MediaWiki talk:Histlegend/Archive 1

Guidelines
Added more guidelines per discussion at Village_pump_%28proposals%29. &mdash; Catherine\talk 17:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep in mind that some of us actually use the history page on a regular basis. Having to scroll down before the actual history shows up is extremely counterproductive. --Carnildo 20:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That is very true. Count me in as one of them. -- S iva1979 Talk to me  22:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Better wording
Would it be better to describe the "difference" parts of the legend as "difference from" rather than "difference with"? --Carnildo 06:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Arrow
Sorry for incorrectly "fixing" the arrow. Shouldn't we have both though? Superm401 - Talk 18:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I added the right-facing arrow. Superm401 - Talk 01:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Corrections
∴ Alex Smotrov 01:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The "→" does link to section, but not to "section edit"
 * If my browser window is really narrow, everything breaks into many lines, but not this part, why is it so special? Please remove all &amp;nbps; inside
 * It makes sense to make the whole text smaller because " " line (with real navigation links) is right next to it

Line wrapping
I saw that this MediaWiki message was using a lot of  tags to make the message only line wrap after each sentence. I changed it to using hardcoded span nowrap tags to make the message text much easier to edit.

It would be even easier to edit the message if we changed to using nowrap begin and its helper templates. I would like to do that change, but I guess the reason this message was using all those  tags was to avoid being dependant on a nowrap template, thus some might object. So does anyone object that I change it to using nowrap begin and its helper templates? They are fully protected and they are well tested. And my edit won't change the appearance of the message, it will still only line wrap after each sentence.

--David Göthberg (talk) 19:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, I used that ugly code because I didn't know that a cleaner method existed. Thanks for performing the switch!  :-)
 * Regarding the use of a template, my one concern would be the added overhead, though I don't know the extent to which this would be a factor. The message is not edited often, so it seems logical to use such templates only if the resultant server drain is negligible.  —David Levy 20:30, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * People occasionally copy the text of Wikipedia's MediaWiki messages for their own wiki. Adding a template dependency is a bit rude, I think. The &lt;span>s look fine and work. But, /me shrugs. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the comments. You guys have convinced me. So better leave it with the hardcoded span tags and not use templates. And yeah, the span tags are not that messy, so looks okay.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 22:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

stats.grok.se
On the subject of external tools, would anyone object to a link to page view statistics at stats.grok.se? I'm getting tired of cut&pasting URLs. :) henrik  • talk  19:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, I love stats.grok.se ! So I would love if you added a link to that one, it would be very convenient.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 20:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds reasonable to me. Meant to comment yesterday but forgot. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 21:17, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Does such a link really belong on the history page? Wouldn't it be better in the sidebar or somesuch? --Carnildo (talk) 22:33, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I will of course abide by consensus here whether it is appropriate or not, but my reasoning was that there already was precedent for linking external tools here and that the statistics are primarily intended for editors, who are likely to use the history page. (Plus it shows traffic history, so having it linked from the history tab isn't completely off the wall :-) Putting a link in the sidebar toolbox for example would be much more prominent, and I'm not the number of views are interesting enough to be displayed so visibly. The idea came from es.wikipedia.org, which has had the stats site linked in their es:MediaWiki:Histlegend . henrik  • talk  11:45, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

How about making it show the most recent statistics rather than the statistics for the previous month? It can be done by finding:

Page view statistics

And replacing it with:

Page view statistics

Gary King ( talk ) 16:35, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Gary King: I disagree. The link to the statistics for the current month is pretty worthless in the beginning of the month, when it just shows one or some days. And in the middle of the month it is bad too since the value is not comparable over time. If the counter could show the last 30 days then that would of course be nice. But since it can only show a whole calender month then I agree with the default for that counter, to show the previous month so you get the value for a whole month.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 17:53, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * True, but I've always figured that the user would be expecting to see the most recent information when clicking that link. Gary King  ( talk ) 18:09, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I plan on modifying the "latest" URL to always show the last 30 days, regardless of where in the month we are. But right now (tomorrow actually) I'm moving to a new town and starting at a new job, so I'm a tad busy packing at the moment. henrik  • talk  18:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Gary King: I find both ways are confusing. So I think we should link the users to the most useful of the two ways. (Which is what we are currently doing.)
 * Henrik: Ah, that would be lovely! But no rush, the stats is mostly a luxury function. Although it is very useful for us as editors to know which articles get more visitors, thus we know which articles to prioritise. Although I admit I simply stick to editing the articles I am interested in, since hey, I am not paid to edit Wikipedia.
 * And it is very encouraging and motivating to see that even the most niched and exotic articles one have written gets about 800-1000 visitors a month. Actually, that is perhaps the most important aspect of your counter, that it encourages us to keep on editing! Come to think of it, that probably makes your counter an important tool. :))
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 20:49, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Disabling editprotected request because (a) there are several admins watching this discussion; and (b) Henrik is going to fix this up when he has time. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:58, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Fix the traffic statistics link
editprotected

Find:

Page view statistics

Replace with:

Page view statistics

This is needed because otherwise, slashes (/) will be encoded and so the link will not work for subpages. The urlencode is unnecessary because the tool can read : just as well as %3A. Gary King ( talk ) 20:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅ Done - Gary King: I tested and you were of course right, so I did the update. Thanks for catching that bug. --David Göthberg (talk) 21:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Tool removed due to ads
As noted at Administrators' noticeboard, http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl?lang=en.wikipedia now has a huge Google AdSense advert in the middle of its results page, so I have temporarily removed the link, pending discussion here. Perhaps if the cost of hosting the tool is an issue for its creator (de:Benutzer:Aka), it could be moved to the toolserver? fish &amp;karate 14:08, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * In the meantime, you could add this tool. —AlexSm 15:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Cool, added as "enhanced revision history" - feel free to rename if you can think of anything better. fish &amp;karate 15:26, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the creator of the tool should be urged to move it to toolserver. He/She is breaking Googles TOS too by (indirectly) asking the users to click on the ads. But anyway, if cost is his/her concern, then toolserver can host it. Wikipedia shouldn't endorse / promote moneymaking tools. --Ragib (talk) 17:21, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

editprotected


 * Why is it called "Enhanced"? "Revision history statistics" was a good name before and it's still a good name for this one. "Enhanced" can really mean anything; "statistics" promises you numbers to play with. I also suggest appending " " to the end of the URL so that the results are automatically grouped by the user and sorted in descending order by edits, just like it was before. Gary King  ( talk ) 17:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I left a note for Aka on his talk page on de-wp. – Sadalmelik ☎ 18:01, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Can we have more discussion on the suggestion I gave above, about renaming the link and perhaps appending the code to the URL, to make the new statistics page function like the last one? Gary King  ( talk ) 20:20, 8 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. --Elonka 05:31, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Done. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:35, 9 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with the changes. That is, since there now are advertising on the old tool it was good to switch to the new tool that AlexSm suggested. I also like the name "Revision history statistics" best. And I like the addition of " " that Gary King suggested, otherwise the new tool really didn't add anything extra compared to the normal history list. I see that MZMcBride already have done the update.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 21:55, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

"Revision history search" is broken
editprotected

It's currently returning a 403 error. Perhaps it should be removed until this is resolved so that people don't get confused when they click on it and it doesn't do what they expected.

Remove the following code from the template:

Revision history search ·

Gary King ( talk ) 04:02, 13 November 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅ Done - Right, I think I agree, so I removed the link for now. Here is the link clickable so we easily can check if it works again: Revision history search
 * If/when it works again then please put it back if you're an admin, or do a new editprotected request if you're not an admin.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 05:40, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

editprotected

It's back. Someone can feel free to re-add it by undoing the last edit. Gary King ( talk ) 15:05, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅  Stwalkerster  [  talk  ]  16:35, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Hm, it's broken again. Someone want to remove it, then re-add it when it starts working again? Gary King  ( talk ) 01:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * WikiBlame is fixed now. Thanks for your patience. --Flominator (talk) 07:52, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I think 200909 could corret to. -Istcol (talk) 14:49, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I thought of that when I saw the edit earlier (don't know why this page is on my watchlist), but hadn't got round to working out the #time function. ✅ —  Tivedshambo   (t/c) 15:20, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

links to stats break for some pages
If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=*********_Lane&action=history or anything else with * (say http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=****_Live_in_Phoenix&action=history ) the link to stats.grok.se is broken


 * ✅ To fix this, in this interface page, Page view statistics needs to be replaced with Page view statistics Gary King  ( talk ) 16:20, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't work right for pages with spaces (e.g., it'll show the stats for Main+Page instead of Main_Page). Any other ideas on how to work around this? — RockMFR 17:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that. This should do the trick:

Page view statistics


 * It works fine on pages with special characters in their names and those with spaces, or even those with both. I'm not sure how slow this would be, though. Gary King  ( talk ) 18:42, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The devs would hurt us if we used str find in the interface :) BTW, the bug for this issue is 12974. — RockMFR 18:55, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Link to WikiBlame not correct for me
editprotected

If I click on the link to WikiBlame, I have it in Czech language, which is correct, because my browser is set to Czech. But the field “Language” is set to “cs”, which is incorrect. To fix that, please replace

Revision history search

with

Revision history search

Svick (talk) 18:17, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 12:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

British English
editprotected Could be the tools on this page added also to the British English version of this page? I encountered several confused users (most recent is at WP:VPT) who were complaining that the tools disappeared, not realizing that they caused it by changing their preferences. Svick (talk) 23:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 23:46, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Which would be MediaWiki:Histlegend/en-gb btw. If any future reader ever wonders. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 23:47, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Svick (talk) 00:12, 19 January 2010 (UTC)


 * As we usually do: I changed it from your hardcoded version to instead be a redirect to MediaWiki:Histlegend so the British English users get the latest updated version at all times. If they want to change the wording then they need separate code again. The other option we often use is to transclude the main message onto the /en-gb message if a redirect doesn't work. But I tested, in this case the redirect works fine.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 10:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Are you sure you tested OK? The redirect doesn't seem to work here using en-GB.
 * When I view an edit history, the top of the page now displays:
 * "1. REDIRECT MediaWiki:Histlegend"
 * I think you need to use the transclusion method instead, or revert the redirect.
 * — Richardguk (talk) 14:09, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I transcluded the page instead, seems to be ok-- Jac 16888 Talk 14:49, 19 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Richardguk: That's odd, I did change "my preferences" to "en-GB - British English" and tested to view the history of some pages and all looked okay. Most system messages don't have a delay in when changes to them get visible, but in this case there seems to have been a delay. Anyway, transcluding the message seems to work well.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 15:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't urlencode links to WikiBlame
editprotected

Hi there, with reference to this ticket, I'd like to ask you, to please change the link to my tool in the following manner:

http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php?lang=en&article=

http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php?lang=en&article=

Would that be possible? --Flominator (talk) 17:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 14:07, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Better "Revision history statistics"
I added a link to a much more detailed tool for revision history statistics, http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/articleinfo/. I kept the previous tool http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php, and renamed it to "Contributors". Actually, that tool appears to offer only a small subset of the new tool's features, so it is now redundant and could be removed entirely.

Hopefully there will be no major problems with this change. Thanks. --Seattle Skier (talk) 07:00, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Fix WikiBlame link
editprotected

WikiBlame is unavailable at the moment (and has been for a few days, for about a week I think), but an alternative on the same site but a different URL is available. It seems to do the exact same thing, so please change the URL here to the new one. Gary King ( talk  ·  scripts )  05:12, 27 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done --Seattle Skier (talk) 06:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Please revert it to http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php, since the other one causes a lot more traffic and the old one is fixed by now. --Flominator (talk) 08:31, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done. Reverted back to old link. --Seattle Skier (talk) 00:54, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Please change limit from 50 to 500. Thanks, --Flominator (talk) 19:34, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

New tool for consideration
I've created a tool which I'd like to propose adding to the history legend. The tool allows you to search for a single user's contributions to one page. As far as I know, there is no other way to find out this information (i.e. find all edits that a particular user has ever made to WP:ANI). I honestly think this is something that should be built into the Mediawiki interface, but until that day comes this tool should be helpful. The main input form for the tool can be found at http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/usersearch.html however if a link is added to the history legend, it should be in this format:
 * http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/cgi-bin/usersearch.cgi?name=  &page= 
 * where   is the username of the user who clicked on the link (this is the default behavior, note that nothing is stopping anyone from using the tool to look up other users)
 * and where   is an escaped version of the page title.

Please let me know if you think this would be a useful tool to add to this page, and if you think any improvements are necessary before it is added. I eventually want to add support for other wikis besides enwiki, but that will take awhile and shouldn't affect the tool's use on enwiki. &mdash;SW&mdash; chat 21:53, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks pretty good to me. Gary King  ( talk  ·  scripts )  00:16, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Here are some basic questions:
 * Is the source code publicly available for redistribution, like GPL or public domain?
 * I see that your recoding IP connection information. Are scripts running to purge this information after 30 days and required by our privacy policy?
 * It would be preferable if you integrated the HTML start page with your tool, especially since people are likely to search with multiple names.
 * It fails the W3C HTML validator (also don't mixing HTML4 with XHTML styles)
 * You still need to escape all your outputs, there's a stored XSS attack. Use the goddamn code I gave you for printing HTML.  And please switch from MySQLdb to the more secure oursql.
 * — Dispenser 01:33, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I honestly haven't even thought about that. Is it important one way or another?  The code really isn't all that sophisticated or complicated, and I have no plans to make money from it, so I really couldn't care less if it's available for redistribution.  I'd probably prefer to not make it publicly available, just because that makes it easier for someone to analyze the code and figure out ways to hack it.
 * Yes, I keep a simple log of who has used the tool, in order to assess potential abuse of the tool. I'm not aware of the privacy policy you're referring to.  Is this a toolserver policy or a wikipedia policy?  The only reference to 30 days I could find is the Wikimedia privacy policy which mandates that browser cookies persist for no longer than 30 days, and I'm not sure that external sites like toolserver are even obligated to follow Wikimedia and Wikipedia privacy policies.  In any case, this information will never be made publicly available.
 * I'm not sure what you mean by integrating the HTML start page with the tool. The results page (i.e. the cgi page) includes a form which can be used to start another search without going back to the form page.
 * I'll look into this, particularly if there is an actual issue which affects browser compatibility.
 * Ok, first of all, relax. Secondly, I'm pretty sure I'm escaping everything that could potentially be affected by a user.  Thirdly, let's put this all into perspective.  What is the true extent of the XSS "attacks" that would be possible, assuming I wasn't properly escaping all of the output?  Someone would be able to send a javascript alert to themselves?  God forbid someone would hack my code to be able to create their own SQL query and find out all of Wikipedia's secrets, saving themselves a full 2 weeks of time it would take to just get their own toolserver account and query to their heart's content.  If there is some particular output which is not escaped and is vulnerable to attack, let me know and I'll fix it, and if there is a tangible reason why the oursql library is better than MySQLdb, please explain it to me and I will evaluate it.
 * I'm available to discuss on IRC if there are specific, legitimate security concerns which need to be addressed. &mdash;SW&mdash; confess 03:37, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * FYI - I found some outputs which were not escaped and fixed them. I also saw that there was one error with the W3C HTML validator.  It doesn't like the way I'm specifying the character encoding of the page.  I have no idea how to fix it, but tried unsuccessfully nonetheless.  If this is actually affecting browser compatibility, let me know.  Otherwise, I'm going to ignore it.  Just as a comparison, I used the validator on the google home page and it found 39 errors.  It only found one error on my page.  &mdash;SW&mdash; converse 16:34, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I've also added functionality to the tool to automatically resolve redirects, as well as a checkbox to suppress this behavior in case you really want to search through the edit history of a redirect. &mdash;SW&mdash; yak 18:24, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

&larr; "I'm not sure that external sites like toolserver are even obligated to follow Wikimedia and Wikipedia privacy policies." Toolserver users are bound by the toolserver privacy policy which states, among other things, that "You are bound by the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy governing the collection and handling of private user data, include IP addresses, cookies, and other information from request headers." Please ensure compliance. – xeno talk 19:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * FYI - My tools don't use any cookies and any other information collected (for discovering potential abuse of the tool) is collected in compliance of the wikimedia's privacy policy, to the best of my knowledge. &mdash;SW&mdash; gab 22:36, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * So the IP data will be "automatically deleted after a set period"? – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 22:45, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, it will be manually deleted after a set period, with the set period being on the order of 6 months. I don't currently have an automated system for deleting the logs, but I suppose it would be trivial to make one. <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#0a0 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#00a 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> prattle 23:26, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Six months is twice as long as the WMF retains data. Could you make it 3? – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 23:31, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see why not. Once any of my tools get to be 3+ months old, I'll probably write a quick script to trim the logs every day and add it to my crontab.  <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#0a0 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#0a0 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> yak 23:38, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 12:58, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * fwiw, this tool looks very similar to contribs-by-article, written by user:Stephen Bain. John Vandenberg (chat) 20:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Implementation
There don't appear to be any objections. The link that needs to be added is: Your edits I'm assuming that is the appropriate way to get the viewing user's username inserted into the url, although I'm not sure if there is a better way to do this in the Mediawiki namespace. I'm also open to suggestions for the link text; "Your edits" was the first thing that came to mind, since the link will bring the user to a page which shows any edits they have made to the current page. <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#5a0 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#0a0 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> soliloquize 18:07, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks good. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:58, 31 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I think this is exploiting a bug in, and it could have some caching implications as the history tab needs to be different for every logged in user.  That variable should not display the logged in user.  see 19006. -- John Vandenberg (chat) 20:17, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * ...and it looks like once the code review is complete, it won't any longer. Good eye. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 20:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I've removed the tool for the moment. If it can be re-implemented so that it accepts parameters for page title without being passed a user name, and then prompts the user for a username, the tool can go back in. John Vandenberg (chat) 20:32, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there not a valid variable which can be used to get the logged in user (or IP, if not logged in)? <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#a00 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#00a 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> spill the beans 21:11, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * That bugzilla John linked refers to "CURRENTUSER" but it doesn't seem to be a magicword that functions here. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 21:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * That bugzilla thread refers to, but that doesn't appear to be implemented.  On another topic, it might be worth noting that  has behaved this way for quite some time, so suddenly changing the way it works could end up breaking a lot of existing stuff.  <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#00a -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#5a0 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> gab 21:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It will certainly break those editnotices that refer to you by name while editing a user talk page. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 21:28, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Is it reliably buggy? If I visit and click the "Your edits" link, I see edits made by, not by me. As an experienced computer programmer, I have learned never to rely on undocumented features, or serendipitous bugs. After a while, they get fixed (for better or for worse) and so won't always behave in the same manner. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:33, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Yup, I've got one of those edit notices. I'm sure there are loads of templates out there that use it too.  For what it's worth, there seemed to be relatively high demand for this tool.  The link has only been on this page for a few days, but from the moment the link was added it got 300-500 hits per day.  Seems like a no-brainer for something to be added to the mediawiki software.
 * As for it being reliably buggy, I don't know. It might act differently on oldid pages.  I've been using it for a long time thinking that was the intended use for it, and I've never noticed it behave any differently.  Here's a test, this should be your username:  <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#00a -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#0a0 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> confabulate 21:36, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * My name is not Snottywong. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:39, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * REVISIONUSER is meant to show the editor of the revision being viewed. So after I save this it will say "Xeno" (until someone else edits the page). – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 21:49, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Guess I should fix my edit notice then. Looks like this "bug" has been fixed.  <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#0a0 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#00a 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> comment 22:11, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The bug is still live, for now anyway. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 22:13, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I've modified the tool to work under the constraints that REVISIONUSER is no longer available, despite the fact that it would be ideal to not have to enter your username manually each time. The link should now be http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/usersearch.html?page= however it doesn't make much sense to have the link text be "Your edits" anymore, under the circumstances. I'm not sure what the best link text would be, maybe "User edits" or "Edits by user"? So, the full link that needs to be added would be something like this: Edits by user <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#00a -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#0a0 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> confabulate 22:32, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * One way to make this function more like a "Your edits" button (for frequent users, anyway) is to allow them to store their preferred target username as a cookie. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 12:58, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ John Vandenberg (chat) 23:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've changed the link text to "User edits", because with my screen reader, I navigate the history page by using a "list links" feature and press the first letter of the title of the link that I want to view. Therefore to get to the "Earliest" link (which I often do because of my work here), I simply tap the "E" key once then press enter. A link entitled "Edits by user" completely messes up that system for me. BTW there is already a tool to do this: Per-page contributions; it's linked from Tools. Graham 87 09:03, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, that tool is mentioned above. Anyway, the currently linked tool does not work if I just type "graham87" into the edit box rather than "Graham87"; the first letter of the username should really be case-insensitive. Graham 87 09:09, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm, it used to do that but it must have snuck out of the most recent revision. It's fixed now.  <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#5a0 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#5a0 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> spout 14:48, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. And it also doesn't respond correctly when I type "Wikipedia:village pump (technical)". The first letter after the colon should also be case-insensitive. Graham 87 15:24, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

category tools
There are several really useful category tools which we could add when viewing the history of a category page, such as CatScan (e.g. ) John Vandenberg (chat) 08:32, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Expired account
'Revision history statistics' goes to X!'s expired account. Can someone update the link or remove it for now? jonkerz ♠talk 07:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed, thank you for reporting it Petrb (talk) 12:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The "Revision history statistics" link now leads to a page that simply says "This tool no longer exists". Could a friendly admin please remove the link? — This, that, and the other (talk) 04:18, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yellow check.svg Partly done: I've, and also dropped a note at User talk:TParis. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:42, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

https compliant please
Could some kindly admin please update this interface page to be https compliant please? In other words, change  to become   by removing the   part and whatever else, similar to the way MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer is compliant. Thanks in advance. 64.40.54.166 (talk) 19:29, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've done that only for the toolserver links, since the other links are not https compliant or have unverifiable certificates. Reaper Eternal (talk) 22:15, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * 64.40.54.83 (talk) 10:51, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Please add Revision history statistics
The Revision history statistics tool was last summer when the tool died. It was a couple months ago. has the tool running again on WP:LABS at [//tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/articleinfo //tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/articleinfo]. Could a kindly admin please add the tool back to the Histlegend, please? It should look something like this  Thanks in advance. 64.40.54.202 (talk) 03:34, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅, thanks! Legoktm (talk) 09:02, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * 64.40.54.201 (talk) 01:56, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Title of "Edits by user" tool
I just noticed [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Histlegend&diff=585650851&oldid=564853454 this edit] by Scottywong that, along with updating the link, also changed its title from "User edits" to "Edits by user". I had originally changed the title to "User edits" for accessibility reasons (see my comment in this section). I just thought it was worth noting that these accessibility issues no longer exist now that the "Earliest" link on the history page has been renamed to "Oldest", so I'm fine with this change now. I've modified the title of the tool on MediaWiki:Pageinfo-footer as well. Graham 87 04:54, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm ok with whatever you want to name it. When I changed the link, I thought that "User edits" was not very descriptive, and it might not be obvious what it is.  Feel free to change it at will.  <span style="font:small-caps 1.2em Garamond,Times,serif;color:#224422;letter-spacing:0.2em;">‑Scottywong <span style="font:0.75em Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;color:#774477;">| confess _  21:32, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Suggested overhaul based on changes to similar notices/dashboards
With the recent modifications to the Recent Changes & WatchList notices that now include a nifty collapsible Legend, I was wondering why not Histlegend too?

Anyway, I came up with my own overhaul of this over on Wikisource (see s:Template:Histlegend ) & thought somebody over here might be inclined to mirror it. -- George Orwell III (talk) 02:51, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Revision history search: new blame or crufty-seeming old WikiBlame?
A faster, more thorough alternative to WikiBlame (http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php) is Xtools' Article Blamer (https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/blame/index.php), so I suggest we link "Revision history search" to it instead. Agreed? --Elvey (talk) 08:16, 28 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I propose we replace


 * Revision history search
 * with
 * Revision history search.
 * Although the article= is currently ignored, it's good to pass it, assuming it'll be fixed anon. xtools blame is already significantly better than WikiBlame (which has served us very well for a long time).  --Elvey (talk) 03:17, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment: I generally support this suggested change, as the xtools version seems to be faster, and is locally hosted, and isn't caps-sensitive. My only concerns are (1) the php error message currently at the top of the results pages. ("Notice: Undefined variable: title in /data/project/xtools/public_html/blame/index.php on line 159 Notice: Undefined variable: title in /data/project/xtools/public_html/blame/index.php on line 167 Notice: Undefined variable: title in /data/project/xtools/public_html/blame/index.php on line 167") Can this be either fixed, or safely ignored? and (2) The additional options that WikiBlame seems to offer - will we be losing anything useful here, and/or can the best features of each be merged into one? (Also: Pinging X! and Flominator for their input. Also, I've added/tweaked the links in your initial post, hope that's ok :) –Quiddity (talk) 21:07, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 2 March 2014 - page views
Please could we add a link to User:Mr.Z-man's outstanding tool on toolserver (http://toolserver.org/~alexz/pop/graph.php) which shows trends back 5 years. It can be shown alongside the existing (User:Henrik's) editcount visualiser (http://stats.grok.se) which only shows 30-90 days. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:26, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Oncenawhile (talk) 23:26, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Is there no toollabs version of this tool? Toolserver is slated to be shut down this year, and I'd be weary of adding new links to it at this point. If this link to a Toolserver version was to be added, it should be an internal link tools:~alexz/pop/graph.php]] — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (t • e • c) 23:44, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I've left a more detailed comment at Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 13, which is a better place for a discussion. Mr.Z-man 04:07, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 12 May 2014
Shouldn't the link to Contributors stats be converted to tools.wmflabs.org?  Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 16:29, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, as the toolserver is going to be decommissioned before too long. What's the link that it should be replaced with? — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 09:36, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know, I hoped that somebody will know. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 13:30, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it looks like there isn't a replacement that can be used at the moment. You could ask the Toolserver tool author, User:Duesentrieb, to port the tool over to Labs, or failing that, WP:VPT might be a good place to ask. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 21:34, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Two identical links
toolserver.org, which is the link under "Contributors", is a redirection to tools.wmflabs.org, which is the link under "Revision history statistics". Thus, the two links lead to exactly the same page. One of them should be removed. --Theurgist (talk) 21:32, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * editprotected
 * ✅. — xaosflux  <sup style="color:#00FF00;">Talk  21:49, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

hlist
Please convert this template to hlist. Converting to hlist results to more cleaner code on the template and makes easier for other wiki to use enwiki templates as other wikis use different kind of bullet. I did this conversion on my sandbox. Thank you –ebraminiotalk 08:54, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 18:47, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 13 October 2014
Diff selection: Mark the radio boxes of the revisions to compare and hit enter or the button at the bottom.

Legend: ' = difference with latest revision, ' = difference with preceding revision,  = minor edit.

· Page views · [//outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=&action=info#mw-pageinfo-watchers Number of watchers] ·  Revision history search ·  [//tools.wmflabs.org/usersearch/index.html?page=&server=outreachwiki Edits by user]

This proposed change has been posted on the Village Pump at Outreach wiki (here).

Thanks for your consideration. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 22:33, 13 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Edits to MediaWiki:Histlegend here at the English Wikipedia only affect the English Wikipedia which already has links to the tools you suggest, but your links go to versions which would make reports about pages at https://outreach.wikimedia.org and not about the page whose history a user is viewing here at the English Wikipedia. I suspect your request was intended for outreach:MediaWiki talk:Histlegend, but Outreach does not have the same templates and procedures as us and your request would have to be made in some other way I don't know. English Wikipedia admins cannot edit outreach:MediaWiki:Histlegend, but I see Quiddity has already made the edit based on your post at outreach:Wikimedia:Village pump. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:01, 13 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, PrimeHunter. My mistake. Thanks, Quiddity. You're the best. :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 23:19, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Stats on French version
Hello,

Can the French subpage MediaWiki:Histlegend/fr have the same statistics tools as the standard page ?

Here is the translated code : Outils externes :
 * [//tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-articleinfo/index.php?article=&lang=en&wiki=wikipedia Auteurs et statistiques]
 * Rechercher l'auteur d'un passage de l'article
 * [//tools.wmflabs.org/usersearch/index.html?page= Contributions par utilisateur]
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=&action=info#mw-pageinfo-watchers Nombre de contributeurs qui suivent cette page]
 * Statistiques de consultation

Légende : Zebulon84 (talk) 18:38, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * (actu) = différence avec la version actuelle
 * (diff) = différence avec la version précédente
 * m = modification mineure


 * Done. I added a  which appeared to be missing after "mineure". PrimeHunter (talk) 02:02, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Adding a link to "?action=info" on top of history page
We have lots of links to external tools at the top of history pages to query data (like number of watchers), but we also have the functionality to do this with internal data sources using "?action=info" in the url. For example, for the Novel page. I realize that this is in the lefthand column of the UX, but for new readers of history pages, who may not know where to look, the External links look like the only information about that page (for example, I was not aware we had this link, until today, and I have been editing for 8 years: I always thought my only options for those pieces of day were the external links). Could we add a link to "Page Information" before the external links? Sadads (talk) 17:35, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * One of the links should read "Number of watchers" (second to last), which brings you to  &mdash;  MusikAnimal  talk  17:39, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Link to Main Page history on the Main Page history
I propose adding this to the top of MediaWiki:Histlegend:

On the history of Main Page it would display:
 * See Main Page history for former contents of the main page.

Main Page mainly consists of transcluded templates so the page history is nearly useless for people who want to see the former contents. Interface code for a single page may seem odd but the main page is viewed far more than any other page, most of the content is replaced every day, and we can link to a page which does show the former contents. MediaWiki:Common.css and other css and js pages also include code which is only used on the main page. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:55, 28 June 2015 (UTC)


 * How would editors interested in the actual edits to the template structure access the history as it appears now? It seems it would be forcibly hidden and only available by crafting the URL. <b style="font-family:Times New Roman; color:maroon;">Modest Genius</b> talk 14:20, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean. The only change with the suggested edit is adding this to the top of https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=history: "See Main Page history for former contents of the main page." The current content would still be there. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:30, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh I see. I thought that would hide the page, not just appear above it. My mistake, apologies. <b style="font-family:Times New Roman; color:maroon;">Modest Genius</b> talk 10:27, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Stats.grok.se KO since 2016-01-21
Hi Histlegend. The stats on stats.grok.se are really useful. Unfortunately, they have been no longer given since 2016/01/21. Would you know why ? Thanks Hippo75 (talk) 11:57, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * You are talking to an interface page for the MediaWiki software and not a user. stats.grok.se is an external tool operated by a single user with a talk page at User talk:Henrik, but there are already multiple posts about it and he hasn't edited since 2014. It's also discussed at Village pump (technical). PrimeHunter (talk) 12:29, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you PrimeHunter Hippo75 (talk) 12:40, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

"Number of watchers" link
Cross-referencing this discussion: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)&oldid=564839538#MediaWiki:Histlegend_and_the_watcher_tool>. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:51, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

From page mentioned above: 'switch out the "Number of watchers" link with a non-external tool […] however this change will mean that the label ("External tools") is no longer completely accurate, as the info action is not an external tool'. It looks like it has been switched, but the mentioned concern is still relevant: it's now incorrectly listed as an external tool. Most obvious is that it still has the icon for an external link. --Yeryry (talk) 19:54, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Switch to hlist
Probably makes sense to switch the "external tools" items to WP:HLIST. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:53, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. Sandbox it somewhere. Anomie⚔ 16:36, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * This was done later, apparently. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:46, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Add a link to quickly fix dead links
I just deployed a new tool which may be useful for the majority of content editors. With the ongoing problems of fixing dead links, I have finished this tool which is an easy to use tool, and draws on IABot's code to do the analysis and editing on behalf of the user. Does anyone object to adding a new link to this tool?— CYBERPOWER  ( Message ) 21:47, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi Cyberpower678. Can you please remove the "NEW" green text? I'm fine with including a link to this new tool, but I'm not a big fan of the "NEW" bold text. I imagine the green, bold text is intended to get attention, but I'd prefer if new (and old) tools got attention more organically, with people telling others how great a tool is, for example. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:43, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I removed it because it was ugly. --Closedmouth (talk) 07:02, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I only intended it to be there for a day or two to tell people, "Hey, there's a new tool here" considering that this toolbar hasn't seen any significant update for the last 2 years. It seemed like the best way to announce it to the content creators.— CYBERPOWER  ( Chat ) 18:48, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Article revision stats
Can article revision stats be switched back to the xtools tool from the sigma tool currently used? The xtools tool has more complete information than sigma does, and it appears to be stable. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:02, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅— CYBERPOWER  ( Message ) 02:11, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:32, 10 June 2017 (UTC)