User talk:Jdlrobson

Note: Thanks to Echo I now do monitor this talk page. If for whatever reason you lack a reply your best bet is to e-mail me at jrobson@wikimedia.org

Note that I am a developer at the Wikimedia foundation currently working in the web team and working to make it easier for Wikipedia readers to become Wikipedia editors. As a result my team creates simple to use tools to make editing easier.

If there are problems with contributions I have made it is likely there is code responsible and your best bet is to discuss this on a mailing list/contact me directly so we can improve that code.

Let's make Wikipedia better together! ~ Jon

Archives: 2012-2020, 2020-2023

Fun with colors
Some comments:


 * 1) Module:Documentation/styles.css feels really heavy weight for color fussing. I don't think there's anything to do about that, just noting.
 * 2) A request that probably needs your dev hat on: Please give the preferences for night mode more semantic names in the classes they're emitting. I think option 1 is "dark always" and option 2 is "do what my OS/browser setting requests" but I'm not totally sure, and it would save some grief for future readers. I assume there's an implicit option 3 already existing in case we wanted to flip the expectations here i.e. define the light mode color and then just let the dark mode inherit naturally...?
 * 3) Your use of   is incorrect in multiple places, which is what caused me to check in on your changes. The class is intended solely for Module:Side box and templates/modules using that one. I suspect your other recommendations are also similarly... wrong? on the recommended friendliness page. (Other wikis might need it, but there are going to be better ways to deal here.)
 * 4) I was definitely not a fan of the introduction of   in one of your edits as we should keep potentially conflated names to a minimum. Module:Navbox already has a well defined name and assigning a random class somewhere feels pretty wrong (even if that thing looks like it is providing navigation -- which would do better with the relevant aria role or the I-still-can't-use-&lt;nav>-in-wikitext). Separately, that class being used there feels like it should just have been the "override random stuff" class.
 * 5) Syntaxhighlighter styles, e.g. at Module:Documentation, could use some coloring for the line numbers in whatever stylesheet is appropriate upstream.
 * 6) Similarly for catlinks in Minerva (see the bottom of Module:Documentation on a desktop width browser).
 * 7) Is there an easier way to check how dark mode works without manually adding the relevant stuff into the URL?

Still working through your recent changes. I'm happy to work on other stuff if I had a full list of the best set of options to support dark mode in one consolidated space (e.g. "pick a class, add some colors" and whatever else - is that the dark mode page that I think you have somewhere (and or link?)). If you want, you can set up a section on MediaWiki talk:Common.css/to do above the Done section to add stuff you run into that you'd like to sort dark mode coloring for and I can chase those down. Izno (talk) 04:05, 11 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Hey Izno! Thanks for reaching out!
 * In terms of process I am using the reports on https://night-mode-checker.wmcloud.org/ and the WCAG Color Contrast checker Chrome extension. I use the former to find issues with dark mode and then the Chrome extension to confirm.
 * 1. Regarding "color fussing" for now I figured disabling colors where they are non-essential was a good first step - as that also allows us to easily find the templates impacted by dark mode in future. I'm hoping better informed people could evaluate those and improve on the styles (in some cases it's a case of choosing new background colors and colors). Personally I wish we didn't have to repeat the styles for both modes, but I've not found a good way to do that yet - but color scheme inheritance seems promising.
 * 2. Regarding semantic classes - yes you've understood correctly. Option 3 etc does not exist right now, but as this matures I did start to wonder whether this should be about theme rather than tied to dark mode (e.g. how would a sepia theme work here?). Or do you mean changing just the suffix or all the class? Since this supports anonymous users we have a few constraints on these but these classes could be changed. It might need a bit of bikeshedding first though (I know that some people have complained about the use of the word "night" in the class). Would you be able to open a Phabricator ticket for that? It's likely to get more attention if it's not created by me.
 * 3. Sorry about that. I've been trying to evolve Recommendations_for_night_mode_compatibility_on_Wikimedia_wikis based on what I've been seeing in the wild. Many projects do use side-box in that way, and I'm trying to surface and encourage the most common ones as it helps make our articles in multiple languages as machine-readable/themeable as possible. Are there any other classes on that page that could be used instead? Please feel free to reply on the talk page there and we can evolve those guidelines to avoid this happening again.
 * 4. I've been trying to encourage navigation-box as 1. lots of projects already use it and [2] navbox gets stripped from projects so understandably projects need an alternative. Is there a ticket for the NAV element - that does seem like it might help as an alternative.
 * 5. I believe that's covered in T356956. I have been struggling to get this prioritized. However, as of today there was a product decision to temporarily disable dark mode on various namespaces for the initial launch so I guess that bought us some time.
 * 6. T357166
 * 7. Right now... the best way is to temporarily add some code to Special:MyPage/minerva.js:
 * const c = document.documentElement.classList; c.remove( 'skin-night-mode-page-disabled' ); c.add( 'skin-theme-clientpref-night' );.
 * Please feel free to ask any more questions or create any bugs in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/fy2023-24-we_2.1_typography_and_palette_customizations/ - I definitely appreciate your reactions early on in this!
 * Thanks again for sharing! Jdlrobson (talk) 15:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think probably background-color: inherit is pretty reasonable until someone wants to make new colors (that's not me, I'm just as happy to set everything to inherit for now). (Not sure why you originally went for 'none' there.) My annoyance is mostly the quite lengthy additional count of rules/query to account for both "dark" and "OS setting".
 * how would a sepia theme work here? Yeah, IDK. Depends on how dark it is? W3C standardized only support for light and dark in prefers-color-scheme, rather than any of a variety of others, so someone has to make a judgement where on the gray scale a specific other 'theme' sits and then decide whether that's dark or light and then either add one rule or two, depending. I was looking to change , but if you're thinking about other potential theming options such as sepia, I think it's probably worth looking at the whole name, yes. T359983
 * Are there any other classes on that page that could be used instead? Maybe elsewhere, but not here. The point I'm trying to make is that each of those classes you've identified can be traced to one or two "source" templates/modules to their exclusion elsewhere -- in other words, they're meant to be used by the module/template they're named after, not arbitrarily. Some wikis it may be easier to shoehorn them in, but on others like here, I took the time to clean the arbitrary uses so as to guarantee as best I can that TemplateStyles are delivered exactly when they're supposed to be and style exactly what they're supposed to. As your change particularly caused (and it was no big), expectations break when TemplateStyles aren't delivered with a specific class's use... or the another way, when they're used and TemplateStyles is delivered by something else causing mismatching styles. The use of these classes should be relegated almost exclusively to appearing in the specific templates/modules the classes are named after -- and maybe this is another way in which you can advise other users how to deal with the problem on the recommendations page i.e. saying "update your templates/modules and clean out your arbitrary uses" (the latter of which also helps other wikis on their TemplateStyles journey). (May not be popular, but may be more popular than "use these classes that most wikis probably already associate very specifically with certain classes".) (NB there is one class that does work 'arbitrarily' and that's in Template:Citation/styles.css, but its uses are still restricted to templates that are relevant to citations directly rather than as in item 4, and I did my best to remove other uses. That's one that I'll add to my list of color issues. Is there a color upstream decided for the clicky highlighty of citations in dark?)
 * I mean, navigation-box should probably also get stripped if other wikis are using it in the same way that we are using the similarly-named class, not be used as a workaround in your case, for the same reasons as in the T124168. :) I actually don't think having nav elements would help here in the way that is relevant to this issue, it was mostly just me griping, but you can look at the relevant task in horror if you wish, just so that you know that you're not the only one I yell at. ;) T25932.
 * Scope yes, it fits under that task. I think the reason I noticed is that whatever system does night mode for templates (I do think it's Syntaxhighlight??) was showing up in dark mode as dark (rather than as in the image there which is light). (But now I can't confirm this because it looks like you might have merged the patch between today and Saturday? that makes the option work only in certain namespaces. womp womp) I was mostly just calling out the line numbers (colors are on ), which it doesn't look like the current patch has covered. In this case the line numbers were readable because the bg was set to none, so it's more a case of "suboptimal colors" and less "I'll be blinded by the light".
 * Noted.
 * Ok, I'll do that.
 * Izno (talk) 22:04, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * While I have you @Izno and since you have thought about infobox organization more than most people, do you have any thoughts on how we could address inline styles in infoboxes e.g. the box "Representing Brazil" in this example?
 * We could add the following rule but that would interfere with legitimate use cases such as this example.
 * Is there a way to add this rule only to infoboxes we have vetted e.g. Template:Infobox football biography ?

Jdlrobson (talk) 00:17, 13 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Infoboxes using infobox can take custom TemplateStyles sheets using primarily the parameter templatestyles and where necessary child templatestyles and grandchild templatestyles, see e.g. infobox television episode.
 * This would however not really fix the issue presented here which is that the specific "Representing Brazil" is another template entirely embedded using medaltemplates, Medal, MedalCompetition, and MedalGold (total aside, it's kind of awkward that they're table templates). We should add TemplateStyles for these other templates. I think probably the best way/name would be Template:Medal/styles.css and then add the styles for all the templates in the series that would otherwise emit colors, which I guess can be found at Category:Medal infobox templates?
 * To answer the question directly for elsewhere, infobox templates can take classes in specific rows (see documentation), but I think it would be preferable to move them over to stylesheets, which will generally be safer for any future changes that I get to with the template and which might inspire future editors to pick colors rather than rely on some general override. Izno (talk) 16:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Testing night mode
Hello, I found out from your recent edit to Template:Routemap/styles.css that the night mode project existed, so I tried out the Minerva JS you posted in the above section to see what issues might crop up. I've tested it with Overground RDT and Yellow Line (BART)/Yellow Line (BART). Jc86035 (talk) 03:26, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The background of the diagram is #F9F9F9 when used in an infobox because of inline CSS added by Module:Routemap, but it's black when not displayed inline. This background colour should be consistent in both settings.
 * In the infobox context, the text colour is the night mode default of white even though the background colour is #F9F9F9, so all text without any colour specified is rendered invisible.
 * If the background colour is black in night mode, a lot of diagram icons such as or  (both of which are used in the Yellow Line diagram) will not appear to function correctly in night mode, because they include the background colour so that they can be overlaid over other icons. Accounting for this would necessitate the updating of a lot of diagrams and icons (possibly hundreds or thousands of each).
 * Various other elements of diagrams, and inline images such as transit operator/service symbols, have been implemented with the implicit expectation that the background will always be light grey. For example, some parts of and  would have extremely poor colour contrast (as can be seen in the Overground diagram), and it's impossible to see   in night mode since the symbol is completely black. These inline images are used outside diagrams a lot, particularly in infoboxes. If night mode is taken into account, it becomes much harder to use certain inline images unless somehow they can be switched out or colour-inverted using context-specific CSS.


 * I tweaked this a little more. We can lower the contrast on images while still keeping the darker theme. What do you think of the latest iteration? Jdlrobson (talk) 15:55, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The change appears to have broken certain things, in particular that overlaid images don't appear to display in the correct stack order (e.g. wrong line colour in the table row below North Concord/​Martinez in Yellow Line (BART), interchange symbols at Gospel Oak and Clapham Junction in Overground RDT). I don't know what caused that.
 * The colour contrast is now better, but I don't know if this is the right approach. The contrast for darker objects is still not great.
 * A few diagrams use "filler" table rows which have the line colours specified as inline CSS, so any contrast adjustment should also be applicable to the  class. Jc86035 (talk) 05:03, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Please try to remember edit summaries
Can you please try to remember to use an edit summary? It may seem obvious in 2024 why color:inherit is being added, but two or five years from now, it may not be as clear. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:14, 22 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that instance. I accidentally hit save with my fat finger when trying to fill in edit summary. Editing on mobile has its challenges.
 * I can edit with an inline comment if that's useful but at time figured I should minimize edits to a widely used template. 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 15:34, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Reminder to vote now to select members of the first U4C

 * You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. 

Dear Wikimedian,

You are receiving this message because you previously participated in the UCoC process.

This is a reminder that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) ends on May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

On behalf of the UCoC project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 23:18, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

 * Hi Jdlrobson! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission.  I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Lounge
 * The Teahouse new editor help space
 * Wikipedia Help pages

-- 11:59, Friday, May 3, 2024 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

 * Hi Jdlrobson! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission.  I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Lounge
 * The Teahouse new editor help space
 * Wikipedia Help pages

-- 19:45, Friday, May 10, 2024 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

 * Hi Jdlrobson! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission.  I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Lounge
 * The Teahouse new editor help space
 * Wikipedia Help pages

-- 21:08, Monday, May 13, 2024 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

 * Hi Jdlrobson! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission.  I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Lounge
 * The Teahouse new editor help space
 * Wikipedia Help pages

-- 21:08, Monday, May 13, 2024 (UTC)

Test T320906
Testing Jon (WMF) (talk) 16:12, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Problem with Template:Infobox officeholder
Hello! I (and a few other editors) have noticed problems with Template:Infobox officeholder recently. It is showing "Ambassador to" even if that makes no sense for that position. For example, see Pete Buttigieg. It seems to be having issues on *some* pages using that template, but not all. Would you be able to help with this? You were the last person to edit the template. Thanks! Gottagotospace (talk) 12:12, 8 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I am not the right person unfortunately. My edits to this template were only to add support for the upcoming dark mode which don't require extensive knowledge of the template. Sorry I can't be of more help! Good luck! 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 15:41, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Question from Webenoit (19:20, 8 June 2024)
Hi, I'm a new contributor and you're apparently my mentor :) I like drawing and I wished to contribute to the Wikipedia content by bringing original illustrations for some articles. I've uploaded one on wikimedia : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freedivingbreaststroke.jpg That I wanted to add to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant_weight_without_fins It is an illustration of the breastroke technique used for those types of dives. But I get this error message "An automated filter has identified this edit as potentially unconstructive, so it has been disallowed. If this edit is constructive, please report this error. Disruptive behavior may result in being blocked from editing." Can you help me out ? Thanks Cheers --Webenoit (talk) 19:20, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've made the edit for you, thanks to your false positive report. Nothing to worry about. :) - XXBlackburnXx (talk) 22:13, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Election infobox
Hello. This edit has resulted in the infobox title appearing within the body of the infobox rather than above it. Would you be able to resolve that? Cheers, Number   5  7  18:45, 14 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Which skin? Could you share a URL? 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 20:08, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm using Monobook. Cheers, Number   5  7  20:51, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you share a URL that exhibits the issue you are describing?
 * Are you using the default monobook or the responsive one? 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 22:04, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This is what I am seeing (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F55325627) 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 22:08, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes – previously the infobox header was above the infobox (like a table heading) rather than inside it.
 * Whatever you did also made subheadings appear for parliamentary elections, which were previously supressed. In many cases these make no sense (e.g. labelling 'Majority party' and 'Minority party' in 1953 Sikkimese general election). Are you able to turn this off please, as it will be putting incorrect information on a lot of pages? Number   5  7  22:14, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The caption should be addressed now. You may need to purge the page to see it in effect. Over 50% of our readers are on the mobile skin, and only < 1% are on Monobook so its important we fix this for all skins.
 * As for the "Majority party" and "Minority party" - I can see the issue, but I don't understand why these are in the template and being rendered with style="display:none" - these shouldn't be rendered at all - they are bad for accessibility. Do you know why the template is that way (I'm trying to understand the history before proposing one of several solutions). 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 22:45, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * We can continue this conversation at Talk:2024_Indian_general_election. 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 23:07, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I suspect that when the headings were removed, the editor doing it just didn't do it the right way. They may have chosen that way as simply removing the header from the infobox template code doesn't work as it just leaves a gap where the head should be (I was just testing this in the sandbox to see if I could make it go away). I guess both the change you've made and the removal of the headings from the infobox should have been removed together... Anyway, thanks for sorting! Number   5  7  23:18, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Election infobox images
Hi! I don't know if it's a result of an edit you made to the template or the general craziness that occured to all infoboxes but all the images on the infobox have shrunken for me (vector 2022 on desktop). They don't seem to responding to the image#_size values. Also, a lot of them have like 1/3 to 1/2 of the infobox as blank gray space.

examples: 1840 United States presidential election, 2024 European Parliament election in Cyprus

Wowzers122 (talk) 23:53, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

New message from Neveselbert
&#8209;&#8209;Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 17:38, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Template edits
Hi Jon, I have some issues with the ways you are editing some highly visible templates and modules, which I thought I would tell you about. I assume that your edits from this account are in a personal capacity and not related to your job? My concerns are: All these expectations are explained in High-risk templates and Template editor and I hope you will take this feedback on board and continue your editing in line with community norms. Thanks &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:39, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) You make substantial edits to high-risk templates without attempting to discuss on the template talk page. Presumably there is a reason that color 222 was used in this edit. I would expect to see a post to the talk page beforehand to explain what is being changed and why.
 * 2) You sometimes make multiple successive edits to high-risk template instead of using the sandbox, testing all the changes first, and then deploying in one edit.
 * 3) Another reason to make the change to the sandbox is that your changes are likely to be reverted unintentionally when the sandbox is synchronised.
 * 4) Your edit summaries are sometimes unclear or absent (e.g. the diff provided above).

Question from Jon (WMF) (23:16, 26 June 2024)
Test --Jon (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

template:color
Given your edit here, and the -begun discussion at user talk:fourthords, you might be able to help? —  Fourthords  &#124; =Λ= &#124; 19:59, 30 June 2024 (UTC)