Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 October 23

= October 23 =

Page Editor problems
I am experiencing problems with WP's page editor. There seems to be a system/hardware problem. I was editing a section on the Bibliography of early American naval history page, and after hitting 'Save page', the system hung in limbo for more than a minute, and then after it was over, it saved the section -- but whipped out the rest of the page. Twice this has happened. Sometimes when I save an edit it hangs for a minute then gives me this message.
 * Wikimedia Foundation Error Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bibliography_of_early_American_naval_history&action=submit, from 99.73.91.132 via cp1020.eqiad.wmnet (squid/2.7.STABLE9) to 10.64.0.135 (10.64.0.135) Error: ERR_READ_TIMEOUT, errno [No Error] at Tue, 23 Oct 2012 02:24:29 GMT

I am not experiencing long waits or anomalies with the page editor on other pages. Also, it may be related, but during the week prior to this, saving edits has taken about 30 secs to a minute to process before the page was/is returned to view -- and I don't have a slow rig by any means. This began to occur right after some new features were added to the editor i.e. A pop up message that says 'Your edit was saved'. Would like to know where I go to report the problem. The Contact us page is no help. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 02:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * When the servers are slow, pages with huge numbers of templates experience particular difficulties. You might try contacting, who has been working on equivalent templates that place much less load on the server. Looie496 (talk) 03:55, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The present Cite book template has parameters that function in unique ways which is why I've used it in all the history articles I've created or upgraded with bibliographies and RS's. e.g.The '|isbn=' used in CB links the number to Book sources page. If the author is a notable person with a WP biography, the author name in the bibliography can be linked up to that page with '|authorlink='. There is also a lot of url's used with cite book, so evidently one, some, or all of these things are causing the problem. Hopefully any new template will still retain these functions while, somehow, using less server resources. In any case, I was only editing one section at a time, involving only a handful of templates. Still don't understand why the section was saved but the rest of the page was not. Just recently the page editor has had some changes made to it so we need to look into that affair also, if that's possible. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 08:47, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Leaving a Windows 7 homegroup that another computer owns
I formerly had a network of 3 or 4 computers, in which a computer which I'll call ALPHA was the Windows 7 homegroup computer - the computer that originated the homegroup. I disassembled everything and ALPHA is now in a box somewhere, and now my other computer, BETA, thinks it's in an ALPHA homegroup. There's no "Leave this homegroup" option in the Homegroup control panel. (All the Windows help pages I've found on the Net say I should choose this nonexistent option.) The troubleshooting wizard for homegroups says I should run the troubleshooting wizard on ALPHA. Well, ALPHA is gone, so I'd really like to be able to leave the homegroup so I can set up a new BETA homegroup. Any help? Thanks - Tarcil (talk) 06:21, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

API online brokers
What brokers do have APIs to access their services? If they don't have an official API, is it always possible to create your own API? Comploose (talk) 11:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I can't answer your first question, but for the second one the answer is no. It may be possible to get the data you need by scraping web pages, but there is a good chance it is against the site's terms of service. They can also change things in the interface that will break your unofficial API without notifying you. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 16:01, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As to the first question, it may be a lot of work to research and list all the world's brokers that offer APIs of some kind. Perhaps you can narrow that down geographically, or if you are talking about stock exchanges, which exchanges, what kinds of APIs, etc? And show what you have found so far by typing "broker api", etc, to your favorite web search engine, so we don't repeat the work you have already done? 88.112.36.91 (talk) 17:25, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Why people hate Wikipedia on Sundays?
Somebody must have noticed it. Looking at the Wikipedia article traffic statistics of Main Page easily reveals that there is a considerable difference between number of visits on weekends. It is not only of this Main Page; see this, where I noticed it first.

I also take this opportunity to ask why that much (>30,000,000) visits were there on 2012 Nov. 3 & 4. Thank you. ···V ani s che nu「m/Talk」 15:55, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * What it means, clearly, is that people mostly access Wikipedia from work or school. Looie496 (talk) 16:18, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Also, perhaps people have better things to do on the weekend. However, when at school waiting for the next class to start, or at work waiting for the next meeting, call, etc., they have time to spare (or waste, depending on your POV). StuRat (talk) 16:26, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * My experience with other websites, where I can monitor traffic readily, is that all traffic goes down on Sundays. I don't think it's Wikipedia-specific. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:04, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. In the same for plastic, it is almost twice than that of Sundays!


 * What would be the cause of that sudden hike in viewing Wikipedia on 2012 aug. 3 & 4?

And I hope someone of you have noticed, there occurred a hike in hits for RDs (science, Mathematics computing etc.) around 8th and 9th of September. Any idea? ···V ani s che nu「m/Talk」 10:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm glad that people are more sociable on the weekends. The day when people would prefer to surf through online encyclopaedias rather than get together with their friends or family, would be a sad day indeed. Sandman30s (talk) 16:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * We Wikipedians must go to church on Sunday, to atone for what we've written here the rest of the week. :-) StuRat (talk) 15:59, 25 October 2012 (UTC)