen on Chrome, but on FireFox. I have tried disabling all extensions, and that did not solve it. Page opening delay (at the "Waiting" stage) varies, but mostly about 3~6 seconds, sometimes reaches 10 seconds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sin Jeong-hun (talk • contribs) 00:17, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

@Sin Jeong-hun: if you change your language to "English" is it better? — xaosflux Talk 13:13, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Yes, setting it to "English" makes it better, so I changed it from British English to English as a workaround. Sin Jeong-hun (talk) 00:56, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
@Sin Jeong-hun: Can you give a link to a page where this happens? I tried it with English Baccalaureate and see no significant difference in performance between en and en-gb. I do show 3 extra requests, but those are related to gadgets that I have enabled (MoreMenu, Cat-a-lot, and HotCat apparently have to load localized messages for other than lang=en), and they are only a few tens of ms out of an average of about 2000 ms total. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 09:57, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
Use the Performance tab in the Developer Console and you will get a breakdown of what is taking what time. --qedk (t 桜 c) 10:17, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
@AlanM1:As far as I had tested, it happened in almost all pages. For example, when I posted this question, I opened the "Dog" page, and then clicked "Wolf" and then "North America", etc. It happened in ALL pages. I used the Developer's Tool in FireFox and the delay I was talking about was the "waiting" for the main HTML page, not its resources, etc. So, it does not happen, and you re using FireFox? Mind you, it did not happen for me when I used Chrome. I just test it again. See the screen captures.
  • I had changed the global language to British English, and opened the "greywolf" page by clicking the link on the "dog" page. Notice the 6390 ms delay.

  • Then, I changed the global language to English, and clicked the "North America" page on the "wolf" page. Notice that the delay is now 600 ms.

[[User:Sin Jeong-hun|Sin Jeong-hun}} (talk) 01:12, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
{{Re|Sin Jeong-hun|| Once you open it, if you refresh the page is it faster the second time? I'm not sure but I doubt we maintain a cache of every language layout for every page. — xaosflux Talk 14:35, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Script for grouping contributions by page

Does anyone have a script to group Special:contributions by page? Guarapiranga (talk) 21:04, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Found User:PerfektesChaos/js/listPageOptions but it didn't work for the Special:Contributions page (as the 'advanced options' in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rc don't either). Guarapiranga (talk) 20:29, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Characters not displaying

Hi, the superscript characters in {{Surviving ocean going ships}} aren't displaying for me. What might the reason be? Don't get too excited, I'm running Firefox 47.0.1 on XP SP3 and it may well be just too old to cope It's not really not important, just technical curiosity. Cheers, MinorProphet (talk) 19:39, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Between the OS and browser, I'd say it's the age of your system. --Izno (talk) 20:36, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
Can you see them here?
— xaosflux Talk 20:38, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
Xaosflux Hi, thanks for replying, no I can't.
Izno Hi, can you describe the actual characters? What font/character set do they come from?
On that first one above it is a unicode character, U+2693. Is it appearing as a box with numbers in it or just not at all? — xaosflux Talk 23:57, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
The box with numbers. MinorProphet (talk) 02:43, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
The other is Unicode U+26F5. The first is an anchor and the second is a sailboat. --Izno (talk) 01:08, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
@MinorProphet: The two characters ⚓ 'ANCHOR' (U+2693) and ⛵ 'SAILBOAT' (U+26F5) are both in the Unicode Miscellaneous Symbols block. If you're getting little boxes containing four hex digits (numbers 0-9 and letters A-F) instead, that means that no suitable font is installed on your machine; it's known as "tofu". IIRC with Firefox 51.0 they introduced built-in emoji support, not requiring special font installation. As for Firefox under XP SP3, you should be able to take Firefox up to at least version 52.9, if not further. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:35, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
Redrose64 Hi RR, I've tried FF 52.9, but it seemed very slow compared to 47 and would often grind to a halt and crash horribly. Haha! I just found SymbolA.ttf and Unifont.ttf, installed them both, and now I can see anchor⚓ & sailboat⛵. Fantastic work everyone, thank you for your helpful comments - one satisfied customer.  Done MinorProphet (talk) 13:30, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
Nice work. For future reference if people are searching the archives, Noto fonts has information about an emoji font that might also work. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:48, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Ahh, {{de-indent}}, my favourite template, CR/LF for the heptaphobes. Just for the record—for those with XP SP3 etc.,—I found SymbolA.ttf here, and Unifont.ttf here. MinorProphet (talk) 22:07, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

PS: I can now see Chinese / Japanese / East Asian characters as well... Like, 1337 totally recommend. MinorProphet (talk) 00:30, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Book Creation Tool Not Allowing Creation of PDFs

I am currently trying to create a book with a variety of articles. When I go to the "Manage Your Book" page, the option to "Download" is greyed out.

Upon clicking the "Learn More" link, I noticed that discussion on the tool had largely concluded (since there has been no update since July of this year) and a new version of the PDF renderer has been launched. Is there a reason for the lack of an e-book downloading functionality? Or has the tool simply not been re-instated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.176.68.225 (talk) 20:22, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Working for me, example - can you be more specific, exactly what page are you on, what are you clicking, what is happening? — xaosflux Talk 20:40, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Initial table sort

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T33332

I see this has been asked several times in the past, but I was wondering whether there's been any progress toward implementing configurable initial table sorts. In the past, one frequent answer to this question has been: just save it sorted already. That obviously doesn't resolve the issue for tables dynamically updated through formulas (e.g. population clocks) or transclusion from other pages. At the end, what this rigidity ends up promoting are frivolous edits to keep rank tables in the right order. Ideally, one should simply be able to specify in the data-sort-type tag, in addition to the data type, also whether the first sort should be ascending or descending, and whether the table should be pre-sorted by the ascribed column as soon as loaded onto the screen, e.g.:

! data-sort-type="alpha; first: ascending; initial: 3;" | Countries
! data-sort-type="number; first: descending; initial: 1;" | Population
! data-sort-type="date; first: ascending; initial: 2;" | Date

Guarapiranga (talk) 03:50, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: you could try re-opening phab:T33332 (add some more details to it). — xaosflux Talk 04:07, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 Done, Xaosflux. Guarapiranga (talk) 13:14, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
WP:Accessibility is a requirement; the tables displayed on a page with such 'default sorting' will not match the content provided to non-sighted readers. I think this is a flat reject. --Izno (talk) 15:56, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
That would only be an issue for client-side sorting though - server side sorting prior to rendering the page would allow for consistency. — xaosflux Talk 17:14, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T240114
Whatever happens with this, it would also be nice to give the Visual Editor the capability to rearrange a table in alphabetical order. I am talking about rearranging it in the wikitext. Then one saves the page. Then the initial sort is now alphabetical. That means all future edits by individual editors do not mess up the sort order.
Converting a table to initial alphabetical order now is difficult for most editors. So there are many tables completely out of whack order-wise. Because someone spent the time to order it long ago in rank order. But over time that changes with each edit. So the table is no longer in any order at all initially. -- Timeshifter (talk) 17:17, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
@Timeshifter: I've opened a FR for this for you at phab:T240114. — xaosflux Talk 17:31, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Xaosflux. I had to think awhile to figure out that FR stands for feature request. :) -- Timeshifter (talk) 20:26, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) Xaosflux, please forgive the intrusion: which "alphabetical sort order"? As defined by what? This - for me - approaches the central problem of Tables (may they live for ever). I have battled with sort order in Tables™ during all my time on WP. Again, this is mere technical curiosity - could you perhaps point me towards why sorting tables seems particularly difficult for us mere mortal editors? >MinorProphet (talk) 23:21, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
@MinorProphet: See Help:Sorting and the sections on initial alphabetical sorting. See also: Commons:Commons:Convert tables and charts to wiki code or image files#Sort by rank or alphabetically. Use LibreOffice Calc. -- Timeshifter (talk) 00:07, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
@MinorProphet: for the VE active-editing solution, I don't think this has anything explicitly to do with "alphabetic" sorting, the suggestion would be to allow any column to be sorted by its sort type, then save to the source however it is currently sorted for the person making the edit - just as if they manually edited all the rows in the source. — xaosflux Talk 00:12, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Wow, is that a quantum change understandable by yer average WP:AWARE editor, or did you just blow my mind?
@Timeshifter:, thanks for the links. MinorProphet (talk) 01:13, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
@MinorProphet: just that columns could have different data types to "sort" by, such as alphabetic, numeric, date, etc. While integers (e.g. 3,4,5,1 -> 1,3,4,5) normally "sort" alphabetically OK, floating point numbers usually don't (e.g. 3.1, 31, 300, 40, 20 should be 3.1, 20, 31, 40, 300 not their alphabetic sort of 20, 300, 31, 3.1, 40). — xaosflux Talk 01:21, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Sooooo.... As I understand it (as a mathematical deficent), there is no internationally-agreed, RFC-acknowledged, "Universal Default Sort Protocol" (UDSP). Maybe the world awaits. NB I once attempted to code a generic bubble-sort in Borland Turbo Basic. I still bear the scars. So as not to bore you with RFC 2324], I leave you with RFC 2549. >MinorProphet (talk) 03:27, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Not sure what the accessibility issue is exactly, but the VE sorting button, while desirable, does nothing to ameliorate the problem with dynamically updated ranking lists that are either perpetually out of order, or constantly inviting frivolous edits. Guarapiranga (talk) 04:14, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
@Guarapiranga: I wouldn't get your hopes up. I think it would be taxing on the servers. Combining dynamic formulas and transclusions and sorting is a lot of work for the servers. I notice similar problems when I go to sites that offer these big menus of data to choose from: OECD, WHO, CDC, etc.. They are often a total pain to use. And they are often slow. It depends on the time of day, the luck of the draw, and how many people are accessing the server at the moment. Alphabetically organized data is much less taxing on everything and everybody. -- Timeshifter (talk) 04:46, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Are you saying country rankings, for instance, should be sorted alphabetically rather than ranked, Timeshifter? Guarapiranga (talk) 05:02, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
@Guarapiranga: Yes. Thanks for that list link. It goes in my to-do folder of bookmarks for categories of lists. Until the recent editing and improvement of the {{Rank}} template for easily adding a fixed row-number column there was no easy way to rank alphabetical lists. Now we just add the row-number column and tell people to click the column head of any sortable column they want ranked. I have advocated for an easy way to add a fixed row-number column for years. See: Help:Sorting#Auto-ranking or adding a row numbering column (1,2,3) next to a table and phab:T42618: "jquery.tablesorter: Add support for a 'fixed' column of row numbers." -- Timeshifter (talk) 07:39, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
It has been pointed out to me though that row alignment is off when viewed in mobile browsers. This is when using the previously mentioned {{Rank} template. See discussion here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_countries_by_population_(United_Nations)#Alignment_problem
Initial alphabetical sorting is very useful when combined with the ranking provided by a fixed row-number column that stays aligned. This is another reason for an integrated, fixed row number column as proposed at phab:T42618. -- Timeshifter (talk) 07:11, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

New users creating drafts in template namespace

I've been noticing lately that an increasing number of new users are creating what are supposed to be drafts in template namespace instead. Special:AbuseFilter/994 is intended to detect these creations. However, a stranger trend has also emerged - titles like this, with "Template:Please leave this line alone" followed by their intended title. How exactly are new users coming up with this? Is there a link somewhere that could be modified to stop this? Home Lander (talk) 19:34, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Home Lander, that comes from the first line of Wikipedia:Sandbox. Editors change the template (which isn't obviously a template), then click the red link. —Kusma (t·c) 19:53, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
It's a frustrating problem that I agree seems to be growing over time. I also see titles starting with "Infobox", e.g. Template:Infobox Tennis Player and Template:Infobox musical artist ==. I asked about this at WT:AFC a while back. My suggestion was to put some language in MediaWiki:Newarticletext, shown just for new users creating templates, that briefly explains what templates are and that articles should go at WP:WIZARD or WP:DRAFTS. I don't know how successful it will be but seems worth a try. — MusikAnimal talk 04:06, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
I don't think that will have much of an effect. These are probably people who don't read the instructions, just play around and notice that they are not allowed to create [[]] redlinks, but are allowed to create {{}} redlinks. Simplest way out is to allow them to create articles ;) —Kusma (t·c) 08:31, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Wouldn't the actual simplest way out be to make WP:ACPERM apply to the template namespace? Why should users who aren't allowed to create articles be able to create templates? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:37, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that would also work. I'm still opposed to WP:ACPERM, so I don't support extending it to other namespaces to fix problems caused by WP:ACPERM. —Kusma (t·c) 10:12, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Does Wp-mirror work?

Does mw:Wp-mirror work?

Its latest release was in 2014. Its documentation hasn't been updated since 2014. Its mailing lists appear to have fizzed out in 2015.

It's mentioned in instructional documentation in several places, such as at Wikipedia:Database download#Mirror building, which is a disservice if it doesn't actually work anymore.

I look forward to your replies.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   12:33, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Edit count aggregations?

Do we have edit count aggregations available in the replica database? Or anyplace else I can query from within toolforge? Right now I'm doing: 

           SELECT count(*)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
           FROM revision_userindex                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
           JOIN actor ON rev_actor = actor_id                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
           WHERE actor_name = %(username)s

which works, but is grossly inefficient. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 04:20, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@RoySmith: If you're okay with some approximation, you should use the user_editcount column on the user table. Otherwise try using actor_revision instead of just actor, which runs a bunch of subqueries behind the scenes. — MusikAnimal talk 04:38, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for that. I knew about the alternate views, but the many flavors of actor is a new twist. This schema never ceases to surprise me. As for user_editcount, it's not clear exactly how up to date that is, but I'll go with it for now. For my purposes, the smaller end of the spectrum is more interesting. Maybe I'll do something like use user_editcount as long as it's >= 1000 and do a revision_userindex scan otherwise. I'll also need deleted edit counts, which I get from archive_index. I suspect those will all be small enough that a full count won't be too expensive. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:22, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Template (or module) returning number of search results

Is there a template (or module) that returns the number of search results (with or without a link to the results page)? Cheers. Guarapiranga (talk) 05:49, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Nope. And it's impossible to make such a template or module as they can't access the API. SD0001 (talk) 12:11, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Query on Template:div col in meta:

Hello,

I am in the process of putting together an overview of instructions for how to add new water fountains and photos of fountains to the open data databases that will power our application. I followed the div col template instructions from wikipedia for our page, but there seems to be some differences between the template usage for the same tags on meta.wikimedia.org

When I the following tags to give some headers for the two columns, neither the colwidth nor the text align seem to be taken into account.

{{div col|colwidth=30em|style="text-align:center"}} Instructions Illustration {{div col end}}


I am new to all this. Thank you for your help. I am choosing the col template over the wikitable format because the floating aspect of the second column is more appropriate for mobile phone visualization.


here is the link to our page : meta:Wikimedia_CH/Project/European_Water_Project

BR, Stuart S2rapoport (talk) 17:29, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I see two columns, one headed "*Instructions" and one headed "*Illustrations", so it looks like it is working. {{Div col}} on meta does not accept |style=, so that part is being ignored. That said, the columns do not look pretty, and your specified width is not working, because the images are large. You may be better off using a wikitable, as in the subsequent section. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:45, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikitables are not flexible and look terrible on the mobile phone. How could I reproduce the div col template with html tags to be able to have full flexibility? What are all the parameters for Div col on meta? Except for the headers the current behaviour on th first table is best for mobiles ans is what I want for the instructions.

Is there a template that allows one to have text plus a toggle text which reveals an image?

Thanks for your help! Stuart — Preceding unsigned comment added by S2rapoport (talk • contribs) 22:44, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Meta's template is, not surprisingly, meta:Template:Div col. At the time that it was created in 2009, it was a straight copy of ours; but things have moved on since then. It accepts the following parameters:
  • |colwidth=
  • |cols= - defaults to 2 (the first positional parameter is an alias for this)
  • |gap= - defaults to 1em
  • |small=
The |cols= parameter is no longer provided in our template, but the other three have basically the same function as with ours. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:20, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@Redrose64 @Jonesey95 thank you again for your advice.

Would it be possible to point me to a wikipedia or meta page where someone has a style section on their page and html. What I have now with the meta:Template:Div col is good enough for our needs, so it will do for now.

Is it possible to use wikipedia templates on meta pages and get the more modern template definitions?

Thx, Stuart S2rapoport (talk) 09:23, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

It is possible to copy the code of a template from en.WP to other Wikimedia instances, but doing so can break existing transclusions of the target template, and if the template has dependencies that are not present or work differently on the target site, the template may not work correctly. You might want to ask on the VPT equivalent at meta for an experienced template editor to enhance Template:div col on meta to work more like the one here. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:25, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
User:MusikAnimal is an admin on meta, he might know who to ask. EdJohnston (talk) 18:30, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
meta:Babel, I suppose? meta:Template:Div col has some 500+ transclusions, mind you. I would be a little cautious about breaking changes. Maybe you could use a bot or script to fix existing transclusions, or just create a new template altogether. — MusikAnimal talk 19:11, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I very much appreciate your advice. The Div col template will sufficient for the next couple of months. We need to focus on some other more pressing technological challenges right now. How can I come back to this message in early February and reach out to you for specific advice when I have time to properly experiment ? I want to make this open data fountain and photo addition instruction page as clear and user friendly as possible - as many of our application users may be non-technical.

If you have any suggestions of how I can make the instructions clearer and friendlier - especially when using a mobile phone, I very welcome constructive input. meta:Wikimedia_CH/Project/European_Water_Project

S2rapoport (talk) 16:41, 12 December 2019 (UTC) Stuart

Range block not working?

Whoops!
 – Working at intended. SQLQuery me! 21:32, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Not sure where better to ask this. Figure someone here will know what's going on. See the log here. This /17 range was blocked in September for six months (compare), but this IP is editing as of today. Not sure how to brain. Is anyone aware of this happening on any other project? GMGtalk 20:28, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo, Odd! It should cover that, see [39], 86.179.128.0/17 should encompass 86.179.128.0 - 86.179.255.255. What's even odder is that .116 and .118 both show the rangeblock. I'd raise a ticket on phab. I tried it on the testwiki, and it seems to work: [40] SQLQuery me! 20:38, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
@SQL: Well I started T240615. Not sure if I did it correctly though. Actually, looking at q:Special:Contributions/86.179.128.0/17, at least two IPs have edited through the range block since September. GMGtalk 20:48, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Making first row of table a heading

I'm embarrassed to ask this because I've done this dozens of time, but I forgot how to make the first row of a table a heading row using VE.

Desired location: Brittney Ezell (the stats table)

Example of correct one: Shalonda_Enis#Alabama_statistics

I tried looking in help:table, and VE User guide but I did not see it.

It's something simple, but I don't recall it.S Philbrick(Talk) 21:37, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: the control has moved around a few times, in VE highlight the entire row of the table, then all the way at the top of the screen (just under the "article", "talk", etc tabs) there is a pull down to change from "content cell" to "header cell". Not a great UX layout for that control IMHO. — xaosflux Talk 00:27, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Guarapiranga (talk) 00:34, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Perhaps an option could be added here:
Guarapiranga (talk) 00:39, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
@Guarapiranga: yes, I think the row/column control should have it - I think at once point it had a little "gear" icon there where you could make "header" or "sort" options, but it is now at the top. — xaosflux Talk 00:50, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Xaosflux, Thanks, maybe you have explained why I couldn't do it. I know I've done it before, but I did a lot in 2015, and perhaps it was changed. S Philbrick(Talk) 01:07, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Mobile interface bug

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T240651

I realize WP:ITSTHURSDAY, so probing if this is a problem for others since I use the advanced mode (whatever that means) on mobile. The buttons which would edit or unwatch a page now have the first letter of the link text overlaid so you'll have an "E..." over the pencil or "U..." over the star. Wug·a·po·des​ 02:45, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Slowdown on WP

Hi. Has anyone else noticed a slowdown over the last 12/24hrs on EN WP? Pages seem to take longer to load, sometimes taking a while to access talkpages too. I've also noticed that the tools box on the left-hand side of the page also takes an age to load too. I've disabled some scripts in my custom css/javascript pages, but that doesn't seem to have helped. Using Firefox in the UK if that helps. Thanks! Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 11:15, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I've noticed it, too. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 11:25, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Alan. Other slowdowns I've noticed - taking ages to save a talkpage, clicking on the "what links here" and trying to view the diffs via the edit history. Please can someone switch something off, and then switch it back on again! Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 12:17, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Same here, though does not appear to affect Wikipedia namespace. Keith D (talk) 12:19, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Well whatever was happening, it seems to be OK now (famous last words...) Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 15:14, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Been happening on and off for me, but a little longer than 24h. More like a day and a half, I think. Assumed it was my internet connection being a PITA again, but if others experienced the same, it probably wasn't on my side for once. Agree that it currently seems to be okay, but I thought that at least thrice yesterday as well, so... AddWittyNameHere 15:24, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
It was driving me nuts earlier today. Doug Weller talk 16:03, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm still finding WP sluggish, even right now. It was very slow earlier today, though. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:26, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
@IJBall: Yeah, been experiencing some slowness on my side today again as well. Always fun when trying to do things that are already mind-numbingly boring repetitive on the best of days... AddWittyNameHere 05:44, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Perhaps some clues can be found in "I was referred here: Wikimedia Foundation error" (below) Pi314m (talk) 22:09, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
Hmmm, same sort of thing is happening again (18:30 UK time) for about the last hour or so. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 18:37, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
possible add'l clue: see Could slowing down be due to TLS 1.2? Pi314m (talk) 06:30, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Userbox in table not moving over to next column / heading

Not sure if this or the help desk is the better place to ask this since it's not really a "bug", but over here on my sandbox page you can see that the UPS and Monopoly userboxes are in the "About me" section, when I would expect they would move over to "Random" because I have used the || formatting in the page source, which should move those two userboxes over to the next column in the table. You can also see the || formatting next to the rightmost userbox, which must mean I must have messed something up. I highly doubt this will help, but for reference, I'm on Chrome on a Windows 10 v1903 machine. Anyone know what I could be doing wrong? --PlanetJuice (talk) 03:32, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Questions that are clearly "how to" questions are for WP:Help desk or WP:Teahouse as you suspected. That's something that's widely misunderstood (it's currently already misunderstood on this page), and I'm feeling too lazy to move this discussion. Just good info to know for future reference. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:39, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
@PlanetJuice: the problem appears to be with Template:User en-us-N, note if you use Template:User en-N there instead it fixes your issue. I don't have time to troubleshoot that template right now, but feel free to give it a look! — xaosflux Talk 04:26, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
This edit should fix it. But I don't see why we need all those variants, can't we all agree that a tomato should be called a tomato instead? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:46, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Toe-mah-toe or toe-may-toe? Quick, there's only one right answer. --Izno (talk) 18:46, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Toe-may-toe for me :P Well, thanks for all the help - I'll make sure to look at the userbox source for any future issues!

Security warning issues

Browsing via Win7/IE11

(Help Desk directed me here)

On Sunday I was machine-advised:

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/sec-warning

Your Browser's Connection Security is Outdated.

Wikipedia is making the site more secure. You are using an old web browser that will not be able to connect to Wikipedia in the future. Please update your device or contact your IT administrator.

I'm using Internet Explorer 11, the highest-numbered release.
I'm using Windows 7 Professional, for which Support from Microsoft ends Jan. 13, 2020,

... and with it IE 11 on Win7.

Aside from Windows 8 (NINE was the German "Nein" = No), Windows 10 will not have a Windows 11 successor - 10 will be followed by 12.

(reminds of "Why is nine afraid of seven - because "seven ate nine")

Even Microsoft Security Essentials will continue to support Win7.. for a while, so why is Wikipedia scared of non-malevolent users of Win7/IE11, and how safe is it for other wiki people to use, if they're on a highway with so many non-inoculatees?

Isn't it time, if Wiki has some clout, to publicize that those running Win7/IE11 are still welcome, and let Microsoft/Dell (from whom I've been buying) know that Apple will be happy to eat their lunch, if they close this part of the dining room. Pi314m (talk) 08:41, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

::*update* @ https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/HTTPS/Browser_Recommendations

(recommended by Wiki's Help Desk)

::: Edit History has 22 updates in 2017, none in 2018, one in 2019, and Win7/IE11 is still recommended. Pi314m (talk) 08:56, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

  • @Pi314m: Could it be that you have not installed all security updates for IE11 or use another software in connection with your browsing (which the message mentions in the bottom (Also it could be interference from corporate or personal "Web Security" software which actually downgrades connection security.))? I just tried accessing Wikipedia from the IE installed on my Windows 7 (version 11.0.9600.19540) and I did not get any such warning. Regards SoWhy 09:03, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Pi314m, This is the TLSv1.0 and TLSv1.1 deprecation effort. Both protocols that are deprecated by all vendors coming january. So that means that your Windows 7 + IE11 combination doesn't support TLS.1.2 While Windows 7 does come with TLSv1.2 (starting from Service Pack 1) it is not enabled by default I think. I'm trying to get some clarification on that. The advise will probably be: Use MS Edges/Firefox/Chrome instead of IE11 or modify your Windows registry to enable TLS 1.2 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:08, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
    FWIW, I definitely didn't make any changes to my configuration but "Enable TLS 1.2" as mentioned by xaosflux below is activated in my settings. So Pi314m has likely either a non-updated version of Windows 7 or somehow deactivated that setting. Regards SoWhy 13:21, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Just for fun I fired up a W7/IE11 and it worked just fine, in MSIE11 there is a checkbox to "Enable TLS 1.2" in Internet Options - > Advanced - > (Security section). — xaosflux Talk 12:31, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
    Also I have no idea what you are editing with, but you have made a mess with all those <p> tags - hopefully you never introduce those to an article. — xaosflux Talk 12:32, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T238038

Browsing via Win7/IE11 (MORE)

I've done lots of edits in the past hours since reporting the SEC-WARNING; moments ago was the SECOND time. I did not change any settings. Pi314m (talk) 23:29, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

New security warning: syntax error and API challenge

The new security warning page "Your Browser's Connection Security is Outdated" has two problems. First, when wrapped using the query API it doesn't parse as valid XML. The .NET method XmlDocument.Load, applied to the incoming stream, complains:

The 'img' start tag on line 21 position 38 does not match the end tag of 'a'. Line 22, position 3.

I see the offending HTML has an <img> tag posing as an attribute of an <a> tag. That does need to be fixed.

Second: as I'm using code based on HttpClient.GetStreamAsync() to read a page, I don't know how to fix the "please get more secure" message. Maybe I've not set it to use SSL properly, and I'll try to research what needs fixing, but has anyone else come across this as an API regression and can suggest a fix? David Brooks (talk) 18:49, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@DavidBrooks: the sec-warning page isn't managed here on the English Wikipedia, please open a bug report on phabricator for any corrections needed there. Check your TLS version settings, you should have version 1.2 enabled. — xaosflux Talk 19:05, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
In case anyone else has the same problem: I'm still using fx 4.5. Apparently upgrading to 4.8 would help (and maybe have to set the SslProtocols property of the HttpClientHandler), but I have a number of legacy apps. If staying with 4.5, a fix is to add this before constructing the HttpClientHandler:
System.Net.ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Tls12;
Unfortunately this won't automatically upgrade to another protocol should it become required; the SystemDefault setting is not available in 4.5. David Brooks (talk) 21:04, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
I'll add: I had completely lost sight of the fact that the API is returning HTML (valid HTML at that) when it is expecting well-formed XML in the usual API syntax. It just happened to contain an unclosed <IMG> element that is OK in HTML5. The phabricator bug opines that it should at least return a normal XML return with an <warnings> entry. David Brooks (talk) 05:26, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Access to Wikipedia from my home computer was cut off 22 days before the announced deadline

I'll have to buy a new computer or device in order to meet the stupid new encryption protocol requirements, but I assumed in good faith that I would have until Jan 1st. to do so, since that what it says on the page https://en.wikipedia.org/sec-warning . Instead, access was cut off on December 9th, 22 days earlier than the announced deadline, meaning I can't access Wikipedia or any Wikimedia.org sites other than the https://en.wikipedia.org/sec-warning page itself from my home computer. I'm currently on a library computer, but I really can't spend much time at the library, and I doubt that I'll practically be able to buy a new device much before Jan 1st anyway, due to various holiday limitations and obligations, so this moving of the encryption-protocol guillotine to 22 days before its previously-announced date is highly inconvenient and annoying to me... AnonMoos (talk) 00:45, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

AnonMoos, You probably don't need to buy a new device but just need to update your browser: see wikitech:HTTPS/Browser_Recommendations for advice on that. Galobtter (pingó mió) 00:56, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
Nope, I most definitely need to buy a new device -- Mozilla 3.6.28 is about the best my existing computer can do. AnonMoos (talk) 01:08, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
Sounds like you are a prisoner of Windows! Have you ever considered installing Linux on the old computer, the common way to breathe new life into old hardware. Elizium23 (talk) 04:23, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
Or given Firefox early version history, possibly Mac OS X Tiger (EOL 2012) or PowerPC Macs (similar date I imagine for hardware support). (How do computers get that old and not die on their own?)
Linux is probably the next best step.
As for the date, it was likely some percentage of computers and not all; the last time this was done (for Windows XP + IE7), I think the final date for all users was published. Users excluded were gradually added in waves prior to that date (I think it was 10/25/50/100% of readers by week or something). --Izno (talk) 04:57, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
I would strongly tend to doubt whether Linux is any kind of magic silver bullet for my situation. I have a Mandrake 9.1 DVD, which I know works on my computer, but do the double-digit versions of FireFox necessary to get around the encryption protocol nonsense run on Mandrake 9.1? Would a significantly more recent version of the operating system work on my hardware? AnonMoos (talk) 23:25, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Also, I get the same result whether I'm logged-in or not. AnonMoos (talk) 23:25, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
How I read it was that the sec-warning page will forcibly be shown until January 1, after which you won't be able to connect to Wikipedia at all (including the sec-warning page). — MusikAnimal talk 04:59, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
Ah yes, that's how it is. --Izno (talk) 05:06, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
MusikAnimal, easy to misinterpret though... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:17, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

sec-warning redux

Not 67.81.173.178 but I can spill the details out. I have a first generation iPad from Christmas 2011 and still works okay.

The sad truth is after I looked at an intermediate revision of a Nickelodeon themed article named Sam and Cat on Monday I went back to the contribs page of MPFitz1968 instead it redirected back to a security warning aka Browser Connection Security Issues.

It was never supposed to happen at all as what the article about said message on Wikitech because it interferes with older browsers and models. That must be fixed.

Ceasing transmissions,

47.16.146.238 (talk) 20:25, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Could slowing down be due to TLS 1.2?

Now that people are disabling TLS 1.0 and 1.1, leaving 1.2, is it possible that the CPU requirement for TLS 1.2 is sufficiently higher to be the cause of the reported slowdowns? Here's a recent example:

  • If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below.
    • Request from 64.24.9.9 via cp1089 frontend, Varnish XID 366290093
    • Error: 503, Backend fetch failed at Fri, 13 Dec 2019 05:23:26 GMT

Pi314m (talk) 06:15, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

That error is a 503 error, meaning there was an issue with the Wikimedia servers and not with the user's computer. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:11, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Pi314m, if you have TLS1.2 enabled, it is preferred over older stuff. Everyone capable of TLSv1.2 was already on it, those not capable are still connecting in the exact same way (unless they themselves changed something), they are just not reaching Wikimedia webpages (and after january 1 they aren't reaching wikimedia at all any longer). Technically: for a small percentage of users the web routing was changed, but the connection method has not changed at all until january 1. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:38, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
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