Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 133

When does TemplateData get processed?
As it stands now, to properly document a template and its parameters, documentation in two, incompatible forms is required. First there is the documentation that you should be able to read at the template's page in template space, and second, there is the JSON formatted documentation used by Visual Editor. Maintaining two versions of documentation is a pain and ultimately counter productive.

In a discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1 an editor raised the idea that some generic standard for template parameter documentation might be implemented in such a format that it could be rendered in a human usable form and could also be scanned by an automated tool to create documentation usable by VE and other tools.

It occurred to me that a couple of templates and some module code might make that idea possible. The result of my experiment is, , and Module:template parameter doc. It did not work. Apparently,  processing occurs before templates and modules are processed. Is this true? If so, could that be changed?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:14, 13 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I think your module needs to wrap the template data content with an invocation to frame:extenstionTag rather than using  directly.  I'm not entirely sure that will work either, but it seems more likely to.  Dragons flight (talk) 00:11, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep, Scribunto is run after tags have been converted to strip markers, so if you just output the tag text it won't do anything. You need to preprocess the tags somehow, and frame:extensionTag is the best way. (frame:preprocess would also work, but it's slower.) — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 00:59, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ding! Ding! Ding! Both work.  For now, I'm using   because it take the entires output in one function call and is producing what I want.  Thank you both.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 01:42, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You should also be aware that at some point in the future, TemplateData will move to its own namespace with a JSON content type. This would mean that #invoke statements would just be normal text, rather than being processed with Scribunto, so you shouldn't plan on this code working long-term. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 05:12, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think it actually works now so maybe it's a non-issue. I'm guessing that Visual editor and the template data editor both read the raw source file to extract template data, not the rendered page.  Right?  So unless the module can subst a portion of its output (the ) I think this idea may have come to its end.  And, even if it could subst, that subst'd stuff would have to be deleted before any edits to the documentation could be saved.  That sort of requirement is no better than the currently unacceptable requirement to maintain two separate disparate sets of documentation.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:40, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

There was a similar discussion at Wikipedia talk:TemplateData. There are problems with trying to share documentation between template data and normal wikitext. The biggest is the markup supported by TD, basically none, no bold, italics or links. Krinkle explained why it needs to be this way.--Salix alba (talk): 08:11, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Yep, that's why I concocted this scheme. Editors should only have to maintain documentation in one place and in one format.  This solution, though an apparent failure, was an attempt to get us at least a step closer to that target.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:40, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I didn't find that explanation at all compelling; the two uses need to be merged. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:52, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Not come across this before...
... and I hope not again.

There was an error showing yesterday in MLDonkey. If you look at it you will see lines in infobox like "Latest stable release". So where is that in the code? Has to be a template, right? But which? infobox software is horrendous. I eventually found subpage /MLDonkey hanging off it, which someone had carefully scribbled in.

But what we have is page-specific code attached to a general-purpose template (transcluded in 1200+ pages). Undocumented. Doesn't sound right to me. Presumably there are a lot of subpages, one per invocation I imagine.

A propos, it would save a lot of time if the list of templates used in a page also included date of last change, although it probably wouldn't have helped in this case. Easier than having to trog down each likely item in turn looking for one changed in last few minutes. Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Sun 07:37, wikitime=  23:37, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That is caused by the frequently updated parameter that was suppose to be fully deprecated. See Template_talk:Infobox_software/Archive_5 and the two sections following for a lot of discussion about these things... Pinging some of the other editors involved... . — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 23:49, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Here be dragons. Be extremely careful with any major changes to the way Infobox software/LSR/LPR function and display on pages. Speaking from experience, as widely used as they are, major changes can have all sorts of unforeseen consequences (which then tend to lead to lengthy and often heated discussions). I don't see frequently updated present in the current version of Infobox software? I tried to document what I could remember of frequently updated in that discussion but I think the parameter had already been removed by that point anyway. None of those discussions were ever about depreciating the use of LSR/LPR subtemplates themselves though. Keep in mind that those subtemplates are not only transcluded by Infobox software, but are also widely transcluded in wikitables in software comparison articles. It might also be worth noting this in Template:Infobox software/doc. One possible Infobox software improvement that comes to mind immediately, is it should be possible to display a note on a preview version of a page which transcludes Infobox software which includes links to an article's Template:Latest stable software release/ArticleName and Template:Latest preview software release/ArticleName subtemplates. In cases where they already exist, an edit link could be provided, and in cases where they don't, a note and preload links so someone could create new subtemplates could be shown. Years ago when I was more active here, I discovered another language Wikipedia which had a much nicer and better documented Infobox software/LSR/LPR system, but I can't remember now which it was. --Tothwolf (talk) 15:07, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Here be no dragons; just people who don't read documentations and complain that such documentations don't exist although they do. Oh, and one minor bit of correction: frequently updated was never supposed to deprecated; it was removed straight away. People frequently set it to "yes" indiscriminately, or just to mean "the developer issues updates quite often". They never used it to mean "facilitate recurrently updating this number on Wikipedia". Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 01:39, 15 December 2014 (UTC)


 * To see more detail in the "list of templates used on this page", install User:Anomie/previewtemplatelastmod. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:00, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Won't help him. Vandals rarely leave an edit summary and even when they do, it doesn't say "hey I just vandalized this page"! Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 01:39, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Among other things, the script sorts the list so that the most recently-edited template is at the top. I've found this script very valuable sometimes. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:45, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't deny its usefulness as a tool in general. And let's not forget that you are a TemplateEditor no less. But I suspect my statement remains true. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 11:31, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * 40 years in dp and I'd never come across such gonads as here. If it had been lpr (etc) looking for a subpage of the caller it would be fine, but to have a bespoke subpage hanging off a general purpose callee object is astonishing.  Unbuttered parsnip  (talk) mytime= Tue 17:12, wikitime=  09:12, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The above appears to be referring to Special:PrefixIndex/Template:Latest stable software release where over a thousand subpages are shown, each having a single item for an infobox—example, Template:Latest stable software release/MLDonkey. Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Latest stable software release/MLDonkey shows the subpage is used in several places. It's unusual, but probably ok. All the information could be put in a module, but that would give a single page with over a thousand items (making it hard to edit), versus the current situation of simple edits on over a thousand pages. Another drawback of a module would be that an update to any item would put over a thousand articles in the job queue. Johnuniq (talk) 09:55, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sure. But I wouldn't bother about his comment on Template:Latest stable software release if I were you. He seems more furious about his own lack of experience here than making a genuine comment based on actual facts. For all I know, it is a maintainable system that works; a single slash is no reason to change it. But, on the other hand, might actually be on to something. I hope he remembers which wiki it was. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 17:56, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've looked through the other language wikis I have an account on via SUL and I simply can't find it now. I did notice the Italian and Russian wikipedias have both begun to use Wikidata for their implementations of Infobox software. I don't really see that it would be worth spending much more time trying to find that better LSR/LPR implementation if much of the data that is currently stored under Template:Latest stable software release/ArticleName will eventually be moving to Wikidata anyway. --Tothwolf (talk) 22:05, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The multi-use of the MLDonkey LSR template is actually a very good example of what I was trying to explain above. The way Template:Latest stable software release/* and Template:Latest preview software release/* are widely used for software comparison articles probably should be better documented in Infobox software's documentation. For that fact, maybe this common convention should also be documented somehow in MOS:SAL, or better yet maybe even a separate MOS page for software comparisons? --Tothwolf (talk) 22:33, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Happened again just now, with WhatsApp. This time I saw it coming.  I think the mechanism is a complete pile of pooh.  Unbuttered parsnip  (talk) mytime= Tue 22:07, wikitime=  14:07, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You may feel the system in place is a "pile of pooh", but the simple fact remains that it has worked extremely well for 1000s, if not 10s of 1000s of editors, both anonymous drive-by editors and veterans alike, for making quick updates to software version numbers and release dates. Not only does it make it much easier for less experienced editors to update a version number and release date, it also cuts down on a considerable amount of clutter in Recent changes. For a system that has its roots back in 2005, I think it has actually aged quite well. You might consider it strange that data has been stored as a "subpage" in the Template: namespace, but given the limitations of Mediawiki's templates and markup language, I think as a whole it has actually worked out pretty well. When I was more active, I used to routinely monitor Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Latest stable software release templates and Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Latest preview software release templates. Surprisingly enough, I saw little in the way of intentional vandalism, but I did see the occasional test edit, much like the one you . Even more common though, were careless reverts made with Huggle to valid edits from anonymous users/ip addresses and red-linked usernames. Btw, you don't have to make a with an actual change to the page to "refresh" the transcluded data. The job queue will handle it automatically, but if you really want to force an immediate update, you can either make a null edit or append  ?action=purge  to the end of the url . --Tothwolf (talk) 23:47, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Envoi Take a look at this Chef (software) -- Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Sat 17:05, wikitime=  09:05, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

PHP API for #ifexist function?
The "getpage" function I'm using (see here), gets the content of a page, and returns FALSE on error. The problem is that it returns FALSE even when the error is simply that the page does not exist, making it impossible for the application to know when the error is really that the server is down, or the bits got lost in the ether, or who-knows-what-problem beyond the application's control. Indeed the page merely not existing is not a problem, as the application in that circumstance just wants to create a new page rather than append content to an existing page. What I really want is a return code that confirms that the page actually doesn't exist and needs to be created. This is what I believe is needed to address this reported problem. Help from PHP programmers knowledgeable about the MediaWiki API would be appreciated. – Wbm1058 (talk) 14:49, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox#action=query&prop=info&format=xml&titles=FooBarBaz is an example of how to see if a page exists through the api. If the "missing" attribute exists, the page does not. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 16:11, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm having trouble making this work in actual php code. My attempt to check the 'missing' attribute with this code change didn't work for me. can you help? Wbm1058 (talk) 19:44, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * would have to be some variation of  to use that to determine if missing was there. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 19:58, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That specific code returned " " for every item passed to it, including everything that wasn't. Can you explain what you're doing there? It seems kind of convoluted to me. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:35, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've no way to test my ideas, so play with it, you might need to replace the OR ( || ) with an AND ( && ) or you may only need the second half of the condition (== ""). I'm not sure that isset will catch that it exists if its value is null or empty, so you need to be careful with that. :) — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 20:43, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * If multiple parameters are supplied then isset will return TRUE only if all of the parameters are set. So it is not sufficient to check only whether 'missing' is set? Wbm1058 (talk) 22:46, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * isset determines if a variable is set and is not NULL. Returns TRUE if var exists and has value other than NULL, FALSE otherwise. So if indeed "missing": "" is that NULL or not, and if it is, what's the point? I don't get it. Shouldn't "missing": "TRUE" be returned by the function for "FooBarBaz"? Wbm1058 (talk) 23:05, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * If I understand your question, think of it like a tree.  is a leaf that is attached to a branch labeled , which is in turn attached to the trunk of the tree,  , and finally to the root,  . If you are a worm, and you want to get to the leaf, you need to start at the root, climb up the trunk, and across the branch to get to the leaf. :) isset is suppose to return if that value is defined, but I don't remember how it does with things that are defined as null or empty, so checking http://php.net/manual/en/function.isset.php I find that Determine if a variable is set and is not. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 23:11, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Whatever. You found the link that I got the information from which I shared in my last two edits. I appreciate that you're trying to help, but I think it's better at this point to wait for someone who knows this stuff to respond. I hate to pull you away from your expensive studies, but if you can quickly give an answer, I'd appreciate it. Wbm1058 (talk) 23:25, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * See how Reflinks deals with this in an unclean way. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 23:33, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that seems helpful. I notice it uses format=json rather than the format=php that the "library function" I have uses. I'm not familiar with JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). Is there an advantage in using that? Wbm1058 (talk) 02:21, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I think they are the same. However,  is always available, while   is available by default from 5.2. But anyway, considering most distros have at least PHP 5.3, compatibility isn't an issue. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 03:55, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Never use unserialize on foreign data, it's a security risk. Legoktm (talk) 04:44, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Wow, didn't know that before. That's quite true since  can be used to execute foreign code when initialising the classes.  You really should look into JSON, then. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 06:14, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * By the way, to correct your mistake,  can only be used with variables. Passing anything else to it (for instance an expression in your example ) will fail (It would output "Can't use function return value in write context" which was unhelpful, but now it gives an error message with a correct example). As an an unrelated note,   was a similar function which only accepts variables, leading to widespread confusions and steeper learning curve. This was changed in PHP 5.5. Sadly, the learning curve is still there, since PHP 5.3/5.4 are still popular. [Insert rants about PHP design here]  Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 12:52, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , look again, my example doesn't put the expression in the isset, it puts the isset in an expression. It says IF   OR if   THEN   . — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 12:57, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, I was having some eye problems. Sorry about that. :( Take it as a rant against PHP's design, then. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 13:17, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * No worries, honest mistake. :) — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 13:40, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

There is another item on my problems list: see. Will using json_decode rather than unserialize address this issue, or is there something else going on? Wbm1058 (talk) 17:35, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

The "Bot classes for interacting with mediawiki" is the function library that the I bots I took over use. I believe that was the person coordinating it. As I recall I pulled the source off of his account on the former toolserver, but now when I look there I just see [http://toolserver.org/~chris/highlight.php?d=chris%2FharejsBots%2F&f=proposedmergers.php a "We've moved!" message.] I also note that has been rather inactive for the past few months, since they turned their bots over to you. Looking at botclasses.php I see a single occurrence of the unserialize function which you say is insecure for foreign data. However this is in the low-level query function which "sends a query to the api". This query function seems to be used by virtually every other function in this library, and thus it appears that the entire library is insecure. It's a bit upsetting to learn that I've been running (potentially) insecure scripts on my personal computer for the last two years. Is there a new central location where this library is maintained, where I can look for a newer version, which is hopefully secure? Perhaps this is something that the highly paid programming staff of the Wikimedia Foundation can provide to their volunteer programmers and bot operators? Wbm1058 (talk) 14:36, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I see from Bots/Requests for approval/Legobot 33 there is a link to the source code for the harej-bots on GitHub. Observe that your copy of botclasses.php there uses unserialize in the query function. So a fix would benefit both of us. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:48, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I see: unserialize – Warning Do not pass untrusted user input to unserialize. Unserialization can result in code being loaded and executed due to object instantiation and autoloading, and a malicious user may be able to exploit this. Use a safe, standard data interchange format such as JSON (via json_decode and json_encode) if you need to pass serialized data to the user.

I suppose that the encyclopedia that anyone can edit might have untrusted user input in it? I wonder if it's possible to track down everyone who is still using the botclasses library. How serious an issue is this? I might take a stab at the necessary code changes soon if nobody else does. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:31, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Just replace  with json, and replace the unserialize line with  . By the way, the real risk is not from the editors, since the API will properly escape whatever they write. The problem is you don't know whether the API you are talking to is the real one or not (Using HTTPS will help a lot), and a fake one could return a maliciously-crafted string as the result. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 04:51, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I made the JSON changes and it worked fine. But when I changed "http:" to "https:" it responded with "Login error: ". Does the API not support secure http or is there something else I need to change to get it to work? Wbm1058 (talk) 16:59, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Machine-readable authors in Template:Non-free use rationale
I notice that there is no machine-readable author field for. I am aware that does, but many (if not all) the specific-case templates are derived from the former, not the latter (search Special:PrefixIndex/Template:Non-free use rationale).

I believe these templates should include machine-readable authors; this will probably cut into a large part of the images in Category:Files with no machine-readable author. Anon 126  (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 20:40, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * See Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 64 for a prior discussion. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:31, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

A glitch in OneClickArchiver
I was just archiving some posts from my talk page using the OneClickArchiver. First post was ok, but when I archived the second post that one disappeared from the talk page but did not appear in the archive. instead a copy of the first post appeared in the archive. I manually restored the second post to the archive by copypaste it from the talk page's History. When I tried again, the same thing happened. This is the talk page history, and this is the archive page history, where you can see what happened. Any ideas about what's going on? I saw on the script's page that the script code now includes something by Technical 13. Is my code old and faulty? (Please ignore the "//", I just include that when I don't use it to prevent me from accidentally archiving something) - w.carter -Talk  21:38, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , I'm aware of the issue. It has been a known issue since User talk:Equazcion/OneClickArchiver/Archive 1, which was just recently reported again in User talk:Equazcion/OneClickArchiver.  It's been added to  to add a sanity check to try and prevent this, but I do not have time right now to work on it.  The best way to deal with it is to make sure you wait a couple seconds between archiving multiple sections. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 22:32, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok. Thanks for your quick answer. It's no biggie, I just wanted to know what it was and if someone was on it, which you are. :) I don't use it that often so I'll just wait and see. Have a nice weekend/holiday, w.carter -Talk  22:37, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Scripts stopped working
For the last couple of days the scripts User:Doug/closemfd.js and User:King of Hearts/closerfd.js have stopped working. I haven't made any changes to my setup (WIN7, FF34.05, Vector) and as they are from different authors there seems likely to be some common cause. Any ideas? JohnCD (talk) 22:14, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , both of those scripts were recently partly updated to address the addOnloadHook deprecation. Neither of those scripts have been changed in over two weeks though, so I'm wondering if there is something else in your common.js or vector.js that is causing the rest of the scripts to fail. I'm really busy with a final right now, but I'll certainly dig into it later.  Feel free to revert the most recent changes to both of those scripts and see if that fixes the issue for you, then ping me and we'll go from there.  Thanks. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 22:37, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for rapid response. I don't think it's that, as the most recent updates to those scripts were 5 Dec and 2 Dec, and I have used them as recently as 13 and 12 Dec. User:Mr.Z-man/closeAFD.js still works, for what that's worth. No great urgency, there is plenty else I should be doing. JohnCD (talk) 22:51, 19 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Fwiw... both scripts still use  (also deprecated) instead of   . -- George Orwell III (talk) 07:42, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, and neither have been jQueryified either. I plan on modularizing WP:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/CloseAFD.js before too long and adding support for all XfDs, all RfXs, and all XRVs. , it would be really useful to help figure out what is causing the issue (I'm still guessing it is the actual changes to those scripts themselves as they were most recently changed and you could have been using a cached version of the old script for a week), if you could press [F12] and tell us any errors that you can see in the error console.  If that is above your technical ability, can you tell use what your  is? — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 15:01, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You were right - I hadn't thought of the effect of caching. Reverting the most recent change to User:Doug/closemfd.js does indeed make it work again. I have left it reverted, as there is a backlog there, and will tell User:Doug.
 * Before doing that, I clicked "edit" on an MfD discussion, at which point a link "Close" should have appeared on the drop-down menu under "More", but didn't. I then pressed F12, and copied what appeared under "Console" to User:JohnCD/draft. I hope that is what you needed.
 * I haven't reverted User:King of Hearts/closerfd.js but will tell KoH, and who does much of the work at RfD. There are also scripts for closing TfD, FfD, CfD, but they belong either to Doug or to KoH.
 * Thanks, JohnCD (talk) 17:04, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm aware of all of those subscripts, and both Doug and KoH applied the same fix to all of the modular scripts (at my request) which has me wondering why only some have been effected. That console will help me some (maybe not for this specific issue, but will help me find other scripts using things being deprecated). I'll tag it for CSD when I'm done with it if that is okay with you. :) Your  would still be very useful to help me debug stuff. Thanks again. :) — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 17:15, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not familiar with the scripts to close CfD, FfD, TfD but, assuming they work in the same way, they are all affected - I don't get "Close" in the drop-down menu from any of them. The whatismyuseragent.com site isn't responding at the moment: "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server". I'll let you know when I can get through. JohnCD (talk) 1726, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * it should be whatsmyuseragent, not whatismyuseragent. Result is:
 * Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:34.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/34.0
 * JohnCD (talk) 18:27, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Template help?
Some articles I'm working on have templates in them that are not working properly. I'm not template literate. Where should I ask for help? SchreiberBike talk 07:09, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Here is a good place to start. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:15, 20 December 2014 (UTC).


 * You could also ask for help on the template's talk page. GoingBatty (talk) 15:14, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * What pages are affected, and what problems do you see? That should be enough to get us started. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 15:58, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The templates are: Template:Infobox New Jersey State Legislature district and Template:TR mayor. I have explained the problems on their talk pages. Thanks, SchreiberBike talk 17:29, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I fixed Template:Infobox New Jersey State Legislature district.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_New_Jersey_State_Legislature_district&diff=prev&oldid=638934774] The problem in Template:TR mayor is caused by Module:OrdinalSuffix where produces . That should say th as in 11th but says st as in 11st at the time of writing. I don't edit modules. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:11, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The module needs a fix for all numbers ending in 11 or 12 (Module talk:OrdinalSuffix has a poorly chosen test set). Looking at the simple code I could probably fix it without knowing Lua but I recommend it's done by somebody who actually knows the language. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:18, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * 11th ,12th, ..., 20th. Pretty sure I can fix this if someone hasn't already got it in hand.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:21, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It's fixed now. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:22, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ain't Wikipedia Great! Thanks for the help everybody; it warms my heart. SchreiberBike talk 18:44, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ain't Wikipedia Great! Thanks for the help everybody; it warms my heart. SchreiberBike talk 18:44, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Problems with page curation
Page curation isn't working properly for me right now. The mark as patrolled button doesn't work and the tagging button doesn't work. However, the next article and info buttons do work. This problem started around 12 hours ago, as far as I know. Mac OS 10.7.5 with Safari 6.1.6. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 15:29, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Swpb filed it as T84996. More discussion at Wikipedia talk:Page Curation. --Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 17:18, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Template:Imdb-film-year
I was wondering if somebody could create a template. Sort of like Template:Imdb-japan-year but to cover all countries/languages. They're to go at the end of all the film year list like American films of 1955, South Korean films of 1982, Spanish films of 1990 etc. I think it would need some sort of coding like "if Japanese =jp" etc. Bascially there's a common format linking to a list on imdb, see the url for Japanese films of 1964 vs American films of 1964 It is controlled solely by the short country code jp for Japan, us for USA etc. What I want is to be able for the template to read what the year is in something like List of Japanese films of 1964 and for it to automatically or have to do very little in the current List of Japanese films of 1975. I want to be able to have one template I can use as an external link in all the country year lists linking to the appropriate page. So whoever creates it would need to find the index of countries on imdb and code it so it reads all shortcodes for each country by year. Do you follow? Ideally I want something which will read a year list like List of Australian films of 1987 and all I will have to do is add a Template:Imdb-film-year in the external link and it will read the Australian and 1987 in the title and correctly link to the correct page on imdb.♦  Dr. Blofeld  13:35, 19 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Something like: ?  Or do you want it to be fully automatic where it might read the article title, for example Spanish films of 1990 and from that extract the country and year and populate the appropriate places in the url?


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:15, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Something like that would be fine yeah, although fully automatic might make more sense seems as the page titles all have the same format.♦ Dr. Blofeld  18:32, 20 December 2014 (UTC)


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:03, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:03, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:03, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:03, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Notepad++
I've recently started using Notepad++. Does anyone know of a syntax highlghter plugin, for Wikipedia template code, please? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:49, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * sounds like you're looking for User:Equazcion/WikiTemplate UDL. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 15:54, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks; that seems to be just what I was looking for. But after importing it, I can't get it working :-( Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:12, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , which version of NotePad are you using? That UDL only works with v6.2+ — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 16:39, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, I was on 5.9.6.2; I've updgraded and that's working, now. Thanks again. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:08, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Technical feasibility of idea at VP proposals
Please have a look at Village pump (proposals) and address whether this is technically feasible. Thank you. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 08:28, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Less user friendly search of late
I've noticed lately that when you search for something you have to include the parentheses or comma to get suggestions that include parentheses or commas to show up. Before it was not so, at least for parenthesis. For example just typing "boston m" doesn't bring up Boston (MA) or Boston (magazine). I wouldn't call this a huge deal but it makes "Enter" go to search, which I have also seen to use a flawed hierarchy of late. What's more, before I realized this issue was happening, I thought some articles did not exist and may not have gone as far as to search for them. This behavior would lead to a slight drop in viewership. If I'm searching for Rochester, New York, I want to just be able to type rochester new york into the search bar. B137 (talk) 03:38, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * When I type "rochester new york" into the search bar, I get sent to Rochester New York, which automatically redirects me to Rochester, New York. I get similar results when I type "boston ma" or "boston mag".  GoingBatty (talk) 03:51, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes I shortly after realized that all three of those were bad examples. Though nothing shows up when you get most of the way through typing "rochester new..." the redirect does exist (with caps but that's not the issue). Now that I think of it, I don't believe the code ever did ignore in/ex-clusion of parentheses and commas, but perhaps it should. Either way, I do believe I need to catch up on sleep or something because I seem to be losing it.. B137 (talk) 03:58, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * When I type "rochester", Rochester, New York is the third choice. If I keep typing "rochester new", then the redirect Rochester New York is the only choice.  GoingBatty (talk) 05:59, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * It seems then that for whatever reason certain links aren't popping up for me. I use IE and chrome. I'm over it. Ready to pass it off as a non-issue. B137 (talk) 06:19, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I was using Firefox 34.0.5 and get the same results on IE 11. GoingBatty (talk) 19:39, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-52
 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 software changes
 * The Technical Operations team is now using Phabricator to track their tasks. The Operations team manages the Wikimedia servers. In the future you will be able to see the tasks that are not private.

Software changes this week
 * There will be no software changes this week and next week. This is because of the end-of-year holidays. The next update of MediaWiki will be on January 6.

Future changes
 * The system that displays citations will change in the future. The new system will not change the style of citations.
 * A new design for VisualEditor will come in January. You can try it now on test wikis.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:52, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

License choice in the upload form is not adequate
Hi all. The problem I have can be solved by a few lines of code so I am raising it here as a technical issue first. If this degenerates into a policy debate, we'll have to move it to another village pump.

Currently, a visit to Special:Upload shows that Public domain and Creative Commons are the only free license choices. This is clearly not the extent of free licenses compatible with the goals of Wikipedia. Wikipedia's own copyright tags section includes the Free Art License which should be an option when uploading an image. Another one that people might want to use is the WTFPL.

The best solution would be to add one new option: Custom. Any uploader using this must say what the free license is and provide a link verifying that the file is free. Otherwise the file will be subject to removal just like a non-free file. A flexible option like this will reduce our bias toward "popular" free licenses. Connor Behan (talk) 17:28, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Images under free licenses like FAL should normally be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, where they will be available to all Wikimedia wikis. If you really want to upload them to this wiki, I'm pretty sure you can just select "None selected" from the list and manually enter a license template into the text field above. It's not intuitive, but then, our File Upload Wizard normally directs users to Commons if they have a freely licensed image to upload. — This, that and the other (talk) 00:04, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I guess that will have to do. It sounds better than the mess at Upload. Connor Behan (talk) 02:05, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Number of unwatched pages
Is there a way to find the number of unwatched pages? They are listed at Special:UnwatchedPages but I suspect that, even 500 at a time, it would take a long time to get to the end of the list by using "next 500". JohnCD (talk) 17:46, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , you can speed up the process by changing  to   in the URL address bar.  You might also be interested in my User:Technical 13/Scripts/Gadget-listStyles userscript which will convert the bullets into a numbered list on most pages (I don't have permission to view that special page, so I haven't tested it on that specific page yet, if it doesn't work, let me know). — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 19:33, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The problem is that I suspect the number of unwatched pages is very large, in the 2 - 3 million range, though that's what I want to check; so even stepping by 5,000 would take some time. If I'm right, do you think your script would cope? JohnCD (talk) 22:47, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Considering what my script does, sure. You could even just load it through the console on the last page (the one with no more "next 5,000") and it will tell you how many are on that page.  Then you just have to go backwards and count the pages to get the larger number.  That will still take quite a while for 2+ million pages.  Let me see if I can find a better way. :) — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 23:19, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

A lot of this is old hat. There were and other reports on the Toolserver. Nobody has unfucked Labs yet (cf. T59617). For individual pages, you can use the info action (example). This data is also available via the MediaWiki API. For unwatched pages specifically, you'd want access via Labs or equivalent, I imagine (individual lookups are rough). An SQL query for this is trivial. Admins have access to Special:UnwatchedPages (as noted) and aren't subject to a threshold on the info action. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:17, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I left a note at Wikipedia talk:Special:UnwatchedPages in case anyone is watching that page and has ideas. Hmm... I can't load AWB on this computer, but I wonder if there is any way for it to count the entries?  (Such as by having it make a list of all pages on that special page?) – Philosopher Let us reason together. 23:33, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why only administrators can view that specific special page, but due to that I am unable to use that method to find out for you. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 00:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I believe AWB caps its list at 25,000 items, which is better than 5,000 – but should be able to give the definitive answer. Wbm1058 (talk) 00:20, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've tried looking at the pageview statistics for random pages, and have never found a page that is viewed less than three or four times per day. I guess enough people browse random pages that every page gets a few hits. So there are no unwatched ones. DOwenWilliams (talk) 00:54, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There may be no unviewed pages, but being viewed does not put a page on anyone's watch-list. JohnCD (talk) 10:15, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It's admin only because it's vandal bait. I believe there once was a case where an admin gave a list to a banned vandal who then proceeded to trash a bunch of pages that no one was watching. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 01:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that is too narrow of a scope. I'd like to see it expanded to be available to more established users.  It should be available to CUs, OSs, TEs, and probably Rollbackers as well.  Is there anyone else that might be interested in developing a proposal to expand the usergroups with access to that page to include those? — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 01:11, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I would oppose that, because CUs and OSs are required-to-be admins anyway, and TEs/Rollbackers go through a lot less rigorous of a process to get those userrights. The issue that Oiyarbepsy mentions did not end well, and we do not want to see it repeated. Quiddity (talk) 18:47, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Concerning visibility of Special:UnwatchedPages, please see comments at Village pump (technical)/Archive 92; Village pump (technical)/Archive 103; and the comment by Azylber at 00:06, 28 January 2013 at Village pump (technical)/Archive 107. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:53, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * , either I misunderstand what you mean by "Admins have access to Special:UnwatchedPages (as noted) and aren't subject to a threshold on the info action", or you're wrong. I have the Admin bit & can view no more than the first 5000 unwatched pages thru that special page. (Admins could run SQL queries directly on the database, but this access was removed many years ago.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:21, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * "Admins have access to Special:UnwatchedPages" refers to the fact that non-admins cannot use that special page at all. The special page only processes the first 5000 unwatched pages, though. "and aren't subject to a threshold on the info action" refers to the fact that the "Number of page watchers" on the action=info view for a page will show the actual number rather than "Fewer than 30 watchers". Anomie⚔ 12:38, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The "Number of page watchers" on the action=info view for a page can be completely useless. We need to make those count only people who have edited recently.  Some old pages have 1,000+ watchers, 98% of whom haven't edited anything last month.  A page "watched" by a blocked vandal, or a long-gone editor, is not actually a watched page.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:27, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

llywrch: Basically what Anomie said. Certain Special pages are cached and only update every few days, as I recall. If you look at $wgQueryCacheLimit at , you can see it's set to 5000. Though as WhatamIdoing suggests, the value of knowing whether a page has 0 or more than 0 watchers is basically non-existent. I have thousands of pages on my watchlist here but I haven't used Special:Watchlist in years. I would certainly be considered an active watcher by any reasonable metric, but that means nothing. It actually almost gives a false sense of security to infer that someone like me is watching articles simply because they're on my watchlist. For nearly any wiki, the real answer is to find a way to review every action, but that's difficult. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:16, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—December 2014


Did you know?

Basic table editing is now available in VisualEditor. You can add and remove rows and columns from existing tables at the click of a button.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor. Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on table editing and performance. Their weekly status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

VisualEditor was deployed to several hundred remaining wikis as an opt-in beta feature at the end of November, except for most Wiktionaries (which depend heavily upon templates) and all Wikisources (which await integration with ProofreadPage).

Recent improvements
Basic support for editing tables is available. You can insert new tables, add and remove rows and columns, set or remove a caption for a table, and merge cells together. To change the contents of a cell, double-click inside it. More features will be added in the coming months. In addition, VisualEditor now ignores broken, invalid  and   elements, instead of trying to repair them.

You can now use find and replace in VisualEditor, reachable through the tool menu or by pressing ⌃ Ctrl + F or ⌘ Cmd + F.

You can now create and edit simple  paragraphs for quoting and indenting content. This changes a "" into a "".

Some new keyboard sequences can be used to format content. At the start of the line, typing " * " will make the line a bullet list; " 1. " or " # " will make it a numbered list; " == " will make it a section heading; " : " will make it a blockquote. If you didn't mean to use these tools, you can press undo to undo the formatting change. There are also two other keyboard sequences: " [[ " for opening the link tool, and " {{ " for opening the template tool, to help experienced editors. The existing standard keyboard shortcuts, like ⌃ Ctrl + K to open the link editor, still work.

If you add a category that has been redirected, then VisualEditor now adds its target. Categories without description pages show up as red.

You can again create and edit galleries as wikitext code.

Looking ahead
VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme designed by the User Experience group. The new theme will be visible for desktop systems at MediaWiki.org in late December and at other sites early January. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" theme and the new "MediaWiki" one which will replace it.)

The Editing team plans to add auto-fill features for citations in January. Planned changes to the media search dialog will make choosing between possible images easier.

Help
If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta.
 * Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
 * Translations of the user guide for most languages are oudated. Ukrainian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch translators are nearly current. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language.
 * Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Wednesday, 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC.
 * File requests for language-appropriate "" and "" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.
 * The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.

Thank you! WhatamIdoing (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

javascript: testing whether a checkbox is checked (jQuery)
the correct way to test whether a checkbox is checked using jQuery is either, or, alternatively,.

in the past, you could also ask. this was "deprecated", but still worked. with the latest version of jquery, this does not work anymore. simple search of mediawiki and user pages for "attr('checked') shows dozens of pages that still use this form. (only 3 in mediawiki, many dozens in userspace).

less common breakage is programmatically turning checkboxes on or off: the no-longer-working-method looks something like. the correct way is

if you maintain JS code in your userspace or in mediawiki, i suggest searching for this no-longer-working-pattern, and if found, replacing it with working one.

tagging User:TheDJ and User:Legoktm, who seem to be the maintainers of MediaWiki:Gadget-afchelper.js/submissions.js and MediaWiki:Gadget-PrintOptions.js that use this no-longer-working pattern.

peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 16:15, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I can't edit gadgets anymore, but indeed, do go right ahead with such a fix. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 09:33, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * hmmmm.... well, did you (formally or informally) pass the baton to someone else? who maintains this gadget? as far as i could tell, it's currently 100% dysfunctional. who maintains mw JS pages nowadays in enwiki? User:Redrose64 ? User:Mr. Stradivarius ? peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 22:11, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the obsolete uses in the above two scripts. Does that fix the problems?  22:46, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Me? what gives you the idea that I maintain javascript pages? Sure, I've a few edits to them, but the changes that I made in almost every case were both small and obvious. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:57, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * i have no idea what afchelper is supposed to do, and i do not use it, so i can't say for sure. i noticed you left some dysfunctional stuff in MediaWiki:Gadget-afchelper.js/submissions.js, though: e.g., the line  should be replaced with  . as far as i can tell, printoptions works ok now.
 * what gave me the idea? elementary: i looked at Special:RecentChanges, filtered on mediawiki namespace, and looked for people who touched .js files. i did not try to analyze what were the nature of the edits (and btw, the changes i described above are small and obvious). peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 23:12, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I have [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-geonotice-list.js&action=history many edits to MediaWiki:Gadget-geonotice-list.js], it is true (first edit 00:28, 17 August 2012): but not one of them was in the nature of maintaining a Javascript function. Every single one was the addition, amendment or removal of an object within a data structure, originally named  but now named   and currently empty. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:53, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm in a similar position to Redrose - my .js edits are just from answering edit requests. Recently my JavaScript has improved, but it's still not at a level where I could jump in as a maintainer for most of these scripts. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 02:20, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, fixed those as well. Btw, Afchelper is some helper script used with Article for Creation. That's all I know.  16:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * To be more specific, it's an old script that AfC used to use that has been superseded by WP:AFCHRW and should be deprecated soon. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 16:57, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * iiuc, you are one of the contributors to the master project on github. could you please update it there? even if this will be replaced, as long as it's out n the open, it's better if it will be correct - who knows who is going to take it for something... peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 17:41, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , I'd be happy to merge a pull request if someone made one, but I currently don't have the time to make such changes to that script myself. Thanks. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 18:10, 23 December 2014 (UTC)


 * We really don't have any admins that patrol and maintain our protected scripts. Most often, they are updated upon request on the talk page for the script.  — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 23:26, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Calculations in templates
Hi all, in the article Hanny's Voorwerp, I just tried to use Infobox astro object's dist_ly parameter with the E template, since the value was so large. As you can see, when it then attempts to convert the value into parsecs, the template is giving it an error, apparently due to a  tag. Is there any way that we can get around this error, such as through coding the template differently, or will I have to find an alternate solution? StringTheory11 (t • c) 05:25, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The value that you pass to the dist_ly parameter will be evaluated as an expression, so you don't need to use the E template - you can just enter a value like "2e100" and it should work. (However, "2e400" gave me a result of "INF", so it depends how big we're talking about.) For the nitty gritty details, see m:Help:Calculation. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 11:18, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * And after actually trying it out in the article, I see that the calculation works, but the result input is displayed as a plain "6.5e8", which is not ideal. This will need an update to one of the templates - probably to the infobox. Let me have a think about how to do it. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 11:26, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Additionally, 6.5e8 is converted by the infobox to an extremely falsely precise value of 199386503.06748 parsecs. If the distance in pc is explicitly set, no calculations are done, so you can use markup templates freely: . SiBr4 (talk) 11:40, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think the best way to do this would be to set the dist_ly value with the E template, and to set the dist_pc parameter as well. That means that you have to do the conversion yourself, but it means that neither of them get evaluated as an expression, and therefore you avoid the expression errors. That's probably better than adding complicated logic to the template that will only be used for a few articles. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 11:42, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The upper limit for a distance in light years using exponential notation is approximately 1.7976e308 - 1.7977e308 or anything higher converts to INF. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:39, 23 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Although not a solution to the above, Infobox astro object now includes a couple of s to handle anything to which either of its s takes exception. Regards, Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:52, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Headlines in template columns
Why second level (===) headlines in template columns not working correctly? Eurohunter (talk) 10:50, 23 December 2014 (UTC) PrimeHunter (talk) 12:33, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

after headline. Polish version don't need it. Chcek also how this see on Polish version and English version. I want this same effect. Eurohunter (talk) 15:02, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't have edit links in the above test. Is that what you mean by not working correctly? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:35, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * This isn't also good. English version needed in addition
 * You don't need a, you can use a  which is interpreted as a space by your browser, but ignored by MediaWiki - save for the fact that it "protects" the newline against whitespace stripping. See . -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:30, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay but what is result of that different (space beetwen columns and main tamplate)? Eurohunter (talk) 18:21, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Redrose64 refers to a feature described at Help:Template:
 * "Whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, returns) are stripped from the beginnings and ends of named parameter names and values, but not from the middle: thus  has the same effect as  ."

This means |col1= === Heading ===

has the same effect as |col1==== Heading === Section headings only work at the start of a line but Template:Columns does not place col1 at the start of a line. Therefore the col1 parameter must have at least one non-whitespace character before a newline and  for the heading to work. is an example of non-whitespace characters for this purpose (the code produces a space but the code itself is not whitespace). I used it in [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Basshunter&diff=639401949&oldid=639375625]. The Polish version pl:Template:Kolumny does place col1 at the start of a line, so the parameter value does not need a non-whitepace character before a section heading. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:53, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * What with width beetwen columns? Now it don't have sense because distance beetwen columns is too short. Eurohunter (talk) 05:30, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Template:Columns has documentation for width and gap parameters, and links to other English column templates. Wikipedia languages are edited independently. An English and Polish Template cannot be expected to work the same way just because they have interlanguage links or the same name. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:13, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Category:Current spaceflights
Template:Launching adds non-existing unhidden Category:Current spaceflights to the articles (such as in Angara (rocket family) currently). Should the category be created manually or something else? Brandmeistertalk  14:12, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Non-existent (redlinked) categories are never hidden; this is because the code for making a cat hidden must be placed on the cat page itself, which therefore makes the cat page exist and no longer a redlink. As for the cat not existing at the moment, it was deleted twice: first time was after Categories for discussion/Log/2009 March 23, second time was per WP:CSD. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:55, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Since that category was deleted after Categories for discussion/Log/2009 March 23, it shouldn't be recreated without wider discussion. But I note that the similar template Current spaceflight adds Category:Current events, so I've edited Launching to match it. That should fix the red link at Angara (rocket family). -- John of Reading (talk) 14:56, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Looking at recent edits to, I find that John of Reading's is essentially a revert of  of yesterday, although not described as such. -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:10, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * ...and I've been reverted, so the red-linked category has returned at Angara (rocket family). I'm out of here! -- John of Reading (talk) 19:51, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I reverted them, gave it a one-month semi-prot, and started this thread. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:25, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Mediawiki is apparently producing dead links
This one: Special:FeedbackDashboard/38153. This is, apparently, WP:Article Feedback Tool? I see there was consensus shut it off, but I don't see any consensus for mass deletions. How do we get these back? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 15:31, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That special page doesn't exist, where are you seeing these being "produced" ? — xaosflux  Talk 15:56, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I saw it linked on a user talk page - User talk:Greek Fellows. The context clearly indicates that this was once a valid link, but now it's dead. What links here doesn't work, and who knows how many other links like this are around. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 23:49, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Special is not a normal namespace and WhatLinksHere never works on it. It would be nice if Special:FeedbackDashboard/xxx gave a message explaining that the Feedback feature has been disabled and the old content is no longer available. Can MediaWiki:Nospecialpagetext do that? The message is apparently not called with a pagename parameter so I guess it would have to use  or similar to test for "FeedbackDashboard", but I don't know whether magic words for pagenames work on special pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:10, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Yellow message boxes gone
I'm not sure what the technically correct name for these things is, but I will try to describe them: they are the yellow text boxes that used to appear when you hovered your mouse over certain icons, such as the padlock in the corner of protected pages and topicons. But now they haven't been appearing, at least for me. Does anyone know why this is? Everymorning  talk  16:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * They're sometimes called tooltips, and are very much browser-dependent. They show for me in Firefox 34.0.5 - have you changed browser recently? -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:52, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, okay. I changed to Chrome a few months ago, so that probably explains it. Everymorning   talk  18:05, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , "yellow" suggests to me that may actually be talking about WP:NAVPOP. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 18:08, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'm not talking about that, Technical. The popups I'm talking about are those that say, for example, "This article is semi-protected indefinitely" when you hover your mouse over the padlock or "This is a featured article" when you hover it over a gold star. NAVPOP only applies to wikilinks AFAICT. Everymorning   talk  18:30, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , the icons and padlocks are wikilinks actually, and NAVPOP does work on them. If it turns out that Red's original assessment was correct, turning on navpops might be useful to you if those are something you desire. :) — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 18:57, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've tried it in Chrome version 39.0.2171.95 m, and I get tooltips when hovering over a FA icon ("This is a featured article. Click here for more information." from the  attribute of the  element) and a prot padlock ("This article is semi-protected until April 22, 2015, due to editing disputes" from the   attribute of the <a ></a> element). Maybe it's the operating system: I use Windows XP. They are not navpops: I turned those off because they conflict with too much. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:01, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * according to, this is an elusive, transient, hard-to-reproduce bug in chrome. it may or may not be related to the theme used. even if you use the default theme, it is likely that installing another theme will make the problem go away, at least for a while. i see more and more chrome-specific bugs recently. maybe it's time to return to FF as my main browser... peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 19:17, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Bot added Reflist-talk to talk page discussions.
I often notice people adding type citations on talk pages and they do not know to add Reflist-talk to the discussion. It is not a problem if the discussion is at the bottom of the page as the citations automatically show up there on talk pages. However when the discussion moves up the page and later when archived the citation is separated from the discussion. Can we set up the bots to automatically add to discussions that need them? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 22:59, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Or better yet: how about disabling that "feature"? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:40, 23 December 2014 (UTC)


 * see Help:AGRL for all bugs. --  Gadget850talk 23:58, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Ooops - need help
I created an article in my Sandbox - North_American_Piedmontese_cattle - and when I finished editing, I clicked on "move" to get it in the main space. I got the following message:, but it doesn't actually redirect to Gabor B. Racz, which was the very first article I created in my Sandbox, and moved to the main space with help from another editor. It appears the Piedmontese article is a redirect from my Sandbox because under the title it states: "A start-class article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from User:Atsme/sandbox)". I would very much appreciate some assistance, and maybe a little guidance so this doesn't happen again. Thanks in advance.... <font style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.1em 0.1em 0.4em,#F2CEF2 -0.4em -0.4em 0.6em,#90EE90 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em;color:#E6FFFF">Atsme ☯  Consult  00:12, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Looks like the earliest revisions need a history split - I'll do that now. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 01:52, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've moved the revisions that weren't a part of North American Piedmontese cattle back to User:Atsme/sandbox - take a look at the page history of both of them. To make sure that this doesn't happen in the future, you have two options: 1) create your article drafts in a new page, for example User:Atsme/North American Piedmontese cattle, or 2) move User:Atsme/sandbox to a different title, for example User:Atsme/old sandbox history, and then create your draft in User:Atsme/sandbox. As for changing the redirect from North American Piedmontese cattle to Gabor B. Racz, all you would have needed to do was change the code at the top of your sandbox from  to  . But for now, it doesn't redirect anywhere, as it's a blank page. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 02:09, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * thank you, thank you. For future reference, I copied your post to a sticky note on my laptop.  <font style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.1em 0.1em 0.4em,#F2CEF2 -0.4em -0.4em 0.6em,#90EE90 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em;color:#E6FFFF">Atsme  &#9775;  Consult  02:51, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free use files that are not orphaned
I regularly patrol Category:Orphaned non-free use Wikipedia files to see if the files are right for deletion and fix what I can to keep proper files on Wikipedia. Recently I have been noticing when an editor blanks either a section or the entire article and is quickly reverted within a minute, in the cases listed below by User:ClueBot NG, the files show that they are not being used in any article on Wikipedia. Eventually this ends up in where ever User:Stefan2 finds the list and he does his great work and tags them an being orphaned. Once I find them, I know a null edit is all it takes for me to make the article reappear in the file's usage section and then I remove the orphaned fair use template from the file.

Examples from yesterday's list that I have not done a null edit on so the blank usage sections can be seen.
 * 1) Adobe InDesign
 * File:Adobe InDesign CS6.png
 * 1) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
 * File:H2G2 first comic front cover.jpg
 * File:Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide front.jpg
 * File:HHGG UKLP covers.jpg
 * File:HHGG REU cassette covers.jpg
 * File:Hitch Hikers Theme Original Records Version.ogg
 * But weirdly enough, the file in the infobox, File:H2G2 UK front cover.jpg, has the article listed in its usage section.

This seems like more extra work for both Stefan2, myself and any other editor who might be fighting vandalism or just regular editing. Is there anything that can be done in these cases or is this something we will just have to live with. Aspects (talk) 07:09, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I think we'll have to wait to hear from to see which, if any, tool/script  uses to tag them as orphaned... If he is using a script, the script could do a check to see if the images are actually orphaned before applying the tag to save everyone effort (except the script code writer who would have to set it up XD). — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 07:39, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem here is that the "what links here" information isn't being updated after ClueBot's revert. How is a script supposed to check whether an image is "actually orphaned" if it can't trust "what links here"? -- John of Reading (talk) 08:40, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , it's a script, it can purge to update the tables and then check WLH. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 09:21, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * A purge or null edit of the file page does not fix the problem; you have to guess which article has the image and do a null edit there. A script won't be able to guess correctly. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:55, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Since we're talking about non-free files, WP:NFCC says that there must be "a separate, specific non-free use rationale for each use of the item" together with "the name of each article ... in which fair use is claimed for the item". Therefore, there should be a valid WP:FUR on the file description page naming the article where the image is intended to be used; it will probably be linked (but might not be), so follow that link, and WP:NULLEDIT the resulting article. Do this for every FUR on the file description page (there might be more than one, example), and if after processing all the FURs in this way, there are still no articles listed under "File usage", the file may be safely put up for WP:CSD. If there are some left, check that each one of the linked articles has a FUR on the file page - if you find an article which uses the image but there is no FUR explicitly naming that article, the image may be removed from the article under WP:NFCC; if after doing this, there are no articles listed under "File usage", F5 also applies. I don't think the task can be fully automated: many FURs are in template form, with an Article parameter which may be read, but a valid FUR may be constructed using no templates whatsoever. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:19, 19 December 2014 (UTC)


 * If MediaWiki doesn't update Special:WhatLinksHere when User:ClueBot NG edits pages, then there is a bug in MediaWiki which should be fixed. If Special:WhatLinksHere can't be trusted, then this can cause problems in various parts of Wikipedia, not only with F5 tagging.
 * If MediaWiki doesn't update Special:WhatLinksHere when User:ClueBot NG edits pages, then maybe User:ClueBot NG could POST  with the   parameter after each edit to reduce the damage.
 * I could maybe write a script which searches for articles based on WP:NFCC requirements and purges the articles. I'll try to see if there is something I can do here and how difficult it would be to write that script. When I tag the files, I open them in my browser and tag them using Twinkle. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:11, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's a bug in MediaWiki. Has anyone filed one yet? Especially if anyone can figure out what exactly ClueBot is doing that's causing this? Anomie⚔ 12:57, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. I hope it can be fixed in Mediawiki. For example, it just happened with File:Book Cover The Second Coming of Christ The Resurrection of Christ Within.jpg in Second Coming. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:23, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

A different bug in MediaWiki, also affecting orphaned non-free files: File:Dubai Club.png is correctly listed as used in the "File Usage" section at the bottom of the page, and the use also shows up properly in, and [//en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=fileusage&format=xml&funamespace=0&titles=File%3ADubai%20Club.png  also shows that the file is used]. However, User:Diannaa has tagged the file as orphaned twice in December.

For some reason, the file appears to be missing from the  table. File:Doctor Who Series 7 boxset.jpg also has the same problem. I have tried purging File:Dubai Club.png, File:Doctor Who Series 7 boxset.jpg and their articles (Doctor Who (series 7) and Dubai CSC), but to no avail: they still show up as 'orphaned' in the   table. What is the problem here? Also, from where do Special:WhatLinksHere,  and the "File Usage" section obtain their information, if not from the   table? --Stefan2 (talk) 00:59, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Math parsing problem
So at this revision, what do you see? Do you see big red text stating a parsing error for the equations, or do you see the equations displaying correctly? I have a discussion going on at User talk:Greek Fellows, where apparently I see an error but the other editor does not. I'm using Safari 6.1.6 on Mac 10.7. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:11, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Two red "Failed to parse" messages on Windows 7 - Firefox 34.0.5 and IE 11, when logged in and logged out. GoingBatty (talk) 06:23, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It does work with MathJax enabled, but gives parsing errors in TeX (PNG) mode.  09:12, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Is this is just my mistakes during the typesetting, or some more serious problem going on on Wikipedia? --Worst regards, ''Greek Fellows". Visit ma talk page and ma contributions. 10:20, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know enough about TeX to answer that, but I do know TeX only supports a subset of LaTeX, and you have to ensure to only use markup that is supported in both TeX and MathJax. Aside from that, I think in this particular instance that regular text will suffice. If you must make it appear as a formula, use math instead.  10:09, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Need quick help with nested templates
Something got broken in. I have to run, and before doing that I've "fixed" the problem by changing to the regular taxobox here. Materialscientist (talk) 08:07, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I have no idea how the auto templates work, but I reverted some test edits by two new users at Taxonomy/Dendroaspis polylepis, and then I reverted your quick fix, and I think Black mamba is ok. Johnuniq (talk) 09:45, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 09:49, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Infobox disease
"Width" parameter in Infobox disease doesn't work properly: Cephalhematoma. --178.252.126.70 (talk) 17:19, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * . In the template's source code the "Width" parameter was written with a capital W which prevented the width in the article to be implemented. On another note, next time please use the talk page of the template to discuss any malfunctions of the template because this noticeboard is for technical issues of Wikipedia in general. De728631 (talk) 17:37, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

TemplateData editor adds whitespace
Hi.

I don't know if anyone has reported this or not but the interactive TemplateData editor seems to add additional whitespaces with every iteration of edit. For example, please the first three changes in revision 639328069. (note the leading whitespace) has become  (two leading spaces). It seems the editor populates its list by reading the contents of the JSON array "alias" and delimiting them with ". However, upon compiling the array back, it take the delimiter to be strictly " ". So, the whitespace becomes part of the name.

Is this reported as a bug elsewhere? Or, how do I report it?

Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 16:37, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * is the new Bugzilla. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:40, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ouch! It is painful to even go there.
 * It requires a login with an LDAP account. (I only know one LDAP: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.) I don't have that anyway.
 * Best regards,
 * Codename Lisa (talk) 17:55, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There is a Phab task to improve the login. For the moment, you can ignore the LDAP boxes, and simply click the Wikimedia Flower button named "Login or register". Oauth will ask to run in your behalf, and will login with your Single Unified Login account. Phab dashboard will display your view of the WMF development tasks, with a link for you to report the TemplateData editor issue, and a help link. An email address is no longer required, as previous Bugzilla information has been migrated to Phab. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  &#124; contribs) 18:49, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It's now T85330.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:57, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Not sure how to report this ...
I just experienced a WP server error and the error message mentions reporting it to the admins but I am not sure how to do that so I will post it here. It went away but posting this as an FYI. Beyond giving whoever-needs-to-know an FYI, I would suggest that the error page include some clue on how to report this. Details follow:
 * {| class="wikitable"

104.32.193.6 (talk) 16:31, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bridge_and_tunnel&action=submit, from 10.64.32.104 via cp1055 cp1055 ([10.64.32.107]:3128), Varnish XID 3035011983
 * Forwarded for: 104.32.193.6, 10.64.32.104
 * Error: 503, Service Unavailable at Thu, 25 Dec 2014 16:14:09 GMT
 * }
 * Error: 503, Service Unavailable at Thu, 25 Dec 2014 16:14:09 GMT
 * }
 * }
 * To report bugs in the software, please read WP:BUGS. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:29, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * This is a good idea. We should really let the users getting the error know how to report them. The current error page is not clear enough. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 06:44, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * @עוד מישהו & @Zhaofeng Li: Is this error actually considered a "bug" by WP technical staff? It seems to me that a server error is an "active problem" not a "bug", one that could be caused by hardware failures or excessive page demands for example. 104.32.193.6 (talk) 18:16, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Alterations for mobile
Obviously, this has its dangerous side, but is there any way to modify content of a page for viewing on mobile sites? I'd like to give a smaller selection of images in WP:Signpost articles while on the mobile site, particularly in galleries.

Does such functionality exist? Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:06, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Everything wrapped in the class "nomobile" should make stuff disappear on the mobile website. But in general, such constructs should be avoided, because they might be confusing for readers and a tablet is also a mobile device... —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 12:58, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Bookmarklet
I noticed bookmarklet, that counts words in page. Was wondering, can there be made bookmarklet, that could count words in a selected text? I think, it would be useful for various cases in Wikipedia. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 13:45, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

File:Mso.png
This file appears to be broken. The file usage section reports that File:Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (logo).png is a duplicate of the file. The upload time and summary and the name of the uploader are the same, so the file seems to have been duplicated somehow. It seems that User:DragonflySixtyseven tried moving the file, but since something broken remains under the old file name, the redirect isn't working properly. Any idea what is going on here? --Stefan2 (talk) 23:05, 24 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I purged File:Mso.png before when it didn't redirect as it should. That seems to have solved the problem. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:45, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The redirect now behaves correctly and the file shows up in the article, but the file is still listed as a duplicate for some reason. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:29, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I purged File:Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (logo).png and it went away. — This, that and the other (talk) 10:00, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The old file page was never properly deleted. Possibly an old file move bug? I deleted the page and restored the redirect.  09:54, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Mass move template
Is there a pinpoint page where I can ask for a mass-move of templates? (like WP:CFDS for categories). -DePiep (talk) 18:21, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Er, WP:RM perhaps? -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:47, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a lot of make-work, unless you have a very good reason, as readers never see template titles. Just like we don't encourage renaming files without good reasons to. Wbm1058 (talk) 22:53, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * re Rr64: of course (+headslap over here). re Wbm1058: of course. -DePiep (talk) 19:56, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Viewing deleted talk page posts
Hi! I have one question. Many users, especially those problematic, remove (delete) warnings from their user talk page. Those are, of course, visible in the page history. But, it is hard to track all the warnings in the long page history. Is there some tool that can be installed which, when activated, shows all the posts from the talk page at once, even those that were removed? This would be very useful tool. When making disruptive edits, user has to be warned, but it is sometimes hard to check if the user was warned, if he routinely removes warnings from his talk page. In that case, I have to check every revision of the talk page. Vanjagenije (talk) 21:42, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * If T20670 get's completed, this kind of thing will be exceptionally simple as tools used to tag things for deletion will be able to tag the edit that makes the post to the user talk page as "Tag:CSD notification" or "Tag:deletion notification". Otherwise the best you can do is list 5000 entries for the page history and look for the notifications manually using your browser's search feature, if it has one. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 22:07, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, in the page hostory, it's simple to seee where content was removed - just look at the last version before each, and you can usually find out what you want to know. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:09, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know. But, if the content was removed numerous times, then there are many versions to be checked. I was wondering if there is a way to see all the versions at once, at the same time. Vanjagenije (talk) 23:54, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

bits.wikimedia.org
Having recurring page load hangs, all waiting for responses from bits.wikimedia.org; what are we loading from there? — xaosflux  Talk 01:15, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Everything. Other than the page content itself (duh), non-gadgetized on-wiki scripts and styles, and uploaded files. Matma Rex talk 01:22, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Lol, I guess what I meant was what are we loading from there that is going so slow, or is there just a general capacity issue going on? — xaosflux  Talk 01:29, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , I've noticed this is happening quite often as well, and I've noticed that it is usually an issue with scripts that are using deprecated code or at very least code that is in the process of being deprecated. Hopefully I can start fixing these scripts in a few more weeks if I can get global interface editor on Meta for this project. I asked a week and a half ago, but met some objection because I hadn't requested the  bit back on this wiki yet after having it removed, for what was suppose to be a very short period (like 24 hours) according to the discussion on AN(I?), in July.  Anyways, I got the bit back and withdrew my request for a period of one month.  I'll be back there in the middle of January to request it again. At that point, I can start sandboxing and verifying that patches for these scripts work and applying them. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 01:45, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * this seems highly improbable, bordering on impossible. i cannot think of any mechanism that will create any correlation between use of deprecated methods in JS code, and failure to load this code from bits. the problem is much more likely related to transient problems/issues with wikimedia servers that serve those pages than it it to their content. User:Technical 13: could you please explain why do you think this has anything to do with use of deprecated code?
 * irrespective of this, it *will* be good to comb the various JS pages in mediawiki space, sanitize the code and replace deprecated calls with their modern counterparts. IMO, it would be nice to do also this for all the userspace JS that's linked from WP:JS: when someone offers their self-developed scripts to public consumption, i think it's fair to see this as an implicit license to the site maintainers to fix problems in those scripts. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 19:26, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Syntax highlighter
Dear editors: I have been using the Syntax Highlighter gadget happily for some time, but lately it will not disengage when I am editing a really long page, and I have to turn it off manually. I am using Firefox, which is apparently its preferred platform. Does anyone know what could be causing this? &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 05:11, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * could you please clarify what do you mean by "disengage"? i am not familiar with this term relating to syntax highlighter. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 17:49, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * קיפודנחש (aka kipod), the syntax highlighter gadget normally turns itself off if it detects that it is causing the text to take too long to refresh during editing. This is great, because then I can use it on shorter pages, such as articles, which have complicated formatting, but not on long pages such as lists like this one which don't need it anyway and where it would just slow things down. Lately, though, it has not turned itself off, so every time I edit a large file I have to think ahead and uncheck it in my preferences. If I forget, Firefox displays its "not responding" message for as much as 60 seconds each time I cut and paste one line of text. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 23:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Today the syntax highlighter appears to be working normally again. I don't know if it was a bug, or if it was a browser issue, but in any case, the problem is gone.  Thanks anyway. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 21:01, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Enable visual editor for talk pages
First of all, no offense to anyone who actually likes the current editor and opposes visual edit.

But anyway, my proposal is to enable visual editor for article talk pages and other discussion related pages. I think this will help give speedy responses to a talk page comment. Also, only allowing visual edit in articles means that anyone who refuses to learn wikicode cannot effectively comment on talk pages.This may be subject to opinions, but the current editor is essentially a group of images in a toolbar with inked javascript commands, something that was essentially used in 2005. We are stepping into 2015 and this just looks disgraceful and it makes it look like the seventh largest website in the world has no technological awareness whatsoever. I still don't understand why this doesn't come by default and why people actually have to opt-in, but I am sure that has been discussed before. So, I think for now, Visual Editor should be activated for talkpages and namespace articles.NetworkOP (talk) 18:15, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Why not just wait for WP:FLOW? — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 18:20, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's necessary to have two different UIs for talk pages and normal articles. Visual Editor is good enough, for now.NetworkOP (talk) 18:24, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * By the way, has there already been a discussion about whether or not to default visual editor?NetworkOP (talk) 18:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * as far as i understand, "Flow" is coming to discussion spaces pretty soon, so i do not think it makes a lot of sense to enable VE in discussion space right now, seeing that it will be short term anyway. also, discussion pages use many features of wikitext that do not appear (or at least, seldom appear) in articles, and are not supported or poorly supported by VE, such as indentation, signatures, liberal use of "pre", "source" and "nowiki" tags (probably a few others also), and more. it's not impossible to teach VE all those tricks, but i do not think this will be good use of resources. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 19:15, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * So why not make visual editor opt-out rather than opt in for new users? I personally did not know about visual edit until someone told me about it at the "tea house"NetworkOP (talk) 19:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * They did make VE opt-out for a few months during 2013; it caused a lot of trouble at the time - some people were doing nothing except clearing up the mess. The bad feeling that it created persists to this day such that any new innovation is viewed with doubt and mistrust. See the archives of this page for examples. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:26, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, if you release untested software that's what happens.NetworkOP (talk) 21:20, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * no no no no the issue with VE is that it often messes up formatting of the existing page. Personally, I like VE, however there is far too much of a chance of collateral damage when using on talk pages, especially as it is designed for use in article space. As flow is being developed for talk pages, I'd rather that was promoted as opposed to VE. -- Mdann 52   talk to me!  20:10, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Twinkle Bug
There appears to be a complicated problem with Twinkle in notifying the creator of an article that it has been tagged for speedy deletion or nominated for deletion at AFD. A page that is a biography of a living person was created in user space for a non-existent user, as User:Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist), which was just incorrect. I moved the page to draft space as Draft:Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist). The author then moved/promoted the article into article space as Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist). (By the way, the disambiguator is necessary, because Hari Singh Nalwa was a general with an existing article.) Another editor then tagged the article for speedy deletion. However, rather than notifying the originator of the tagging, Twinkle put the tag on User talk: Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist). Another editor then removed the speedy tag. I then nominated the article for deletion via deletion discussion. Twinkle again put the tag on User talk: Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist). I have copied the notice to the originator's talk page. I realize that this is a problem that is unlikely to occur under normal conditions (because creating a BLP as a user page is a strange error), but can someone look into it? It does appear to be reproducible, because the same article has been nominated twice via two processes. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:19, 27 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The page history [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hari_Singh_Nalwa_%28Scientist%29&dir=prev&limit=10&action=history] shows the page was created by User:Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist) so I don't see a problem. Special:Contributions/Hari_Singh_Nalwa_(Scientist) also shows the page creation. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:28, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You are correct. That user account made one edit in 2011, to create a user page that reads like a BLP that reads like a resume.  After some editing, I moved it to draft space, and it was then moved to article space.  So notifying the recent editor who moved it to article space was a courtesy rather than a requirement.  Robert McClenon (talk) 22:38, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Difference between title of special page and tab title in Maltese.
Hi. I am using the Maltese language interface and, quite accidentally, have come across a little irregularity - all I simply want to do is find out where it is likely to have originated and whether there is any way to fix it. Please review this link which is my contributions, using Maltese as the interface language. You will note the page title is "Kontributi tal-utent", but if you look at the tab title, it reads "Kontribuzzjonijiet tal-utent". Both mean the same thing, "User contributions", but I am trying to figure out why they are different and whether they should be. I am running Firefox 31.0 with no addons. Do you have any thoughts on this one? Thanks :) CharlieTheCabbie|paġna utenti| diskussjoni 00:25, 28 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The words are taken from MediaWiki:Contributions/mt and MediaWiki:Contributions-title/mt. None of them have been customized at the English Wikipedia so the MediaWiki defaults are used. I don't know Maltese but somebody probably either made them independently or thought they were each better in their own context. Some other languages also have differences, for example [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/CharlieTheCabbie?uselang=sv Swedish] and [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/CharlieTheCabbie?uselang=nl Dutch], although the only difference there is whether to include the local word for user. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:13, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Template editors and coding skills
Where can I go to begin learning the coding skills to become a template editor? What credentials and/or demonstrated skill set are required to obtain template editor privileges? Thanks for your help -- Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 02:29, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Start here Template editor; MOST templates are not protected and can be edited. Just like any other wiki page, you can copy template code to your own sandbox and experiment as well.  The actual user permission is only required for templates that are used on massive numbers (e.g. over 10,000 pages) of pages; getting the permission is mostly by demonstrating that you know what you are doing and won't break things.  Wikipedia talk:Template editor is a good place to ask for a mentor if you want. —  xaosflux  Talk 02:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your response -- I may want to see if more than one experienced template editor wants to take me on as an informal mentor. My interest in template editing involves specific templates that have hundreds of transclusions to several that have 10,000+ transclusions.  As a seasoned WP editor (5+ years and 70,000 edits), it's probably past time that I start learning the more technical details of template editing.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:59, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Your tenure is more then sufficient to show that you are here for the good of the project ("trustworthy") - comments below are related to the technical skills to demonstrate your template ability. After meeting the guidelines, request access at WP:PERM. —  xaosflux  Talk 18:29, 28 December 2014 (UTC)


 * , I'd be more than happy to help you develop some template-foo if you are interested. I started putting together a basic tutorial on learning how to write templates, but lost interest and it's just kind of sitting in my user space.  Having someone to teach might make development of that program easier because I'll be able to see how others learn and be able to pick out which parts of coding should go next in a better manner.  You know where my talk page is if you are interested. ;) — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 02:59, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your offer -- I've already started reviewing the contents of your draft tutorial lessons, and I will follow up on your talk page. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:59, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There is no particular technical skill set needed for the template editor right. All that is required, per the granting guidelines, is that you have "a need for the right, as well as a familiarity with the care and responsibility required when dealing with high-risk template modification". In other words, whatever pages you need the template editor right to edit, you're not going to mess up the code or do things against consensus. In most cases this means that you need to know fairly advanced template code, but if all you need to edit are protected stub templates and edit notices then you could just as well get the right without understanding how any of our more complex templates work. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 08:09, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your explanation of the TE user right. After 5+ years as a Wikipedia content editor, I think it's time for me to begin absorbing some of the more complex template editing skills.  What I have observed is that template editors are rarely substantive content editors in my areas of interest, and when they edit the templates in those areas they are doing so as technicians and not as regular users of those same templates.  Frankly, I think we need more template editors who have a content editor's (and template user's) perspective.  So, I am willing to begin the learning process.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:59, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. The best way to learn template editing, in my opinion, is by doing it. So you should start with a template that you want to alter, or an idea of a new template that you would like to create. Then you can start experimenting on it on the template's /sandbox subpage, or just on the template page itself if it's a new template. For guidance on what to do, Help:Template is a good starting place, and if you get stuck, just ping me or the other editors here who have offered their help. Also, it would be a good idea to read WP:TESTCASES (freshly rewritten by yours truly) - many existing templates have test cases, and they can make the process of testing new code much simpler. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 18:13, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Dirtlawyer1, I want to put in a plug for writing WP:TemplateData for templates that editors use (mostly with VisualEditor). Some are quite easy, but others are complex and require a full understanding of how the template works to get it all correct.  The GUI tool is pretty good now, but the lists of which templates are commonly used is seriously out of date.  Adding TemplateData would be useful to editors here as well as at other Wikipedias (which often copy TemplateData from en.wp), and working on that project would be a useful way to learn about the breadth and scope of our templates. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:28, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Template Prev/doc and Template:Origlink/doc are missing
Template:Prev/doc and Template:Origlink/doc are missing. Consequently, a user visiting Template:Prev or Template:Origlink is given no instructions on how the template works.

Also, Template:Cross-wiki diff, Template:Cross-wiki free diff, Template:Cross-wiki language diff, Template:Cross-wiki language free diff, Template:Diff, Template:Diff3, Template:Diff4, Template:Free diff, Template:Undo, Template:Cross-wiki language oldid, Template:Cross-wiki oldid, display a spurious wikilinked "[1]" at the top; Template:Diffnum displays a spurious wikilinked "edit " at the top.

Also, Template:Free diff says " (the third parameter)"; I assume this is an error, because I assume  refers to the fourth parameter. — Anomalocaris (talk) 06:38, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I just wrote Template:Prev/doc. I'll have a go at the other one in a second. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 07:48, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, I nominated Template:Origlink for deletion, as it didn't have any transclusions at all. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 07:52, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, I've removed "the third parameter" from Template:Free diff/doc, as I agree that it was confusing. The "spurious" output at the top of the template pages is actually the default output of the templates, which we usually leave there as an example, unless it does something undesirable like output a tracking category or display an error message. By the way, a lot of these templates should probably be merged into Template:Diff - it's confusing having so many similar-but-different templates that only have a few transclusions. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 08:01, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * User:Mr. Stradivarius: Thank you for your quick and comprehensive response to a multiple request. I guess it was obvious that the user is supposed to mouse over the "spurious wikilinked '[1]'" to see what the templates output, and I may have figured this out in the past but forgot. Most of these templates define the triple-bracketed parameter number on first use, e.g. " (the fourth parameter)" and I would have changed "  (the third parameter)" to that, but lacked the confidence. — Anomalocaris (talk) 09:14, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * In future, you can create such missing documentation pages, and place Bad documentation on them. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:10, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

What links here and navbox
I was sent here from the teahouse: As neither categories nor navboxes appear on mobile view, I'd like to check individual pages with what-links-here, to see it needs something like see-also or whatever from a related page. But I haven't found an option to suppress links from the transcluded navbox. Any suggestions? Besides, what is the rationale of not showing a link to the category pages? After all there are links to other languages in mobile view. Jo Pol (talk) 06:04, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Village pump (technical)/Archive 132 --NE2 06:47, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The rationale is that the mobile team works on elements one at a time and tries to find the best way to expose them to users. If it is not there, then either they have not had time to work on it yet, or they are still in a fase of experimentation. Languages are there, because there were a lot more user requests for that and thus has had higher priority. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 09:32, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Edittools issues
I've recently noticed that the MediaWiki:Edittools interface that's used during page edits is no longer available to me. This is how it should look at the bottom of the edit window but this is what it looks like when I try to edit something, note the lack of symbol/markup addition buttons. I thought it might have something to do with JavaScript, but I have the most recent version installed, the same situation occurs if I try to edit in a different browser (I use Firefox normally, Chrome to test this situation), and if I log out the buttons appear again so I think it's something related to my preferences or my .js page. Any ideas? Thanks in advance. —Mr. Matté (Talk/Contrib) 21:04, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You have some CSS in your common.js that is not supposed to be there and is likely blocking all JavaScript.  22:09, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That was the issue; all is well in the world! (well not really) Much thanks. —Mr. Matté (Talk/Contrib) 23:14, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It feels like this problem has come up a lot recently, and I'm starting to wonder if it's common. Is there any way to make a list of .js files containing CSS?  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:31, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There are Phab. tickets to not allow you to save invalid JS anymore, they include some discussion about how many pages that currently are, and how we should proceed of handling those, before adding JS validation to the save action... Lemme look... T76204, T85304 and T85306 —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 09:38, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The line that you removed in wasn't CSS - it's valid JavaScript, so you could put it back. It's only the line that you left behind that was CSS (apart from the very last semicolon, that's not CSS but is valid JavaScript). -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:28, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Two capital letters
Several hours ago, I discovered the WIlliam P. Ginther article and moved it to William P. Ginther, correcting the wrongly capitalised "I" in his first name. Is there a database report, or some other type of function, that would produce a list of all mainspace pages (minus redirects) with titles consisting of two capital letters followed immediately by lowercase letters? Some such pages would be appropriate, e.g. PEnnsylvania 6-5000, but probably most of them would be errors. Nyttend (talk) 00:13, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I just ran one. See its results at User:Jackmcbarn/Possibly miscapitalized article titles. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:11, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I've moved the list to my sandbox and have begun chipping away at entries, moving pages when appropriate.  If you have time to check them, it would be helpful, since there are still something like 3200 entries to check.  Nyttend (talk) 02:02, 29 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi, Nyttend. You can use a regular expression to do an "Article title search" using an external tool; see Help:Searching for the link. A regular expression like "^[A-Z][A-Z][a-z ]+" is similar to what you want but you'll have to craft it to your taste. Each search takes a while to run. I also played around with regular expressions using the new default Wikipedia search. For example I did "insource:/WIlliam/" and found about 35 matches (all fixed now but one). I don't think "insource:" searches titles though, only the source, and I'm not sure if it searches every article or not. I get the impression it only searches a small subset. I'm now tackling other similar names like "WInston", "WIlson", and so on using this specific case approach. The default search also has an intitle: feature but I don't think it accepts regular expressions like "insource:" does. PS In my guess, "William" is perhaps the most commonly messed up name on Wikipedia. Over the years I've fixed many screwed up variations of this name with "Willliam", "Wllliam", and "Willlam" being a big problems. Jason Quinn (talk) 23:14, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-01
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CSD
I am attempting to nominate an article for speedy deletion, but the article was created under a slightly different name and I am having difficulty getting the old Afd discussion to appear in the header (see diff). Help with this would be appreciated. Thanks! - Location (talk) 05:32, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Nevermind. Thanks, Fuhghettaboutit! - Location (talk) 06:08, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * No problem:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:10, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Access rights failure
See. It was made by a logged-out user. That shouldn't have happened, because editing subpages of Template:Editnotices is restricted to those with the template-editor and accountcreator rights. How was it possible? -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That does seem to be a flaw in security. One guess is that the token was grabbed while logged in and then used while logged out, the system may be failing to check that the user is the same on the token was issued to. If that is the case then session stealing may be possible via a MITM attack. However it happened it should be looked into. <b style="color:SteelBlue">Chillum</b> 19:31, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Anyone know how this protection is actually implemented? I know it reads in WP:TPE that "The template editor user right allows trusted coders to edit templates and modules that have been protected with the "protected template" protection level (usually due to a high transclusion rate). It also allows those editors to edit edit notices, all of which are permanently uneditable without template editor, account creator, or administrator rights." but unless this is implemented in the core MediaWiki functionality, or an extension, there's no evidence I can see that unprotected templates - such as the edit notices - are actually protected. Mind you, I've still got a post Christmas hangover. QuiteUnusual (talk) 19:40, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It is implemented via the Mediawiki:Titleblacklist, specifically:

# Editnotice pseudospace Template:Editnotices\/.* <noedit|errmsg=titleblacklist-custom-editnotice>
 * If I attempt to edit Template:Editnotices/Page/European Union, I get a red warning box that thinks it is protected. Dragons flight (talk) 19:48, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I was able to make a change. I'm just a regular user. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 20:11, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ummm I can edit it but now cant revert as the "You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reason:" box appears ....So could someone please revert me - Sorry! – Davey 2010  Merry Xmas / Happy New Year 20:17, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. I also logged out and got my wife to log in (normal user).  She can't edit it.  So it's not that everyone can edit it and the protection isn't working at all. Black Kite (talk) 20:22, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Now everything is ok - I can't edit it anymore. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 20:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

It appears this bug has some nuance to it. Were those able to edit it using IPv6 and those not able using IPv4 per chance? <b style="color:SteelBlue">Chillum</b> 20:24, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I did wonder that. Unlikely though, if Edgars2007 could edit it, but now can't. Black Kite (talk) 20:32, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I was unable to replicate this while logged out. I even tried to copy the entire source of the page from a logged in as ACC & TE account (this one) to the logged out in IE one and although I could make it so I could type in the box and click save, it still got caught up in the back end.  I'm guessing it is a caching issue and has nothing to do directly with tokens or the specific users. I'm wondering what things are similar between the two accounts and the default logged out.  Should dig into what gadgets and preferences the two logged in users have disabled that were default as those can probably be excluded. Also, curious if there is a common  string involved. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 21:56, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't even let you alter the contents of the edit box, and no "Save page" button should be offered. The experience for a logged-out user attempting to edit an editnotice should be almost exactly the same as if they were on a template-prot page and clicked the "View source" tab: the only differences are that on an editnotice page, the "Edit" tab isn't modified to read "View source", and the notice above the edit window is different - crucially, it says "This editnotice can only be created or edited by administrators, account creators, and template editors" instead of "This page is currently protected so that only template editors and administrators can edit it". In both cases, the edit box is unalterable, and there are no tools or other buttons. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:49, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It doesn't, on it's own. You missed the part where I said that I altered my local rendition of the code to see if it was an interface issue and it still caught it in the backend. ;) — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 23:01, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Likely this has nothing to do with it, but I will mention it just in case: I have several time been in the middle of an edit when the I was automatically logged out because my 30 days were up. I activated the edit window while logged in, but by the time I decided to save I was logged out.  Is it possible that this situation is treated differently from one in which a person manually logs out? &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 23:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * My first thought was the same as Anne's, although after reading everything, I also agree that it's less likely.
 * On a related point, whoever made it possible for me to get logged out mid-edit, and did not also make that result in large, annoying banners that said "You've been logged out again, so don't save!!!" with an automatic trip back to the login page, deserves to have a Long Discussion with the OTRS team about how much unnecessary work that choice makes for them.
 * (I don't know if it's possible, but I have wondered whether the usual  could be changed to something like , so that if I started editing while logged in, the URL would report the status when I try to save, and if I'm no longer logged in, then it would complain and give me the opportunity to log back in.  (There would be no corresponding  , because if I started editing while logged out, and then logged in (in a separate window), then there's no harm done.)  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:22, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've opened T85428 about this. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:22, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Download pdf still broken, round two
The problems with the "Download pdf" link are still a problem. The tables and infoboxes are still not appearing. (Apparently not any navboxes, either.) I tried this on two different featured articles, and as anyone can see if you do a "download as pdf", critical information is omitted. On Appaloosa, the breed infobox and a critical illustrated chart of coat color patterns is omitted, and on California Chrome the pdf version omits the infobox and a chart of all his racing statistics (material that is really not easy to render in a simple bulleted list.) An earlier post here explained that "MediaWiki recently switched from using the legacy PediaPress PDF renderer to using OfflineContentGenerator." However, they basically said they were hoping to find some volunteers to fix the problem. It still isn't fixed. I'd say that if WMF broke it, they should fix it and not wait for volunteers to do it, but maybe someone here happens to be good at this sort of thing? I took a look at the same articles in WikiWand, and WikiWand renders it all beautifully. If a non-WMF project can deliver wikipedia content, so should WMF. Montanabw <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 22:12, 27 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Bug at T32706. --  Gadget850talk 14:58, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Does WikiWand generate PDFs, though? I suspect not. It's not a fair comparison. — This, that and the other (talk) 04:42, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The point is that generating templates seems to be well within the doable, and if a third party source can do it, and the previous pdf generating software could do it, why wasn't this bug fixed several months ago?  It's a serious problem, particularly for articles that make use of templates for statistics and assorted data that is not suitable for rendering in narrative form.  Another example would be rainbow trout. This failure of the pdf generator is causing some drama in certain articles where editors are trying to remove templates on the grounds that they don't show up in a pdf format.  I know nothing about how the tech works to fix this, but hoping someone does and is willing to look at the issue.    Montanabw <sup style="color:purple;">(talk)  22:51, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

OneClickArchiver new feature!
Since there has been concern by some editors that they are "afraid" they'll accidentally activate 's (Original by ) OneClickArchiver (Original) script while trying to click on the edit section link, I've today that allows users to toggle the script on or off directly from talk pages! The best part is that it will remember what the last state was! Please see the documentation for more details and happy archiving! — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 02:18, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That's a really nifty feature. I see the "oca-on" and "oca-off" toggle at the top of the talk page.  Thanks for doing this. — Maile  (talk) 13:56, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , the "on" or "off" is the current status of the tool. You can also toggle it with .  I made a large scale change to the tool yesterday that checks if the required parameters can be detected before polluting the page with lots of unusable   links that just yell at you when you click them.  I've replaced those links with an "error" message that fades away after five seconds in the top right corner of the screen instead.  Due to some complaints about the error message, you should now only see those messages when the script is "on".
 * I've also added a small debugging feature to the script. If you click on  on any talk page where the script doesn't seem to be running or append   or   and then   to the URL of a talk page (ie   or  ) and then press enter you will see a box in the upper right corner that will not go away until clicked on that will tell you what the script could find for parameters.
 * If it couldn't find a parameter, that cell will be red and it will show what it's going to guess the default value should be. Those default values are for an upcoming feature that will allow you to use the script to set up automatic archival on pages that currently have none and will also be used for the requested features of being able to use the script to increment the counter, create new archive pages using the defined header, and respect maxsize.  Lots of features in the works.  I'll try and keep everyone posted! — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 14:25, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Template:Polytonic in special character inserter
The character inserter at the bottom of the edit box has the option to insert the template polytonic at the end of its menu of Greek characters. This template is deprecated and should be replaced with in the programming of this thing. I'm commenting here because couldn't find any Help or Wikipedia page relating to the character inserter. (I feel like I'm in a bizarre nightmare....) — Eru·tuon 00:12, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've removed it. I don't think it needs to be replaced with the lang tamplate.  00:52, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, I am trying to standardize articles on Ancient Greek by adding that template, and since IPA and Unicode are included in the special character inserter, it would make sense if were as well. — Eru·tuon 04:54, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * We'd have to add to to every language section then. Can you post this at MediaWiki talk:Edittools?  09:02, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It's a gadget, and the gadget's front page is MediaWiki:Gadget-charinsert. There is a small help page at Help:Edittools. These do have talk pages, more than two in fact - the main one is MediaWiki talk:Edittools, which you were directed to by Edokter, but in addition that there is MediaWiki talk:Gadget-charinsert there is also MediaWiki talk:Gadget-charinsert-core.css. The gadget has been renamed and reconfigured more than once, and I suspect that other talk pages are strewn about along the way. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:18, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the pointer. I posted a comment there.
 * Thanks for the info. Seems like the gadget ought to at least be briefly mentioned and linked in Help:Editing. I posted a suggestion in the talk page there. — Eru·tuon 22:21, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Edit window font
I edit with Firefox 34.0.5 for Windows 8.1, 64 bit. To choose a font for the edit window, I went into Preferences-->Editing, and for the Edit Font Area Style I chose Monospaced Font. In Firefox I chose Tools-->Options-->Content Tab-->Advanced. For the Monospace font I chose Consolas, size 16. But the Wikipedia editor just started ignoring my choice and displaying some nearly illegible font. What changed, and how can it be fixed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jc3s5h (talk • contribs) 00:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Consolas works for me in Firefox 34.0 on Windows Vista. Have you tried the more common Courier new? Does it help to log out? PrimeHunter (talk) 04:39, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * After some experimenting, I found that in the Wikipedia editing preferences, I need to specify "Browser default" rather than "Monospaced Font". Somehow the broweser monospace font is chosen rather than any of the other browser defaults (serif or san-serif). Jc3s5h (talk) 17:12, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Browsers typically have more than one default font; Firefox 34.0.5, for instance, has several sets of four. You can check and set these as follows: in the menu at the top, select " T ools" → " O ptions"; in the icon strip at the top of that, click on "Content"; in the "Fonts & Colors" box, click and this opens another dialog box. This has a pull-down menu named " F onts for"; if you're checking the fonts used in English Wikipedia, make sure that "Latin" is selected there. Below that are four fonts - the one that is used for English Wikipedia edit boxes is the one shown against " M onospace" - I've got "Courier New" here, size 13. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:14, 30 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, my confusion was that the preferences dialog in Wikipedia does not make it clear that when "Browser default" is chosen, it will be the browser default monospaced font.
 * and indeed it shouldn't, b/c it's not WP choice, it's the browser's choice. the part that may be confusing is the fact that most (all?) browsers use by default monospace fonts for a "textarea" element. maybe this (i.e., the default font used by the browser for textarea element) can be configured for some browsers, and if it can, then you might find non-monospace fonts in edit box. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Undoing translation edits
Could someone explain to me how in blazes I'm supposed to undo junk edits like the ones at c:Help:Contents/pt. I am surprised that this functionality is not readily apparent. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 05:44, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * What's stopping you from reverting? Oh, I see. Hmm. Gonna look.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You can't. It's a translate bug.  It's logged on phab someplace, but it's 1am here, so I'm not digging it up now. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 06:21, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * T41415 maybe? — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 06:23, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It looks like you have to contact a Commons:Special:ListUsers/translationadmin.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Well I guess I'll just have to deal with it for now - the edits did translate the text afterall; they goofed up the linking too. Thanks. <abbr title="Smiling face" style="border-bottom: none;">Face-smile.svg Magog the Ogre (t • c) 06:27, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * @Fuhghettaboutit: - could I make myself a translation admin? I tried that once and it didn't work. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 06:27, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Simple. Just make yourself a steward first.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:29, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Or, you know, click the translation administrator box under Groups you can change?[//commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&dir=prev&offset=20141118025024&limit=1&type=rights&user=Magog+the+Ogre&page=&tagfilter=&hide_patrol_log=1&hide_thanks_log=1] But it still doesn't work. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 06:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I wonder what are the junk edits at c:Help:Contents/pt? Can't find... I don't understand Portuguese but at least the edits made by MEX VICENTE M3 seems fine to me. --Stryn (talk) 17:57, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The edits seem to be a bit messy. There are headlines which are not present in the English version, and various links are broken. I don't know whether the text matches the English text. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:11, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, if the edits are not that good they can be deleted (commons:Special:Contributions/MEX_VICENTE_M3) or fixed (if someone knows pt). --Stryn (talk) 00:12, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Specifying location in Template:Infobox Company Comment
On pages such as Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken the company infobox seems to be broken with respect to the location field. The way I have it seems to be the recommended way per the documentation, which advises leaving the location_city and location_country parameters blank, but this instead leaves extra commas after the location string "Germany". Is there a proper way to express the location of the company with only country, without city, or is the template currently broken? Anon423 (talk) 15:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed with this edit to the infobox template. Due to the span tags the parameters in the comma-separated entries call were considered non-empty, so the template added commas. SiBr4 (talk) 15:30, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks! So I'm not going crazy. And I didn't even have to go back and re-fix it. I have a lot to learn about infoboxes, but should this fix be similarly applied to infobox company's sister infoboxes, and/or other fields with similar syntax pitfalls? Anon423 (talk) 15:43, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Comma_separated_entries?namespace=10 These] are all templates that use Comma separated entries. Randomly checking the source for a few of the infoboxes, most appear to either already use #if cases or not need them. Infobox company did also use them until they were removed today. SiBr4 (talk) 16:22, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Image in Limbo
File:Action-centre-warning.PNG was reported at Teahouse/Questions It's still at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Action-centre-warning.PNG. It could probably be fixed with a new upload but maybe somebody first wants to investigate further in case there is a more general problem. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:25, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Re-uploaded. This should not frustrate any investigation (I think).  14:31, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Pending Changes Log
The article Twitch.tv has Pending changes protection. However it neither has a lock in the top corner, nor any entries in the log []. Why is this? meamemg (talk) 23:51, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The padlock icons need to be manually added; you can do it yourself with pp-pc1. Regarding the logs, that page was recently moved after it had been protected. According to the fine print at WP:MOVE, pending changes protection is moved with the page but isn't logged against the new page name after a move (unlike other protection types, which are logged). Regards, Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 00:04, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

"action=" parameters
Need a link to a list of valid "action=" parameters, say, in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sandbox&action=edit. I know a few constructive ones like "edit", "purge", etc., but need a wider list for antivandalism check. Thanks in advance. Materialscientist (talk) 02:26, 1 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Help:URL has some. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:40, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think what you are looking for is MW:Manual:Parameters to index.php. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 03:09, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 04:07, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Lua help needed
I would like to make a template, say, that takes a URL like  and outputs a formatted Diff? (A bot could regularly Subst: instances) That would be useful in many circumstances, and should be doable in Lua, in which I unfortunately have no skills.

I'd like as similar template, say, that would turn a string like  (which is easy to cut & paste from an article history) and render a formatted unsigned template. (Or perhaps the existing template could be modified to except that format of input?)

Could someone assist, please? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:42, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Re: the second request, there's unsigned2 and UnsignedIP2. Graham 87 12:36, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. They still require a pipe; I think Lua could be used to do away with that and to detect the parameter value's format, so we could merge them all. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:14, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The first one shouldn't be too hard - I'll have a go at writing that now. The second will be easy if we're talking about copying and pasting the date format as it is shown in the page history, but if we want to handle free-form dates then it will be difficult to write code that can tell where the date ends and the username begins. (Consider that, technically, someone could set their username as a date if they wanted to.) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 14:17, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Also keep in mind, dates in page history are formatted based on user preferences with 4 possible options. Mr.Z-man 17:39, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I was only thinking of C&P from page histories. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:23, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Your first request is now done - check out Template:Url to diff. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 17:21, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's fantastic, thank you! Could it be made to work ith un-named parameters, also? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:23, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * As in ? The problem with that is that diff URLs always have an equals sign in, so you would always need to make it   otherwise the text before the equals sign would be interpreted as a parameter. People tend to get that wrong, so I thought it was easiest to just make it a named parameter and have done with it. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 14:11, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, good point. Thanks again. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:09, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Pagename: magic word, no disambiguation
Please remind me: I think we have a magic word, or template, like, but which returns a disambiguation-free version of the page name, so "Foo" from a page called "Foo (bar)". What is it? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:12, 1 January 2015 (UTC)


 * PAGENAMEBASE. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:41, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's the one thank you. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:34, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I added it to the see also section of the documentation for PAGENAME. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 15:49, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Category:Pages with malformed coordinate tags
If you look at what's in the above category, you'll find two user scripts: User:GregorB/FixCroIS.js and User:David Condrey/edit-tools.js. I have no idea why my script appears there: it's supposed to be JavaScript source code, but it seems as if MediaWiki treats it as wikitext and erroneously transcludes "templates" in it. (The script itself works fine.) Does anyone know what is happening here? GregorB (talk) 00:49, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I usually get rid of such "false" detections by wrapping the content (very first and absolute last lines) of the offending .js file like so....


 * some folks use <tt>//&lt;nowiki&gt;</tt>; others use <tt>//&lt;pre&gt;</tt> -- it shouldn't matter -- they all seem to do the trick. Beats me why it it happens. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:22, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh and the "false detection" might still be listed for some time afterwards -- basically until your cache (or the wiki-system's) catches up with the change(s). -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:28, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a clever trick - thanks, I'm going to try it. This seems to confirm that the problem is indeed due to MediaWiki treating source code as wikitext - although everything is displayed verbatim, "template code" seems to be transcluded under the hood, which leads to spurious warnings. So, in all likelihood that's a MW bug. GregorB (talk) 10:13, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The MediaWiki software does indeed look for constructs that resemble templates, and attempts to expand them. In the case of your script, it's attempting to expand the string constant . Another possible fix for that is to escape the second opening brace whenever there is a pair inside a string constant:   If MediaWiki did not expand templates, speedy deletion templates like  wouldn't work on user javascript pages. The same is true of wikilinks - for example, the text   is why User:Redrose64/common.js shows in Special:WhatLinksHere/User:Anomie/previewtemplatelastmod.js - this is intentional, it helps  to track usage of the script. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:47, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In fact, this is something that probably wouldn't be implemented were the code being written today, since it was originally a not-really-intended side effect. See T43155 for some history on that. Anomie⚔ 16:37, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In the case of User:David Condrey/edit-tools.js, it's  - again, you can escape the second opening brace:   -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:57, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * All good points. Not a bug then, just a sneaky feature... BTW the script is gone from the category now, so problem solved. GregorB (talk) 11:59, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * FYI, he's got the closing tag(s) in the last line of the script but lost the opening tag(s) for the first line at some point -- which is not all that uncommon. Point here is if you're going to use the "hidden tag" approach don't forget to check for such breakages before applying new ones first. In instances like this, the missing or opening "hidden-tags" may not be missing at all but have become part of the body of the script instead of residing on the first or last line(s) as bits of script get added/amended over time. -- George Orwell III (talk) 20:49, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Color of followed links has poor visual contrast
Links are blue and followed links are purple, of course, as has always been true at Wikipedia. But the purple of a followed link used to have clear contrast with the black of surrounding plain text. Now I find it to have frustratingly poor contrast. Sometimes I cannot notice that a term is linked when I am reading (skimming comfortably over the lines at a normal reading pace). If I *stare* at a followed link, I can tell that it's dark purple and not black, but the point of visual contrast is that you're not supposed to have to stare or squint to discern it. Please no one reply that "maybe you have poor vision." I have normal visual acuity (wearing glasses) and color vision. The point here is not my vision, it is that between the font choice and the color choice for the UI, the contrast has been set at a very low level, and I suspect that someone let their own aesthetic preference get in the way of usability or user experience (UX). Which is poor UI design, but yet seems quite trendy within the past few years at many organizations (Microsoft comes to mind). Choosing fonts with super-skinny lines (which is now a trendy fad/obsession among web designers) does not help the problem. If I (with normal vision) am experiencing this, then I am not the only one. I don't know whether I am the first to complain about it, but I cannot be the first to have a degraded UX because of it. Hope someone might at least consider maybe choosing a lighter shade of purple. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:11, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Which skin do you use? There are four available, and their link colours differ. We can advise you on how to change link colours for yourself, but to do that, we also need to know which skin. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:18, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I use Vector (and I like it the most out of the four). Thanks, Quercus solaris (talk) 21:12, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Visited link color in Vector skin
 * Visited link color in MonoBook skin
 * To use the slightly-lighter MonoBook link color in Vector, the rule is  - put that in Special:MyPage/vector.css You could even make it green, by using something like   instead of   -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:27, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * From previous discussions, it appears that "the color" is actually a significant range of colors, depending on your browser, OS, screen, and ambient lighting. If the color goes lighter for one person, then it might be too light to be legible for another person.  Also, some people have their browsers set to override Wikipedia's local link colors.  If these seems different from what you remember in the past, then you might check your browser settings.
 * (Personally, I'm waiting for the day when job postings for web designers start saying things like, "Must use bifocals or consent to wearing low-vision simulator eyeglasses at work." Not enough attention is paid to the basics, like whether people can see the stuff on the screen.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 2 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks much for the follow-up, Redrose64 and WhatamIdoing. I added the css tweak and it seems to help. And now I feel better having vented and knowing that some backstory exists ( "From previous discussions, it appears that "the color" is actually a significant range of colors, depending on your browser, OS, screen, and ambient lighting" ). Cheers, Quercus solaris (talk) 23:49, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Addition and subtraction in templates?
I am currently trying to find a way of entering a certain number into a template  and displaying a link to the years right before and after it. Is there a way to use addition and subtraction in templates? Dustin ( talk ) 03:19, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * . Mr.Z-man 04:18, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) See mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions. For example  if year is optional with the current year being default: |previous |next. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll try out .  Dustin  ( talk ) 06:33, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Looking for unreferenced articles across muliple categories
Can anyone help with a quick way to look across multiple categories for unref'd articles? I'm looking for any Olympic-related article that is currently unref'd. For example, this article was in this state before I sourced it. It was in two categories that contain the word "Olympic" along with the Category:All articles lacking sources. Can this be done? Thanks.  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 13:15, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * CirrusSearch for  gives 184 articles. I don't know if that finds all conforming articles; I suspect not. SiBr4 (talk) 13:30, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * CatScan will also help, giving better results. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 13:36, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks. How do I do a wildcard search in Catscan?  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 13:43, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's probably easier to do a tree search (ie, anything in a subcategory of "Olympic Games"). This search (928 pages, will take ~50s to run) goes five levels deep below the original OG category. Andrew Gray (talk) 13:48, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Alternatively, this one (528 pages, 24s to run) is anything in the lacking sources category with a WP Olympics talkpage banner. Andrew Gray (talk) 13:56, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Nice one! THanks.  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 18:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Double exclamation points problematic for Dashboard table
Noticed the village pump section of the Dashboard was broken (this version). Looks like the problem is the double exclamation points in one of the section headings breaking the table. For now I replaced them with html codes, so when Legobot next updates the template it should be ok (I think), but what would be the best way to fix this for the future? --&mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 21:33, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Happened before, and there is no quick fix. The exclamation points are mistakenly parsed as table markup. Bast action is just to remove the exclamation marks.  22:41, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, table markup can produce two kinds of cell - data cells, where a line begins with a single pipe; and header cells, where a line begins with a single exclamation mark. In both cases, a second cell may be defined without starting a new line by using a double symbol. WP:W is essentially a table, with content transcluded from elsewhere; so if the transcluded content includes wiki markup, that markup will be processed as if it had been typed directly into the page. Since it's a table, any occurrence of either  or   will be treated as the end of one cell and the start of the next. -- Red rose64 (talk) 00:59, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Log in every 30 days
I've looked through the archives (not all 133 pages, but did it by search) and didn't see anything directly answering this question. Why are we limited to 30 days per log in? I'm sure those with multiple bots find this aggravating, not to mention those, like me, who make changes sporadically. We go to make a edit and suddenly find we're not logged in. I can keep Wikipedia up and open for multiple days, so I can open on Friday, get logged out on Saturday, and not know it until Monday. I'd also like to see this changed, but not sure if I would have to resubmit the question in another section for that. I can log into my e-mail for years on end, and that is far more sensitive than my Wikipedia account. Only thing I can figure is that it is a server issue (too many active log ins slowing it down), but I'm not an IT guy, so I may be way off.

Thank you in advance and Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. Leobold111 (talk) 20:25, 29 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Actually, it's a little better than that, barring any flukes that happen once in a while. Mostly, as long as you edit on a semi-regular basis, say once a week or so, you'll stay logged in.  The "flukes" have nothing to do with the 30-days max.  And by that, I mean that a couple of times lately I've been editing, go to another article and find out I was involuntarily logged out.  It has its kinks.  But you'll probably stay logged in longer than 30 days if you edit regularly. — Maile  (talk) 22:01, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I usually bypass it by never cleaning he Chrome history and keeping the WP tab open - This year alone I've only ever been logged out once which was weirdly a couple of days ago! (although If you love your laptop more than I love mine it's probably a bad idea to keep laptop on 300 hours and on charger 247!..) – Davey 2010 Merry Xmas / Happy New Year 22:13, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I asked (read: complained) about this two or three years ago, and I was told that the 30-day limit was due to the privacy policy.  The privacy policy (back then, at least) said that no cookies would be stored for more than 30 days, and therefore cookie-based logins couldn't be expected to last longer than 30 days. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)


 * For many years, the login cookies lasted 180 days. For almost the same number of years, the Wikimedia Foundation had a privacy policy that said cookies would not be set for longer than 30 days.  At some point (2011 or 2012, I think) this discrepancy was noticed and the login cookies were reduced to 30 days.  As a practical matter, it was easier to make the cookies shorter than to change the privacy policy.  Relatively recently (2013, I think), there was a major overhaul of the privacy policy .  At present, the main text of the policy does not specify cookie durations, though there is an associated FAQ that lists current cookies and gives durations ranging from 1 day to 1 year .  Since the update of the privacy policy, I'm not aware of any discussions regarding to changing the duration of the key centralauth cookies to change the duration of an active login.  Dragons flight (talk) 22:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll go ask Legal if this limit is still necessary. It may take a while to get an answer.  In the meantime, someone else can start thinking about remarks to file under the heading of "Why having a long login session is not a significant security risk, and why it is The Right Thing to do".  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:35, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * How about a warning box at the top of any page displayed during the last ten (?) minutes of the login session? "Your login session will expire in N minutes." That could help to reduce accidental logged-out edits. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:45, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * To Whatamidoing's point, I don't see how a long login here is such a security risk, or a security risk at all. If someone gets into my e-mail account, they can wreak havoc on my life, due to needing an e-mail address for everything.  I'm almost positive it would be the same for most people reading this.  If someone gets into my Wikipedia account, there's not really any damage that can be done, aside from easily revertable changes to pages.  And if it continues, there can be a lock put on my account until it can be proven that the stolen account is no longer an issue.  Breaking into this account would hurt my feelings, but nothing more.  Leobold111 (talk) 22:31, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * John, that's an interesting idea, but I suspect that you meant something closer to "12 hours" where you typed "ten minutes". Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:20, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * And...it just did its magical trick of logging me out in the middle of an edit. — Maile (talk) 21:44, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Sometimes it does that to me. I spot it instantly, because I use MonoBook skin and the difference from Vector is enough to alert me that I'm no longer logged in. If you use Vector skin, you need something else - such as the technique described at User:Gadget850/FAQ that makes the Save page button green when logged in - if it's grey you're logged out. It works in MonoBook as well as Vector. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:57, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I use Modern skin. And how it shows up, is if I'm in one article and then try to open a different article.  In this case, and I use Firefox, I had an edit window open and then clicked on another tab to view another article I had been reading (but not editing). Strange stuff.  I take it as a system hiccup. — Maile  (talk) 22:48, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Legal says that there is no longer any requirement (on their side) to log everybody out after 30 days. My proposal: Let's stop doing that. What do you think would be the ideal frequency for logging in? Every 60 days? 90? 180?  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Provide options, with a default of, say, 90 days (quarterly). Personally, I'd set it to one year if a number had to be set, indefinite if one did not. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:06, 4 January 2015 (UTC)


 * My preference is 180, but I am thinking 30 is a reasonable default if one can choose in their preferences. <b style="color:SteelBlue">Chillum</b> 23:07, 4 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I say indefinite. If we had to have a certain time frame, I'd say 180 days.  Anything over that and the risk is run that we will forget the password.  I just don't see a reason for it if there isn't a legal reason.  I can be logged into many different types of websites indefinitely, some of which would cause real issues.  My Wikipedia account, not so much.  Leobold111 (talk) 16:06, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

See T68699. Legoktm (talk) 08:06, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Stopping unnecessary notifications
I protect a page here and a few minutes later an editor makes this edit. I then get the notification that "Your edit on Sethi has been reverted by Vigyani. (Show changes)". Is there any way to stop that particular type of notification? CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 08:49, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This happens when an editor uses "Reverted to..." as the summary. In this case, the software assumes all changes between the revert and the target are undone (including all "informational" edits like protection changes which don't modify the text at all). Dunno if this is a known bug, though. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 09:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The revert notification does not depend on the edit summary – I received a ping for this revert with blanked edit summary. Per the feature documentation the notification is triggered by "click[ing] 'Undo', 'Rollback', manual or automated". SiBr4 (talk) 12:55, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes indeed, I was wrong. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 01:36, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can stop these "unnecessary" notifications. Go to your settings, click on the notifications tab and untick the tickbox under web and next to edit revert. While you are at it, you might as well go over all of your notification settings.--Snaevar (talk) 11:45, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. So there is no way to stop just that particular type of notification. I don't want all of the edit revert notifications to stop. I just want the false ones, like in the above example, that aren't actually reverting my edit to stop. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 12:06, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Definitely seems like a bug. I think I've flagged this on Phabricator (but it's the first time I've used it...) - T85728. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:33, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, you did a good job, . :D — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 14:26, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks all. CambridgeBayWeather (mobile) (talk) 19:22, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

IPv6 edits
As I'm sure many people do, when I see an edit by an IP on my watchlist, I check the edit. For IPv4 IP addresses, everything works as expected. The issue I have is with IPv6 addresses. If I see that they've made more than one edit, I will then click on "Next-to-last editor" to view all of the changes they made. This never works as expected for IPv6 IPs though. Instead, I get something like this where both the current and previous edits are the same, most recent, edit. Is this issue known about? I've seen it on different OSs, on different computers, and with different browsers. Dismas |(talk) 02:49, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Just to confirm, you're using User:DerHexer/revisionjumper, correct? Sounds like a bug that will have to be fixed within the script. ~ Super  Hamster  Talk Contribs 02:55, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's what I'm using. Dismas |(talk) 03:14, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Archiving
I am not sure if I am in the right part of WP Help. I have got into a tangle with archiving my Talk page.
 * 1) For the last archive I created, number 4, it always showed duplicated as the current Talk page, I think because that time I had tried to set up a bot to do the archiving and it went wrong.  So for a while I had current Talk page and Archive 4 that were the same, and there was a redirect, which I must have created but don't know how.
 * 2) On trying to sort all this out now, I could not see how to remove the redirect, and with some juggling and attempted reverting (which couldn't be done because of intervening edits) have now lost Archive 4 altogether. It is still in the edit history, of course, but I don't know how to retrieve it to make a new Archive 4 and a new blank Talk page.  Can someone help, please?
 * 3) In the new Archive 4 I want to keep all deleted sections that I assume were showing in the old Archive 4, but am not sure how this is done.
 * 4) I also want to steer clear of bots and go back to manual archiving, which is how I created the earlier archives. ~ P-123 (talk) 12:34, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I saw your question at Help desk before you moved it here. It was fine to post at the help desk. On December 25 you moved User talk:P-123 to User talk:P-123/Archive 4 and moved it back 5 minutes later.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=User+talk%3AP-123] This created a redirect from User talk:P-123/Archive 4 to User talk:P-123. I have copy-pasted an old revision of User talk:P-123 to User talk:P-123/Archive 4. See Redirect. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:45, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * PrimeHunter Thank you very much for doing that. What about the deleted sections and deleted comments that I said I would like to keep in the archive?  I cannot find them.  Is there any way of looking in an edit history somewhere to find them?
 * Sorry, have found them. ~ P-123 (talk) 13:10, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) I'm not sure which individually deleted sections and comments from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:P-123&action=history you want to restore. You removed some of them with edit summaries like 'Rmv comment - will backfire', 'Rmd - patronising', 'Rmv intrusive "chat" among IPs', and the removals were interspersed with additions to other sections so it's complicated to sort out. If you want to archive a previously deleted comment or section then you must manully find a revision which contains it and copy-paste it to the archive. My archiving [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:P-123/Archive_4&diff=640937660&oldid=639598978] had a url to the revision I copied completely. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:18, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * PrimeHunter: I assume it is only possible to restore removals to the archive and have them visible there. For example, if I wanted to transfer from edit history a removed comment to the archived thread, can I add it to that archived thread and then delete it so that it does not appear on that archived thread? ~ P-123 (talk) 13:38, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , you seem to have a misunderstanding of how archiving works. What you appear to believe is that the talk page and its archives are an intertwined system where when you do something to one page, an equal and opposite reaction automatically happens on the other side.  This is not at all the case.  Each page of the system is entirely its own thing.  So, simply have the archive deleted and restore all of the sections that were archived from your talk page from its history.  I'd be happy to get you back to ground zero if you like. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 14:29, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Technical 13: No, I did realise they were separate systems, but was unclear about how deletions from the current page could be archived along with the current page.  It would be much better to start Archive 4 afresh, but have no idea how to do that.  Could you help, please?  I can't understand the sentence starting "So, simply have the archive deleted ...". Once the archive is restored back to current page form, I could add back in the deletions, but I would want them deleted again in the archive so that they don't appear on the archive page. I will do any donkey work needed if you tell me where. ~ P-123 (talk) 14:54, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * First thing to do is to restore all the archived sections that you want to archive back to your talk page. Let me know when that is done and we can go from there. :) — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 14:59, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Technical 13: Have just done that. ~ P-123 (talk) 15:09, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Very good, now we wait for an admin to delete the archive. Once that is done, we'll set you up to archive by yourself. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 17:00, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Technical 13: I didn't get your ping so went ahead and did it myself.  Why does an admin have to delete?  I can't retrace my steps to explain how I did it, but I managed to restore the deletes I wanted restored to the current Talk page, then archived it, then in the archive deleted the comments I didn't want to be visible, but they can be reached via the Edit Summary of the archive. Was that the right way to go about it? Once I had archived, I tried to delete the current Talk page which I had archived (as the last step in the archiving process) but whereas before I could do a global delete, this time I had to do them individually and cannot see why. I tried removing the code that normally goes at the top of the Talk page (the yes/no part) but it still didn't work, I couldn't delete all at once.  Don't even try to make sense of the Edit Summaries for archive 4 and the Talk page I was archiving, as I was doing everything by trial and error!  P-123 (talk) 19:00, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You were going to explain how to archive by myself. I have always managed it before, but did not restore deletes before doing so, which is worrying as the archives won't be a complete record.  There must be a simpler way of transferring the edit history of the Talk page to archive than the way I did it.  P-123 (talk) 19:00, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , you literally just talked in a circle and I have no idea what you were trying to say. lol  Anyways, you need to add  to the top of your skins .js page and then add  to the top of your talk page.  Once that is done, ping me to check it and we'll go from there. :) — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 19:19, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Technical 13: Got held up.  Have done that. P-123 (talk) 20:22, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks great, and it appears you have figured out how to use the script. :)  There is documentation available on User:Technical_13/Scripts/OneClickArchiver. Happy archiving! — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 20:52, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Technical 13: Thanks for fixing it.  I see you just have to click on "Archive" to archive the thread.
 * Does that "Archive" note appear every time a new thread is started?
 * *I experimented by clicking on the only thread there at the moment and it went to archive, but underneath where the old archive ended. Is that what should happen? (I restored it after experimenting.)  I meant the note underneath the old archive where it says "Do not alter this archive", but having looked again, I must have misremembered, as there is no such note.
 * If I delete comments from a thread while it is on the Talk page, I presume they won't carry over when the thread is archived. I presume before you archive you have to restore those deletes.  Is that right?
 * I haven't looked at the documentation yet but perhaps those things are explained there. ~ P-123 (talk) 21:10, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) yes 2) yes, unless you toggle the script off (documented, doesn't work well in Chrome) 3) archive header notices should only be at the top of the page, so yes, it did what it was suppose to 4) correct. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 21:51, 4 January 2015 (UTC)


 * , you may be interested in 's (Original by ) OneClickArchiver (Original) script. This is a semi-automatic archiving script that allows you to archive sections in one click from your talk page to your archive page. I'll note that the live version currently doesn't support a maxarchive size, but the beta version does and that should be moved to live in a few weeks. I'd be happy to help you set it up, just ping me from your talk page. :) — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 13:07, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Technical 13: Thank you.  That was going to be my next question!  I will wait until the move has happened, and then ping you, in a week or two.  ~ P-123 (talk) 13:26, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If you want to set it up yourself.  to the top of your talk page and then   to the top of your skins .js page. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 13:28, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Technical 13: I had better not try it myself.  That is how I got into trouble the last time, trying to set up a bot to do the archiving, after learning how to do it here.  If I may I will ask you to help once the move has happened in a week or two.  ~ P-123 (talk) 13:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

parser functions generate extraneous linebreaks
here is the scenario: i want some element to have background color depending on some condition. i try to do something like <div style = "background-color: " > for clarity, i'll remove the "&lt;div" part. what i get is

style = "background-color: "

similar problem with #if and #switch thanks, peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 15:31, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * is it a known issue? i ran some shallow search and did not find anything.
 * is there a clever way around it?
 * is there some "remove-linebreaks" template i can wrap around the #if to "flatten" the result? maybe some scribunto thing?


 * This is the parser mistakenly thinking you are trying to start a numbered list (using the # markup). Just move the hash out of the parser function:
 * Which should result in: .   16:29, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * thanks. קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 16:39, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This behavior is bug T14974, by the way. Matma Rex talk 16:57, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's also related to Help:Template. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:54, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikicode erros in Template:Rjukanbanen map
Template:Rjukanbanen map included in Rjukan Line is producing some errors. Could someone take a look at it? 94.175.114.220 (talk) 16:16, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I managed to fix the obvious error (missing table start), but I'm not quite sure is the article is showing as it should.  16:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Wrong footnote order in Menorrhagia
The footnote system in the Menorrhagia article assigns wrong numbers to the entries. For example, the last one in the list by A Shaw, Julia is number 8 in the list, but shows up as [3] in the article text. Besides, clicking the number in the article text neither shows the reference nor takes you to the list at the bottom. Perhaps we should simply convert to the usual system? Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:32, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I went ahead and did it: . Matma Rex talk 19:02, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Signature button: enter only four tildes
Hi,

according to Help:Edit toolbar the signature button in the panel should be entering only four tildes, but it enters two dashes and four tildes. Can I force the button to act as described, so it adds only ~ ? Thank you. Wesalius (talk) 18:48, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No; altering it would make it inconsistent with all the other wikis which include two hyphen-minus characters (n.b. not dashes) in the button signature; also, it's been like that as far back as I can remember. It's far easier to, which was altered in by . -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:10, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Understood. Wesalius (talk) 20:23, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * (marginally relevant) personally, i prefer not to change what the button do (and anyway, i rarely use the button). however, several years back, some user(s) in hewiki asked to change it, and in a moment of boredom, i knitted the following script. it's very artificially tested. it's supposed to change the signature button's behavior to only inject four ~ chars, without the preceding dashes:


 * peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 17:44, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

List of links to section
Is there a tool that can tell me what pages link to a particular section of a page? That is, instead of merely linking to Foo, a link to Foo? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 03:24, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of any tools that can do this, but you can get that information with WP:AWB if you do a database scan. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 13:23, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The external tool that can be found by clicking "What links here", then "Show redirects only" shows redirects that are section links, but not intentional section links on articles. Steel1943  (talk) 14:37, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

"Your language setting British English is not recommended."
The language I've chosen is British English. If it's not supported, fine. But what does this mean? I propose that it be removed or explained. There are lots of other language variants on the list, too. How come half of the English-speaking world gets this message? --Tom- (LT) (talk) 05:19, 2 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Do you know where you set this option, and where do you see the message?
 * BTW, British English is nowhere near half the English-speaking world. It is only about 14% or one in seven  See English-speaking world.  —EncMstr (talk) 06:20, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The explanation is linked: "Many messages have been customized at the English Wikipedia but usually only for the default "en - English". It is therefore not recommended to select "en-GB - British English" or "en-CA - Canadian English". -- zzuuzz (talk) 06:30, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Having trouble finding 14% but that's beside the point, there's still quite a lot of us however you cut the cake. Do we display the same message for simplified and traditional Chinese? The varieties of German? How come there's not an "American English" option, and that's viewed as standard English and not "American English"? What I propose is this: remove "Is not recommended", it's (mildly) offensive. --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:39, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * By the way, unlike variants of English, traditional and simplified Chinese are wildly different. The characters aren't the same, so are many expressions. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 07:05, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, but we don't have one labelled just "Chinese" because it's used by the PRC and the other labelled "Traditional Chinese" with a message "This is not a recommended option" (implication: please use simplified). I hope you could see,, how that could cause some offense, eg to a person from Hong Kong or Taiwan or part of the Chinese diaspora. --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:13, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * For those who are still confused, as I was, this is what you get if you go to special:preferences, click the drop-down box labelled "Language", and choose "en-GB" as your language.
 * I have to agree with Tom that this is weird. If we're going to localize for English varieties, then we should really do it, for all user messages.  If we're not going to localize for English varieties, then there's no point in having them listed in the drop-down box.  It should just say "English", and let that include all varieties that we use. --Trovatore (talk) 07:22, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This only affects the local, English-Wikipedia-specific customizations, which are maintained locally by administrators here. The MediaWiki software is correctly localized both for British English, varieties of Chinese and varieties of German. Matma Rex talk 09:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)


 * As for your question, How come there's not an "American English" option, see T33874. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 11:56, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The language preference applies to the user interface which includes the sidebar, the topbar and user messages. It does not affect any content on the page. Each of these interface elements has a default for all of the supported languages. But, the English Wikipedia has heavily customized many interface pages. You can browse through Special:AllMessages to see the interface pages. The customized pages are highlighted in green and you can select the language to see how the interface page appears for that language.
 * Lets look at MediaWiki:Cite references link many. This is one of the pages that styles the backlink for references. By default this is but on the English Wikipedia with language set to   it shows as  in the reference list. MediaWiki:Cite references link many/en-br has also been customized so  shows when   has been set for British English. But MediaWiki:Cite references link many/en-br does not exist so users with Canadian English   will see . This is just one of thousands of interface pages.
 * British English is currently the fourth most selected language, behind Spanish, French and Bahasa Indonesia and just above Arabic, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese. See Database reports/User preferences. None of those other languages have these interface page translated.
 * In my opinion, the English variants for the language preference are not useful. I just cannot think of any words that we would use on one of these pages that would not be comprehensible. As I recall, there is one British language interface page that uses "colour" which is a pretty trivial change.
 * Thus, there is no advantage to setting the language preference to British or Canadian English, and a number of disadvantages.
 * --  Gadget850talk 12:51, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I do agree with what you say (ie that what is written is comprehensible) but as a native speaker and reader/writer of British English I'd prefer if there was a language option reflecting this.--Tom (LT) (talk) 21:28, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It was me who added "Your language setting British English is not recommended." to MediaWiki:Preferences-summary/en-gb, displayed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences?uselang=en-gb. "not recommended" is a link to an explanation. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosucharticle?uselang=en versus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosucharticle?uselang=en-gb for an example of English Wikipedia customization at the default language en. It was done by editing MediaWiki:Noarticletext. It would be possible to edit hundreds of similar pages for other languages like MediaWiki:Noarticletext/en-gb, but it's usually only done for en. The MediaWiki default (which cannot link or refer to anything at the English Wikipedia) is displayed for the rest. There have been suggestions to do something systematic for en-gb or en-ca to display the same as en, but nothing has been done so far. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:17, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * FWIW, , , , , and all let me pick en-gb (but not en-GB) without comment. Of course the  folks didn't bother to translate their "gadgets" on Special:Preferences. Maybe write "might cause problems" with something boiling down to "needs volunteers with write access on interface messages" or similar. –Be..anyone (talk) 10:58, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Problems with the British English preference keep appearing here. They've included a much less prominent warning when editing an old version of a page, Twinkle offering less options, disappearance of tools and overnight font changes. I agree with : there are no significant benefits and many risks, including that it's yet another cause to be considered when trouble-shooting. NebY (talk) 14:39, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the warning could be rephrased, something like "Descriptions in British English don't exist for all pages. See more here." I just find it strange that WP is telling me not to use settings in my mother tongue. --Tom (LT) (talk) 21:28, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Non-specific English (which is what "en - English" is intended for) shouldn't be unintelligible to any native English speaker, whether they be American, Australian, British, Canadian or another. Bigger differences between those dialects (like elevator/lift, pavement/sidewalk, or faucet/tap), simply don't occur in the interface pages so are not a problem. Others, like colour/color (which do come up in the interface pages) are trivial. We shouldn't need to maintain three sets of interface pages when only one is necessary. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:37, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's standard to link text to a page with more details, and in Wikipedia it is extremely common. I don't think we need to say "See more here" when "not recommended" can be linked. "Descriptions in British English don't exist for all pages" is problematic. Many of the customized interface messages cannot be called descriptions. And many readers would probably think the text just means that the descriptions are in another English variant. But if we give the impression that no text is given at all for British English users then it's also misleading, because they see the MediaWiki default (it's blank in some cases but not usually). I think MediaWiki:Preferences-summary/en-gb should be a single line for most users and then it's hard to include an argument which is meaningful by itself and not misleading. Additionally, if we do say they lose some interface customization then they may still think it's worth it because they overestimate the tiny amount of British changes they get – basically a few minor spelling differences (mostly a single letter) in a few interface messages. I think everybody who knows how much customization it loses and how little British it gives have agreed that British English is a poor user setting. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:06, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * OK but I think my point still stands. It is not up to an individual user to "not recommend" an entire language group or customisation be used... this language as stated is the 4th most selected language. Would anything prevent this being rewritten in a more objective way? (eg "Only a few customisations exist for British English; the majority still use American English. See more.") --Tom (LT) (talk) 21:23, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we could put this into the FAQ for this page; I refer you to my post of 19:30, 13 June 2014 at Village pump (technical)/Archive 127. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:48, 2 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I had forgotten that I had started a FAQ at User:Gadget850/FAQ/Language that anyone is welcome to use as a start. --  Gadget850talk 15:12, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like there should be a single interface customisation for all varieties of English, and we can simply mix and match the few spellings that differ. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 15:47, 2 January 2015 (UTC)


 * It appears from mw:Localisation statistics that only 70 of 3125 default MediaWiki messages currently have an en-gb variant. In August 2013 it was 51 of 2979 and I used a language file to make a probably complete list of the differences: "$1"/‘$1’ (different quote characters in many messages), color/colour, canceled/cancelled, vandalized/vandalised, Kilometers/Kilometres, meters/metres, digitize/digitise, program/programme, License/Lisense. That's all! And for that you lose hundreds of customized messages, often with links to relevant help, policy and process pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:19, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * So why don't we just officially go to a single English locale, then? I think it's fine if it's just a random mix of US and Commonwealth spellings.  Or, let someone who cares go through all the messages and localize them.  I don't really care which. --Trovatore (talk) 22:32, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This is by far the best option. en-gb is far, far more trouble than it's worth (and actively problematic to well-meaning people who try and select it) and should be disabled. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:32, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Many people are very attached to British English. Maybe there will be more British texts in the future. There could even be a feature with automatic conversion of text in articles. I think the best solution would be a fallback system: If en is customized and en-gb is not then display the customized en version to en-gb users. Disabling en-gb would be second best. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:57, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I can easily see why the "not recommended" message could be better. People do not like hearing that their language is not recommended, even if that's not the real intent behind the message. Why not replace it something that is nearly as short and happens to be both neutral and true, like "not fully supported"? Regards, Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 22:38, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If spelling is the only difference surely it could be automated by a bot? => Spudgfsh  ( Text Me! ) 22:41, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I wholeheartedly agree. If we follow the strand of thinking above we might as well mark French and Arabic with little message too "Your languages received less attention than standard English. They are not recommended" of course we wouldn't do such a thing! If it's not supported, it shouldn't be offered. If it is supported, then it shouldn't be "not recommended". --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I use Dutch as my interface language here, primarily to avoid all the "helpful" additions to the user interface. It wouldn't be a problem to me if some message popped up when I selected it that told me that I was not going to received customized messages as a result.&mdash;Kww(talk) 23:06, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * @ such a message would be welcome. As it is, the message is phrased that the language I speak (British English) isn't "recommended". I find it strange and slightly insulting. Surely the message could be rewritten ("Customisations don't exist for all options"). As stated above, in wikis of other languages no such message is provided. --Tom (LT) (talk) 21:23, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Such messages probably should be provided in some other wikis if they have heavy customization and a language option very close to the default. If a user has chosen a language far from the default then it's less relevant. Then you probably chose it because you know it much better and can live with some lost customizations, and you don't expect your interface to match help pages. But with the current software I really want to discourage users from picking en-gb instead of en. Some of the suggested messages here will probably give many users the impression that the only problem with en-gb is that you still get some American spellings. The real problem is that the content of many messages is completely different. In addition to losing information, big differences in the interface also make it harder to use help pages which may for example describe non-existing links. It also confuses communication with other users if you ask for or give help. How about: "Your language setting British English is poorly supported. It loses many interface messages." PrimeHunter (talk) 01:25, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The "not recommended" warning would be easily missed in any case. The situation is far from satisfactory, where you're offered an option and then find out (or don't ever find out) that it's not fully supported. If it's too much work to maintain three English variants, then jsut the one should be offered. Anyone who installs computer packages will be quite used to that Noyster  (talk),  09:42, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I think that is a better phrasing and also more accurately reflects the situation. Also it makes the problem more obvious which, in turn (ideally) will provoke more users into supporting localisation.--Tom (LT) (talk) 10:37, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I have updated MediaWiki:Preferences-summary/en-gb and MediaWiki:Preferences-summary/en-ca. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:20, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * thanks greatly for making this change. Although it's a small change in wording, it is a big change in meaning. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I was just considering that. What if the selected interface page detected the default en page was customized and showed a button? --  Gadget850talk 23:19, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If they were all pages, that would work, but sometimes they are single words.&mdash;Kww(talk) 15:34, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * It would simply require a check to see if the interface page exists. MediaWiki:Abusefilter-edit-action-disallow does not exist, so the message is the default; MediaWiki:Abusefilter-edit-action-flag exists so it is customized. --  Gadget850talk 15:58, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You misunderstand me. MediaWiki:Abusefilter-edit-action-flag is a single sentence. Where would you put the button? If you have a displayed page that incorporated hundreds of such messages, would you have hundreds of buttons?&mdash;Kww(talk) 16:23, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You are correct, we have many sections and pages built of multiple interface messages. This would not be viable. --  Gadget850talk 17:31, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Animated images
Animated GIFs, especially the more frantic ones, can be incredibly annoying when one is trying to read adjacent text (e.g. see example here). Rather than removing the image altogether, is there any way to have Wikipedia display one static frame until the user requests "play"? Any other good solutions to this problem? 86.136.150.215 (talk) 14:09, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, this sounds interesting. But I would rather "vote" for such feature as a gadget not enabled by default. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 17:50, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks; I agree that it should be optional not default. I'm not totally sure what a "gadget" is, but if it's available only to logged-in users then I don't think this wouldn't be a satisfactory solution since the majority of ordinary users are (I assume) not logged in. I think that such a feature should be enabled on a per-image basis by editing the page, using some switch in the syntax that displays the image. 86.136.150.215 (talk) 18:35, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * See Gadget; there are almost 70 of these on the English Wikipedia. Most are only available to logged-in users on an opt-in basis; but about ten are enabled by default for all users, and logged-in users may opt-out of these. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * All the bug reports that I saw in my search were about animated GIFs not annoying people being animated when people wanted them to be. I believe the usual thing to do is to handle this in the browser, although I'm not sure if that's even possible in Safari any longer.  How would you like it to work in practice? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:06, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * However annoying, animated GIFs displayed as animated would presumably never be logged as a bug since this is the designed/intended behaviour. I think, as I mentioned, that in an ideal world there would be a switch somewhere in the wiki-text syntax to allow editors to switch off automatic animation. The page would then display a static frame along with some kind of "Play" control to allow the reader to begin animation if and when desired. The default would be automatic animation so that existing pages would not change except by conscious editor decision. 86.136.150.215 (talk) 03:32, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think that will be sufficient to solve the reader's problem. What if the editors all decide that it's great to have this one animated by default, but I really, really want to turn it off while I'm reading that page?  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 05:56, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, that's no worse than what happens right now of course, but I guess a "Stop" control could be added? 109.156.50.255 (talk) 12:48, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I've started two feature requests for you; the numbers and links are in the boxes above. Anyone with other ideas (especially details about what it should look like) should feel free to add comments.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your interest. 109.153.227.154 (talk) 14:53, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Proposed vector replacement for Gadget-dropdown-menus
Please see Gadget/proposals. &mdash;  MusikAnimal talk 05:20, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Custom notices on user .js and .css pages
I recently found while attempting to use GitHub top icon on some of my scripts, which I have made available for bug reporting and pull requests on GitHub, that only pages in MediaWiki: currently transclude the page's editnotice. I started a discussion on MediaWiki talk:Clearyourcache seeking to change this behavior. respectfully declined the direct request and suggested that I propose the question here.

Since MediaWiki: pages already use the editnotice for this behavior, my first inclination is that this is the best way to go. Edit notices are protected by the TBL and only s, s (for now), s, and the editor who's userspace they are in can edit them. This seems logically the best place to me, but I also thought that maybe a /doc or /header subpage might be preferable by some editors if we don't want/need to protect the documentation pages in that way. I look forward to hearing back from the community to see if that level of protection is needed for these transclusions and if there are any preferences for what the page name should be.

An option that I'm just thinking of to meet the best of both worlds is to transclude the editnotice and allow the editor to transclude the subpage if they want others to be able to edit the documentation. This could probably be done with greater consistency through a template for what the community agrees such a subpage name should be in those cases. Since /doc is already used for templates and modules, that seems the logical choice if this is the option agreed upon. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 14:38, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Your original suggestion apparently shows an existing Template:Editnotice/Page/ for action=view outside of the User: namespace, while that logic is currently limited to the MediaWiki: namespace. Please correct me if I didn't get it. In both cases action=view tries to emulate "insufficient user rights to edit the page". I'm not sure about this, all those v t e links offer action=view, and v should do what it says without displaying editnotice-spam. When I stumbled over an editnotice for a system message only existing on commons with a hardwired link to a non-existing mw-documentation (because nobody else uses this system message) I was seriously pissed&mdash;it took me far too long to figure out that this editnotice was lying. –Be..anyone (talk) 15:13, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * My original suggestion is to do for User: what already exists for MediaWiki:. I'm not sure what you are talking about when you talk page view links.  There would be no links for my purposes (applying a topicon with a link to the GitHub repo for scripts where there is a repo on GitHub), but I can envision others using templates that add vte links.  The v link to view the page shouldn't have any troubles taking them to the editnotice page, so I'm unclear as to what your concern is (if there is even a concern). — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 15:33, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not clear what you're trying to do either but if the issue at hand somehow hinges on the "tag" being "top-icon" based - convert them to use indicator tags instead. -- George Orwell III (talk) 16:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , I'm not sure what indicator tags have to do with the ability to transclude documentation and/or editnotices on the top of user.js and user.css pages when not in edit mode. Let's please keep the discussion on topic. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 16:15, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You bet. All that was needed for that was a clear and concise sentence or two, using laymen-like verbiage and terms -- like your last reply was -- but at the beginning of the discussion. Sorry for not comprehending/understanding. Good luck. -- George Orwell III (talk) 17:31, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki:Clearyourcache should definitely display a doc page of some sort, rather than an editnotice, IMO (even in the MediaWiki namespace). Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:28, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * A lot of scripts already have documentation pages at  (where the script itself is located at  ). Why not transclude this at the top of script pages? We already do a similar thing with Lua modules. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 10:19, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

GeoCoordinate interactive map causing computer crash.
Twice now the interactive map feature on the GeoCoordinate bar at the top of the McCoy, Oregon article has crashed my MacBook Pro. (The bluish circle next to Coordinates at the top of the article). Please assess. Thank you. Gaff (talk) 05:03, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * If you mean the WP:WikiMiniAtlas which is accessed by clicking on the globe icon, it appears fine for me. Do you have to do anything like zooming or panning for it to crash?  —EncMstr (talk) 08:23, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It might also be interesting to know if the problem also happens when you are using a different web browser to access that page. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Strange Wikitable Sorting issue
Hello! I hope this is the right place for this question. There's a weird sorting issue going on with this page. You'll notice there are two similarly coded tables on the page. The upper one (under Goaltenders) is the one having the issue. When I sort the "tournaments" columns, the rows with a comma all group together. I solved the issue in my next edit by adding non-breaking spaces. But, the lower table is having no sorting issue at all, and it doesn't have the nbsps. I'd rather not have to use them, and I'd liked to know what the problem. I've checked the coding several times and can't figure out what the issue is. -- Scorpion <sup style="color:black;">0422  00:02, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * It works if you change  to  . See Help:Sorting. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:03, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks! But, why is the issue not occurring in the lower table? That's the interesting part. -- Scorpion <sup style="color:black;">0422  01:25, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If you don't specify a data-sort-type then one is chosen based on the cell contents. The details are complicated and sometimes change. I don't know whether Help:Sorting is currently accurate. Something caused the first table to choose another sort type than text. Rather than trying to learn how to predict the default type in every situation (until next time the software changes), I suggest you just set data-sort-type when there is doubt. This is also more stable if somebody later makes cell changes which can cause another default data type. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:52, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia query/datamining service
I wonder if there exists a service that allows Wikipedians to request analytics be performed on the database or datadumps by more tech-savvy volunteer force. Back in the days of the Toolserver, it was called "Query service", and it was basically a JIRA project where people requested analyses to be run against the database replicas. These requests were handled by Toolserver users with SQL knowledge. Now that TS is no more, I couldn't find a similar initiative reemerge in WMF Labs. This makes me wonder, would such a project still be of general use, and whether there would be any volunteers to handle such requests. &mdash;Миша 13 10:20, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Requests can be made here, I think. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 11:33, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There's a query service on Tool Labs that you can use if you know the SQL, it's called Quarry. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 12:11, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes: Database-Queries on Tool Labs. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 12:17, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, that's what I was looking for. Thanks! &mdash;Миша 13 12:34, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Another minor infobox problem
Can someone explain why the infobox on AN/FPQ-16 EPARCS isn't working properly? I can't see anything obvious. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:15, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , you mean other than the fact that you are not using any of the parameters named in the Infobox radar template you are using? — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 14:30, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No - I have filled out a bunch of the parameters, but only one shows up on the page. Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:00, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see what you mean. I wonder why the original author put all of those in there? Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:03, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * They probably saw the documentation of Infobox military installation instead of Infobox radar. Some editors don't know that all parameters must be defined in the code of the used template. There are also editors who think you can write any made up parameter name in an infobox and then it will be displayed as a title together with the value, but that clearly wasn't the case here. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:13, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ahhh, you got it Prime. This data was copied from another article and then edited. I've turned that article into a redir, it was entirely redundant. Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:20, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Autoblock checker
I mean the autoblock checker linked from the "Block user" page. It comes up with a % sign in the "Username" field. When I replace that with the username, I get "No matching results found for: Murray State College. Try % instead." So I think, I don't understand that "%", maybe its a necessary prefix, and try leaving it there, but the result is "No matching results found for: %Murray State College. Try % instead."

What does "Try % instead" mean? Am I doing something wrong, is the tool broken, or does that response mean that there is no autoblock on the account? Is there any other way to check and clear autoblocks on a user I have just unblocked? JohnCD (talk) 21:38, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I certainly don't know what the "Try % instead" means, but the Autoblock checker seems to return this result when there are no autoblocks on the username you checked. I checked for autoblocks on Floquenbeam, and it gave me that message.  I checked for autoblocks on an account that the block long showed had just triggered an autoblock a couple of minutes ago, and the autoblock checker returned that autoblock correctly. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:50, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I have done similar experiments, with the same result. It doesn't seem to matter whether you leave that mysterious % in front of the username. Conclusion: the tool works, but has a thoroughly unfriendly user interface. JohnCD (talk) 22:05, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't find this "autoblock checker" at Special:Block for either a registered username or an IP address. How is it described at that page? -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:21, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Just above the heading "IP addresses", it is "Autoblock check" in a list of "Related pages". JohnCD (talk) 22:25, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, you mean [//tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/autoblock Auto-block check] - I was looking for it unhyphenated. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:27, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * (e/c) Up next to the bottom of the "Sensitve IP addresses" box, in italics, "Related pages: Block log, List of active blocks and rangeblocks...." it has "Auto-block check".  It send you to http://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/autoblock/. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Recent change to API rvlimit?
I have a script that queries the API to look through revisions of a certain page. The API call that achieves this uses an rvlimit parameter to determine the number of revisions to return. The documentation says that normal users have a maximum limit of 500 and bots have a limit of 5000, but running |comment|content&rvlimit=max&rvsection=2&rvendid=568713090&titles=Wikipedia%3AWikiProject%20National%20Register%20of%20Historic%20Places%2FProgress this call in the sandbox shows a limit of 50. I have made this call many times in the past and gotten a limit of 500. Did something recently change in the API?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 03:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Queries for prop=revisions that require fetching the content (e.g. rvprop=content, rvdiffto, or rvdifftotext) enforce lower limits. If you're wanting to use the largest possible limit, your best bet is to set rvlimit=max which should always work.
 * The lower limits when rvprop=content is used isn't at all new, although it appears it was somewhat recently expanded from only considering rvprop=content. Anomie⚔ 13:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The last time I ran the script that makes that call was back in October, and at that time, even though I was querying rvprop=content (plus some other stuff) and rvlimit=max, I was still allowed a limit of 500 revisions. It wasn't until yesterday when I tried to run the script without making any changes that it gave me a limit of 50, which I only noticed because of erroneous output. It's no matter now since I've modified the script to use rvcontinue if it's there, but I was just curious. The reason I didn't have it set to use rvcontinue before is there had not been anywhere near 500 edits to the page, especially since I split it into two chunks. I would have had to modify my code eventually, though, as more edits were made to the page, so there is a silver lining I guess.


 * When you say the limits were recently expanded from only considering rvprop=content, what exactly do you mean?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:11, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I mean that rvdiffto and rvdifftotext didn't trigger the reduced limits until recently. Anomie⚔ 00:02, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

User:Flow_talk_page_manager
Where is the documentation for this user account? It has contributions Special:Contributions/Flow_talk_page_manager that do not appear, and has a bot flag. — xaosflux  Talk 04:30, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * See Flow/Converting LiquidThreads. The name is set by MediaWiki:flow-talk-username. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:18, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I've added a brief description of what the account does to its user page. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 10:50, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you! — xaosflux  Talk 04:24, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

User talk
Is there (or is it possible to make) a list of user talk pages, sorted by size? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:34, 5 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Database_reports/Talk_pages_by_size, but it's about six months out of date. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 5 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Wasn't there a report on Labs that did this ? http://tools.wmflabs.org/betacommand-dev/reports/Long_Pages.html  ?

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 19:21, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There is as of my request for it the other day. :) — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 19:37, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, all. It would be yet more useful if that page also showed the date of the user's last edit (bonus if there's also a link to their contributions page). I see you've started tagging some of them, at least, asking that they be archived. I was planning to do that for any whose "owners" have not edited for a while, and asking VPPolicy to agree that we should mandate archiving for others. We should probably also remove inactive users (>12 months?) form project/ Signpost mailing lists, suggestbot,etc. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:42, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , there has actually been some discussion about this on 's talk page in Please explain. I still need to make that flow chart, but I got sidetracked trying to figure out why xtools keeps crashing and working on another script for someone else (because my brain needed a break from this specific project). Part of the new functionality of 's (Original by ) OneClickArchiver (Original) script that I'm working on in beta is the ability to tag pages with the script to request archiving by the user (which you have apparently seen) or set up an archiving bot in a couple clicks with the script. I'd love to work with you on figuring out how the flow chart would work if you are interested. I think that there needs to be a good plan in a flow chart before this can be presented to the community for a discussion and consensus with implementing it. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 16:08, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Remarkably, 8 or 9 of the top 10 on that list are active users (I'd expected more to be long gone). See also Village pump (policy). Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Okay, I finished the first draft of the flowchart for what I had in mind. See: [[Media:Archival flowchart for User talk.png]] and feedback is welcomed. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 17:57, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Could we get that list remade, please? I've archived a good few of them. (Preferably with the additional columns mentioned above) Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:43, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , what do you mean remade? It is run every day (last run was 2015-Jan-10 00:16:57). — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 20:58, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

please help
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dannis243 (talk • contribs) 16:27, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

there seems to be a problem with the aligment of text and result bars furthermore the bars are seperated too far apart vertically, last time i posted i did not recieve help that changed thay, can someone please help now meybe has something to do withTemplate:Infobox political party but unsure Dannis243 (talk) 16:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , what page is this on? — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 16:15, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Special:Contributions/Dannis243 shows prior discussion at Talk:Party of the Swedes so it's on Party of the Swedes which uses Infobox political party. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:24, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * it has affected other infoboxex so it not olny party of the swedes that has this problem Dannis243 (talk) 16:30, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * you have posted basically the same question on various pages (see WP:MULTI and WP:FORUMSHOPPING); for example at User talk:Jackmcbarn (which was moved to, which you ); at User talk:Trust Is All You Need; at User talk:Drmies - there are plenty of other examples. At both User talk:Peter Isotalo and User talk:I JethroBT, you were advised that Template talk:Infobox political party would be a better location - but instead you went to ANI (having ) and then came here. Why do you think that Template talk:Infobox political party is not the best place for discussing a problem with ? -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:12, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah... I see. Okay, so, if you look at MediaWiki:Common.css (you may need to install Gadget-codeAnchors to have that link take you directly to that section), you will see:


 * the  which  by  on November 14, 2014, is why there is spacing between each row.  You will also see:


 * and the  which  by  on August 11, 2005, is why all of the labels are top aligned.
 * Now, as far as Infobox political party goes, there have been no changes to that template in the last month except for the edit war you seem to be having with, which needs to stop, and some changes by , which appear - based on the edit summaries - to have the intent of reducing spacing (like you're asking for). Happy editing! — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 18:04, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I made a comment on the infobox talk page. The border-spacing I added may have contributed somewhat, but it is Composition bar which seems poorly designed, and that is the reason it does not align with the label.  18:29, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * ok can someone please fix the issue now, when i did that in Template talk:Infobox political party there was a few comments and then thats were it was ended nothing being done Dannis243 (talk) 12:21, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * dont forget about fixing the problem of bars are seperated too far apart vertically, thanks Dannis243 (talk) 12:28, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I dont know how to do any of this myself so i need some help to resolve this problem Dannis243 (talk) 12:35, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello?! why cant someone help me fix it? Dannis243 (talk) 16:28, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Template to link to an article anchor
I could have sworn that we had a Template:Sectionlink (or something like that name) that, when used on a Talk page, rendered a link to the section named in its param on the corresponding article page (e.g. on Talk:Bananagrams, entering “ ” would result in “Under Awards it says…”). I swear I’ve used this template before. I’m not imagining this, am I? —174.141.182.82 (talk) 09:16, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's been deleted a few days ago. See Templates for discussion/Log/2014 November 27.   10:52, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Could I contest the deletion? I find it much more convenient in discussions than typing “ ” (using the magic word in case of move), and there doesn’t seem to be an alternative template. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 12:09, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * [ec] All you need to type is, or for neatness,  . Otherwise, use Section link.  Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:41, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If you read the TfD it was redundant to section link. --  Gadget850talk 12:42, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * These methods would link to a section on the Talk page. They would not link to the article from the Talk page—see this failed test. I apologize for apparently not being clear. So I ask again: Is there a template that uses to link from an article’s Talk page to a named section of its article? If not, could I contest its deletion? —174.141.182.82 (talk) 12:59, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You can try deletion review, but your scenario is quite an edge case. In fact, if this functionality would be re-introduced in section link, it would make it impossible to link to a section on the talk page.  13:56, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Why would  not suffice for internal linking on any Talk page? Why would the present functionality of section link be needed there? Also, I don’t see how linking to part of an article from its Talk page could be considered an edge case. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 14:25, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course it would suffice, but that would make the template name misleading, and lack the proper formatting (§). The fact remains that it is a cross-namespace link. I think the best solution is to add a parameter to the current template.  14:36, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I’ve started a deletion review; if that fails, I would thank you to add such a parameter to section link. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 14:55, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Bug 2 -- an edit conflict can still arise when creating a "new section"
I do not understand how this is possible, but when clicking "Add topic" to a talk page and then "Save page", I am greeted with an edit conflict.

This must be a bug... if I am creating a new section, what am I conflicting with? I understand when editing a page if 2 users do it simultaneously, the software doesn't know how to parse the text and where to add them. But a new section is pretty clear. It's added to the page, not altering it. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:14, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know, but I can imagine a scenario where a conflict could arise. Suppose Editor A is adding a new section while Editor B is also adding a new section. Editor B saves first. When Editor A saves, how does the software know whether Editor A's new section should come before, or after, Editor B's? QuiteUnusual (talk) 10:42, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * IMO, the answer should be obvious: There is no reason in particular to put either one of them before the other. So, if it first puts B's, and then A's, there should be no problem. And I susperct that the edit conflict was with this edit, which is not adding a new section. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:15, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I found this strange. How to file a bug? --Tom (LT) (talk) 21:00, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed; if QuiteUnusual's situation arises, the system adds a new section at the bottom of the page at the moment of it being saved. This means that B's is placed after everything visible when the two editors started typing, and A's is placed after B's.  Nyttend (talk) 00:35, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There is a way it could happen, though. The process of saving a new section involves several steps: (1) get the current text, (2) merge the edit into the current text (i.e. append the new section), (3) do stuff like AbuseFilter on the combined text, and (4) save the edit. If both A and B get through step 1 before either A or B gets to step 4, then one of the two would have to fail when it does get to step 4. Yes, it could just restart the process from step 1 when it detects the conflict at step 4, but that would be a significant additional complexity for a very rare situation (most non-new-section edit conflicts are detected at step 2, the check at step 4 is a last-second sanity check). Anomie⚔ 12:51, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Creating a book
Hallo sorry if this is not the right page. I am trying to create a book with my userpage, by default i can only download it in PDF. But the result is in the book, all the tables don't show at all, only the footnotes. This is the link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Maxcrc

This is one of the subpages with tables which don't show in the PDF

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Maxcrc/Africa

Suggestions ? Thanks 183.88.39.62 (talk) 04:24, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don’t think you can use any licenses, as you do on your userpage, unless they’re compatible with the Creative Commons license that all Wikipedia content (including userpages) is under; see your Talk page, User talk:Maxcrc. Anyway, you’re right, the PDF converter strips out tables and their content, for instance the lists of episodes in “List of South Park episodes” (PDF). —174.141.182.82 (talk) 06:11, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I was forced (required) to put that text ,letter by letter, by Wikipedia administration (or a global moderator) years ago. It was NOT my initiative. I have been told that without that text i wouldn't be allowed to keep my page. I would like the rules to be clearer and not always attacked by opposite reasons. Anyway, thanks for the answer about the PDF. I will find another way. I have removed the footnote, hopefully I will not receive a request to put it again. MaXiMiLiAnO 07:19, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * You were not forced to put that text. The simplest way to not make invalid copyright claims for your edits is to make no claims at all. You can just remove the text as I see you have.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Maxcrc&diff=642122242&oldid=632885082]. The normal license for Wikipedia edits can get modifications so it's problematic if you state an old license and don't update it. I see the issue started with [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Maxcrc/disclaimer&oldid=166460024] where you said "Any reproduction of the data contained in this userpage without my permission will be persecuted and fined." That was a serious violation and you were told to modify it but apparently not how.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Maxcrc&oldid=170751663] You replaced it with what I guess was the normal Wikipedia license at the time.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Maxcrc&diff=170708626&oldid=166458145] PrimeHunter (talk) 14:38, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

So does anyone know why the PDF converter/book creator appears to ignore all table content? —174.141.182.82 (talk) 20:56, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-03
<section begin="technews-2015-W03"/> 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 software changes
 * Rotated PDF files in landscape format used to show too small. They will now display correctly. You may need to purge older files.
 * You can now use the  magic word instead of Template:!. Many wikis used the template to create a pipe  in tables and templates. You can delete the template.

Software changes this week
 * The new version of MediaWiki ( 1.25wmf14 ) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since January 7. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from January 13. It will be on all Wikipedias from January 14 (calendar).
 * A bug in VisualEditor sometimes added a  (Sun) character. This is now fixed.
 * The search and replace tool in VisualEditor is now much faster in long pages.
 * The TemplateData editor now uses the same design as VisualEditor.
 * The  option is now shown in your language in the help of the classic editor toolbar.

Future changes
 * You can sign up to answer questions from designers. It will help them make editing easier.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2015-W03"/> 16:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

The Eastern Sea
Can somebody remove the MTV template from this article ? I think its in a reference somewhere, Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 17:41, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * All of the refs are malformed. Every single one uses a template that is not a ref template; two use, which is a sidebar; the rest are redlinks so do not exist. They should be altered to  etc. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The article was created via a copy-paste. I wonder if it was previously deleted? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:50, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It hasn't been deleted under that title or another edited by the creator. It had a lot of interlanguage links and a Commons link to pages which never existed, so it seems more likely that it was based on another article where all references to the original name were replaced but the interwiki prefixes and commons template was kept. Apart from that and the cleanup templates I haven't found hints of where it may have been copied from but it looks like so little was kept that it doesn't break our license. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:19, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * GoingBatty (talk) 19:10, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Gap
I have no idea what I did, but it appears now that all articles have a rather big gap from the header to the article title. It looks very ugly and I don't know if it's just me or not. Thankfully I had another tab open from yesterday that had no gap... Gapless Gap Is this an actual change to the site or did I accidentally switch something on? Nohomersryan (talk) 21:37, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You did nothing. It's MediaWiki talk:Vector.css. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:22, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Navigation popups allow me to see a revdeleted edit summary
A user earlier had an edit summary rev-deleted due to BLP concerns. On my watchlist, if I hover over that user's contribs, it of course brings up their most recent edits. However, the rev-deleted edit summary is still visible for me. Is this because I am an admin or is this a bug? Black Kite (talk) 23:54, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I noticed this the other day, but assumed it was because I was an admin, and didn't think nothing of it. --M ASEM (t) 00:01, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'm sure it's probably happened many times before but this is the first time I've seen an edit-summary on a popup that I know is suppressed. Of course, when you look at a suppressed diff as an admin, you have to make an extra click through to it, which is why I asked really, just in case it was a glitch. Black Kite (talk) 00:06, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's because you're an admin. I can see revdel'd edit summaries from 2013, so it isn't a caching thing.  And I logged out and logged in as Floquensock, and couldn't see them in popups anymore.  The odd thing is that as an admin, the revdel'd username is marked as "Hidden Revision" in popups, it's only the revdel'd edit summary that displays. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:17, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, it is a caching issue. If you clear your cache, you will find the revdeleted summary is no longer visible.  00:18, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you sure? I was looking at a revdel'd edit from July 2013, and I've cleared my cache a lot since then.  Look at the history of this page in popups, and tell me what you see for July 15 2013 at 21:14 UTC: User:Floquenbeam/sandbox.  I'm sure nobody besides me has that edit summary in their cahce.  Even after clearing my cache again just now, I still see the edit summary in popups (although the editor is listed as "hidden revision"). I've seen what you're talking about on normal diff pages, but we're talking about the edit summary displayed in popups here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:40, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Come to think of it... I once saw the actual dif of a revdelled edit in popups, which cleared after clearing my cahce. I don't think I ever see the actual edit summary in Popups. In this case, I only see the word "test" and your sig removed (and I'm an admin).  01:14, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Same as Edokter in terms of what is visible. --M ASEM (t) 01:15, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Watchlist on Wikipedia for Android mobile phones is no longer under the top right left pull down menu
I noticed that today, the watchlist on Wikipedia for Android mobile phones is no longer under the top right  left pull down menu. Does anyone know what happened? --Jax 0677 (talk) 03:13, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Deskana (WMF) probably knows what's going on. Did you make sure that you're still logged in?  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:50, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you accessing Wikipedia through your phone's browser, or on the app? For the former, I've tested it on my Android device and verified that the watchlist is accessible, so I'll need more details in order to reproduce the issue, such as the kind of phone you're using, such as the model, Android version, and browser. For the latter, the watchlist feature has never actually existed on the Android app, and we're presently not working on adding it in as our current work focuses around readership rather than editorship. Hopefully that helps! Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks! --Dan Garry, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 00:27, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 *  Reply -, I am using a web browser to access the mobile phone Wikipedia site on my Samsung Galaxy S3 telephone that I bought in 2012. I am not sure how to determine the browser and android version, but the browser does allow me to utilize multiple windows. --Jax 0677 (talk) 14:57, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , what is your on that device? — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 15:04, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 *  Reply -, are you sure that https://whatsmyuseragent.com/ is the correct URL? --Jax 0677 (talk) 16:35, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * }, it was //whatsmyuseragent.com/ in the template and that works for me. I have forced secure turned off though.. I've forced it insecure in the template and all links should now work. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 17:27, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 *  Reply -, my user agent string is:
 *  Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.4.2; en-us; SCH-I535 Build/KOT49H) Apple Webkit/534.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/534.30 --Jax 0677 (talk) 18:19, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Can you take a screenshot of what the left menu looks like? That may help us diagnose the problem. This screenshot shows what it looks like on my device (Nexus 5, Android 5.0, Chrome). Thanks! --Dan Garry, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:56, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 *  Reply -, I do not know how to take a screen shot of my phone. However, my screen looks similar to that one, except there are no icons left of "Home", "Random" and "Settings".  "Jax 0677" replaces "Login" (there is no icon left of it either).  There are no rows for "Nearby" and "Watchlist". --Jax 0677 (talk) 22:55, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , by any chance, do you have ? — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 23:40, 5 January 2015 (UTC)


 *  Reply -, I had that unchecked to start. I have tried both settings, and this does not address the issue. --Jax 0677 (talk) 23:55, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You can take a screenshot by pressing the volume-down and the power buttons at the same time. Is your username displayed at the top of bottom of the sidebar? If it's at the top, you are using the native Android app which does not support watchlist. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 00:04, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 *  Reply -, per my message at 22:55 on 05JAN, '"Jax 0677" replaces "Login", which puts it at the bottom. --Jax 0677 (talk) 00:23, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The behavior you're describing is what happens when the browser doesn't support Javascript (or the site thinks that your browser doesn't support Javascript). Is there any reason that Javascript might not be working on your phone? Kaldari (talk) 00:07, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 *  Reply  -, without the technical knowhow, I can not think of a reason why Javascript might not be working on my phone. --Jax 0677 (talk) 01:39, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 *  Reply  -, good news though, the Wikipedia watchlist is now back on my phone. --Jax 0677 (talk) 03:34, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Double entries in deletion tagging log
Why are speedy deletion tags logged twice in a page log record (example) when looking at all logs, but only once when explicitly looking at the deletion tag log (example) and can anyone do something about it? <b style="background:#FAFAD2;color:#C08000">Spinning</b><b style="color:#4840A0">Spark</b> 08:43, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't know they were logged. Certainly this morning [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&page=User%3AKhuzaifa+Awan doesn't appear to be logged]. -- Red rose64 (talk) 09:19, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Page Curation was used. The two log entries have respectively  and  . The deletion tag log [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=pagetriage-deletion&user=&page=Jimmy+Twim&year=&month=-1&tagfilter=] shows the former. The page curation log [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=pagetriage-curation&user=&page=Jimmy+Twim&year=&month=-1&tagfilter=] shows the latter and also "marked as reviewed ". PrimeHunter (talk) 11:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * So is this something for Bugzilla (or whatever it is WM uses nowadays, I forget what it's called) or can it be dealt with locally? The Curation project page says it is a WM tool so I would assume it is the former. <b style="background:#FAFAD2;color:#C08000">Spinning</b><b style="color:#4840A0">Spark</b> 17:35, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's Phabricator now. A task against PageCuration with steps to reproduce is welcome! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Phabricator T86631. <b style="background:#FAFAD2;color:#C08000">Spinning</b><b style="color:#4840A0">Spark</b> 14:25, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Quoted quotes of quotes
I try to include pithy quotes in my articles, like "the situation is really unbelievable". For the longer ones I use block quote. That led to some confusing comments in a recent FAC, a mini-debate about whether or not there should be quotes in the source text. While looking at the article on my iPhone I noticed that the problem - block quote is rendered with nice fancy quotes around the block when seen on the iPhone, and I assume other places too. That made the quotes in the source text redundant. However, when I view it on my Mac, I don't see these quotes, so if I remove them I lose all quotes around the quotation. What's the story, and the solution? Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:17, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Per MOS:Blockquote: "Do not enclose block quotations in quotation marks..." For some reason the mobile view (which you can select at the bottom of any page) has CSS adding big quotes to blockquotes. --  Gadget850talk 12:36, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Either way, the content of <blockquote ></blockquote> is a quote; imagine that the tag is a type of quotation mark. So <blockquote >"..."</blockquote> is redundant. By default, the quoted text is indented (see the MDN page on), but some sites use CSS to apply decorative(!) quotation marks, like WP’s mobile CSS. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 06:32, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Titleblacklist not working
I'm not sure what is causing this, but MediaWiki:Titleblacklist is currently not functioning as intended; pages that are on the page can currently be created by any logged-in editor. I tested this theory with my test account earlier with a title that has about 30 consecutive capital letters, and I was given the option to create it. (I cannot use this account to test the blacklist since I have the template editor user right.) Is there a resolution to this issue, or is one in the works? Steel1943 (talk) 19:09, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Could this be related to above? -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:00, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * As I read it, the consecutive caps restriction is applied to page moves only? Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 13:15, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * By the way, I was also given the option to create this. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 13:17, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki:Titleblacklist includes:

.*[^\p{L}\d ]{6}.* # Disallows six consecutive characters that are not letters (in any script), numbers, or spaces
 * My non-admin account could create User:PrimeHunter2/Test.............................. with 30 periods. Should that have been impossible? There were no warnings. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:26, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Looking at it, the two are probably related. Steel1943  (talk) 14:33, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Another example of a blacklisted title I can create right now (with my test account) is here. Steel1943  (talk) 14:31, 5 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The Titleblacklist works now. Your example This shoe will die it not blacklisted as a pagename. It is only blacklisted as a username for account creation with this entry:

.*will die.*
 * Now that the blacklist is working, my non-admin account cannot create User:PrimeHunter2/Test...... with 6 periods. My admin account gets a warning before creating the page. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:42, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The titleblacklist is failing again. I can now click User:PrimeHunter2/Test...... without getting a warning in my admin account, and without getting a message that I cannot create it in my non-admin account. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:40, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, I misunderstood that entry. Steel1943  (talk) 22:16, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I am getting a message with my admin account about blacklisting for Category:Category:Cats, and I can't get a create page for it with a non-admin account. Note that this comes with a special message (MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-custom-double-category-prefix), don't know if this is relevant. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 22:12, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, looks like the title blacklist is working again; I get a warning message while trying to create . However, this isn't the first time that I have noticed the title blacklist having issues in the previous couple of months; I'll bring this if I see the issue happening again. Steel1943  (talk) 22:16, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This is confirmed to be a software issue, which is currently being worked on. There's nothing we can do about it on-wiki. Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Is there a bug filed for this, or is that not applicable for this issue? Steel1943  (talk) 21:53, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's T85428, the same as . Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:17, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Looks like the title blacklist functionality is down again. All I gotta say is ... the longer this goes on, the longer bypassing the title blacklist can be abused... Steel1943  (talk) 20:21, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Per the bug, looks as though a resolution is close to happening. Steel1943  (talk) 20:18, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Sigh... why does WP add extra steps to report a bug ?
I wanted to report a simple bug and WP makes harder than it needs to be by requiring anonymous users to create a user account on Phabricator. I could create a throw-away account there but I don't have one here and I don't feel any driving desire to have one there either. I am sure some might say an IP is not good enough for reporting bugs but to me if it is good enough to create/edit WP content then it is good enough to report WP bugs. JMHO

The bug is in the cite journal reference listing output.

If you use the fields


 * "page=99" or "pages=98-100" (any numbers)

in cite book you get output of


 * "p. 99" and "pp. 98-100" (respectively)

in the reference listing output.

If you use the same fields in cite journal all you get is the numbers without a "p. " or "pp. " in the reference listing.

104.32.193.6 (talk) 08:57, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Just a note that this is the right place. Wiki-specific template issues should be reported here, not Phabricator. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 09:20, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Zhaofeng Li is correct: Phabricator is for MediaWiki software issues but cite journal is a template specific to the English Wikipedia. If you go to cite journal and click on Talk, it will take you to Help talk:Citation Style 1 which is a central discussion for the CS1 templates. But if you go to cite journal and read the documentation, you will find that this behavior is a design choice. --  Gadget850talk 09:27, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Apart from that specific problem not being something to report or handle in Phabricator, generally speaking, anonymous bug reports in a bugtrcker likely bring more problems than benefits. See related discussion in T972. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 12:17, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * this seems like a good opportunity to float again the issue of "report an error" gadget/menu item. this was a development of Polish wikipedia, and was adopted since by a dozen wikis, including the Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Polish (of course), and Hebrew.
 * this gadget adds a menu item in the left-hand-side menu (this is "right" for rtl wikis) for "Report an error". it's enabled for specific namespaces - typically article and category, but can easily be enabled for template. clicking this opens a "report an error" form, that asks the reader to describe the mistake in the article. pressing "save" sends the report to a special "error report" page. we found that many readers who are reluctant to edit the talk page, are less reluctant to report an error using the form. of course, many reports are junk (some because the reader misconception, and some intentional), but we (i.e., hewiki) found it an invaluable reporting tool that helped us correct huge number of mistakes since it was first activated. i made a proposal to try it on enwiki, which was rejected off-hand. currently there is no user-friendly way to report an error in an article in enwiki: writing in the talk-page is far from easy or intuitive for someone who never edited in wikipedia, and talk-page comment is much more likely to go unnoticed- only the watchers of this specific page are notified. the global "error report" page is watched by dozens or even hundreds of wikipedians (more than 300 on eswiki and ruwiki, ~150 on ptwiki, 75 on hewiki), while typical article is watched by single-digit watchers, and it's not that rare for this digit to be "0". this is the "error reporting" page on eswiki. use interwiki links to see it on other wikis. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 17:52, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * One thing that needs considering is what would the traffic be to the error reporting page when scaled up to en.wiki? If all the newbie traffic on talk pages were redirected to a single error page I suspect it would be unmanagable.  Let alone any new traffic generated. <b style="background:#FAFAD2;color:#C08000">Spinning</b><b style="color:#4840A0">Spark</b> 08:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "Solution" could be several error reporting pages based on some criteria (type of error, type of article topic etc.). But yes, people should think about that. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 11:00, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Or you can make the error reporting form, which saves information of error to the article's talk page. It would at least be user-friendlier. And then the talk page could go to some tracking category for those wikiprojects, to which article is added. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 11:04, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

MediaWiki core has a feedback tool. You can see it in VisualEditor, under the Help menu (the "(?)" icon towards the right). It's very simple: it posts a new section on the linked talk page, and autosigns it for you. One of the things I'd like to do with this is to make it use a structured feedback model:

Based on which button you press, your message either gets posted to the (article) talk page, or to a central, tech-oriented page (like this Village Pump, not Phabricator). That way the "Report an error" messages about the article content will not fill the central pages. As קיפודנחש says, the comments sent to the talk page might go unnoticed, but this should reduce the "unmanageable" problem of scale that Edgars2007 has correctly identified.

To mitiage the "unnoticed" problem, the first button could lead to a form that not only says "Tell us about the problem", but that also says "Be bold in fixing things". What do you think? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * the form, of course, contains several things, including an offer (or suggestion) for the reported to correct the problem herself, complete with a button to edit the page. if the reader chooses to report instead of correct, it also asks for an (optional) source to the claim that whatever it reported is indeed an error. there are some more goodies on the form - please try it on one of the wikis that have it.
 * regarding bandwidth: you can look at the bandwidth on eswiki and ruwiki linked in my previous post: enwiki should expect higher bandwidth, but not by orders of magnitude. i doubt this is a real concern, byt either way, enwiki could simply try it for a while, and only if bandwidth indeed turns out to be prohibitive, decide what to do about it (cancel, multiplex the reports to several pages as suggested abouve, or find a more creative solution).
 * i'd like to mention, also, that hewiki modified the tool a bit, and we use it in a slightly different way from the others: in hewiki, the report itself goes to the talk page of the article being reported, and is enclosed with a "section" tag (using mw:Extension:LabeledSectionTransclusion, and the central page contains the transclusion and the "bug report status" template only. we did not do this for bandwidth reasons - the rationale was to persist it in the article's talk page, because the central page used for reporting is not archived. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 20:24, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, compared to he.wp, en.wp gets 33 times as many edits each month, so I think that they really could expect the volume to me more than an order of magnitude higher. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:32, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Bug -- moving a page does not create a 'redirect' entry for relevant wikiprojects
All Wikiprojects are wiped from a moved page. They should be retained and the classes set to "redirect". This is frustrating because one has to manually readd the Wikiprojects. The reason for doing this is for completeness on statistics, and inclusion on popular pages & recent changes lists, potential future research, and others. So it would be useful if this bug could be fixed. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:12, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not a bug. When a page is moved, the old page name becomes a redirect to the new page name, and the same applies to the talk page of the moved page. Redirection is part of the MediaWiki software; WikiProject banners are not. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:25, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * But... to me as an end user, I think this is a missing feature... why can't the WPs be updated? Can't be that hard. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:41, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The MediaWiki software would need to identify WikiProject banner templates on the talk page (and they're not all consistently named, I sometimes come across and several others). It would need to copy those (there may be more than one), and nothing else, to the redirect. It would need to determine whether the banner template recognises redir or not - if it doesn't, there is no point in copying it.
 * But much more significant is that the software is used on several hundred wikis within the purview of the Wikimedia Foundation, plus countless others outside the WMF. All of these create redirects when a page is moved: very few have WikiProject banners. The German and Dutch Wikipedias, for example, have none. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Redirect-class is pointless, with the possible exception of a redirect with possibilities to an article that isn't in the project. --NE2 22:56, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a sweeping statement. Some users - such as - are actively identifying candidates for setting redir, for example  and . -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:12, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I guess NE2 means a Wikiproject tag with redirect-class versus just a redirect, as in the original question. If we wanted the redirect-class for page moves then it should clearly be done by a Wikipedia tool like a bot or script and not by MediaWiki itself, but I don't see a point in making an automatic tool if it includes pages moved due to reasons like typos and capitalization. There might be a little more reason to go through Category:Redirects with possibilities (also when it doesn't originate from page moves), examine WikiProject banners on the talk page of the target, and make relevant redirect-class talk pages in certain cirumstances which may be hard to automate without getting a lot of irrelevant tags. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:39, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Not true. Redirect class is pretty useful for a number of reasons. Redirect includes a page in the scope of a WP:WikiProject, which is a group of like-minded editors who work on a particular topic. That means when a list of recent changes is compiled (or other metrics), redirects are included. Examples include redirects formed as a result of mergers or alternate terminology. Keeping track of these pages means when other users, or random edits are made to these pages or revert the mergers then the changes can be tracked. There are other benefits too, including identifying how many articles actually relate to a project and so on. --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:27, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * While I can see trhat redirect class tagging may be useful, it seems to me that placing these is too much to expect the software to do, per Redrose. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:18, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Right, but it's not too much to expect a bot to update these every now and again. Redirects should not have a non-redirect article assessment (e.g., Start-class).  Either all obviously wrong assessments should be blanked by bot, or the obviously correct assessment (which is "redirect") should be added, but they shouldn't be left "wrong".  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:11, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The talk page of a redirect gets Start class etc. in the following circumstances AFAIK: (i) somebody turns an article into a redirect, possibly following a merge discussion, but leaves the talk page alone (this is probably the most common way); (ii) somebody moves an article to a new name but unchecks the option "Move associated talk page"; (iii) somebody goes to the talk page of the redirect and adds a new WikiProject banner with start; (iv) somebody goes to the talk page of the redirect and in an existing WikiProject banner, alters redir to start. None of these are a consequence of moving article and talkpage as a pair, which is what I understood to be asking about. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:01, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I am indeed talking about redirects, but as WAID states it is also useful to consider incorrectly classed pages. Perhaps I could make a bot request to do this for recent moves and redirects? --Tom (LT) (talk) 21:16, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

My notification button at the top my screen is frozen at "1"
Even when I go to Special:Notifications, the red background with the white number "1" is still there. Dustin ( talk ) 16:32, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Double check that all your notifications have actually been deactivated - you may have missed one at some point. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:11, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Dustin, if that doesn't work, then sometimes I've had luck with going to Special:Preferences, unticking ALL of the notifications items, saving the prefs, reloading the page, and then going back to prefs and turning them on again. I haven't needed to do that for months now, but it usually worked.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:15, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. For some reason, all I had to do was open the preferences and suddenly the notification count was back to 0 with a gray background. Dustin  ( talk ) 21:11, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

This happened to me the other day. It was there for about 20 minutes and then vanished on its own. Perhaps a stale cache somewhere. <b style="color:SteelBlue">Chillum</b> 21:13, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

References affecting table sorting
At present references affect table sorting: fields with references are grouped separately from fields with equal values but without references. This is misleading, because (IMHO) ordering is supposed to only take into account content, not metadata. Records may be displayed far from one would expect to find them.

As an example let us consider a table originally sorted by name:

By clicking Sort Ascending in the Gender header, Brenda is relegated near the end of the table, whereas one would expect to still find her between Angela and Carolina. The effect is amplified in tables longer than the user's screen. --Enos D&#39;Andrea (talk) 09:43, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for fielding the email from the user. Simplify your example to one column, gender. The sorting widget is neutral about content in the column (it can't tell text from ref). This dates back to the original wiki implementation in Perl, which originally treated all data types as one type: text, basically. The same kind of disconnect exists between text and multi-media (sound, pictures, etc.). The only defense against this kind of problem (so much data that it overwhelms the screen) is to repeatedly toggle the widget, while keeping your topic (Brenda) in mind. At least the repetition will help your user to remember the specific row with the ref. Sorry. --Ancheta Wis   (talk  &#124; contribs) 10:47, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * You can write  for the cell with the reference if you only want it to sort by "female". See Help:Sorting. I did that above. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:41, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for replying. As a user I believe that by default sorting should not take into account metadata. Specifying custom sort values is handy, but most editors do not know about that possibility and would find it repetitive. Regardless of historical causes and manual fixes, I humbly suggest to discuss whether excluding metadata from the default ordering is right, leaving the whys and hows for later. --Enos D&#39;Andrea (talk) 17:01, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Do links to deleted revisions still work for admins?
Suppose there is a link to an old revision of a page, say to my user page [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Manul&oldid=635415879 like this]. Afterwards, the page is deleted. Does the original link continue to work, unmodified, for admins? (The alternative being that they must go to Special:DeletedContributions and find the revision, or something.) Does the same apply to diffs? Manul ~ talk 20:11, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * We do not. In my User:GB fan/Sandbox is a link to a deleted revision of my sandbox.  When I click it I see:
 * The revision #640396545 of the page named "User:GB fan/Sandbox" does not exist.
 * This is usually caused by following an outdated history link to a page that has been deleted. Details can be found in the deletion log.
 * I do not actually see the revision. -- GB fan 20:17, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I have also added a diff to a deleted version and I do not see that either. -- GB fan 20:21, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Does either one of these links give the old revision of your sandbox? [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Undelete&target=User%3AGB+fan%2Fsandbox&timestamp=20141231161140][//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Undelete&target=User%3AGB+fan/sandbox&timestamp=20141231161100] Manul ~ talk 20:44, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Both give me "Invalid or missing revision. You may have a bad link, or the revision may have been restored or removed from the archive." -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:47, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No I just see an error message that says I clicked on an outdated link. To actually see the revision or diff, I need to go into the deleted revisions and pull them up.  -- GB fan 20:49, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks to both of you. Well I tried. Presumably an algorithm exists for converting a deleted link to a working one, but it may require an exact timestamp of the deleted revision. I'm just trying to make it easier for admins to review evidence. Manul ~ talk 20:53, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * See my post [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Titodutta&diff=prev&oldid=642339189 here]. That's got a link to a deleted diff, which works for another admin. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:04, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Right, I used a similar example to craft the two unworking links above. I deduced the approximate timestamp by looking at one revision number less. I don't see why timestamps should have to be exact, so it seems the strategy should work in principle. Anyway, no need to dwell on it. Thanks again. Manul ~ talk 21:50, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This is a known issue; see T20104 on Phabricator. Graham 87 11:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia Design Research
I wake to find that "Wikimedia Design Research" (address noreply@qemailserver.com) tells me in two messages (which appear to be identical other than in their subject lines):


 * You are invited to participate in the future of Wikipedia, and MediaWiki software development.

OK, why not? But the questionnaire turns out to be ... not quite ready for prime time, telling me " ", etc.

"Have any questions?" the messages cheerily ask me. "Feel free to reply to this email." Somehow I doubt that a reply to an address starting "noreply" will have much effect. Hmm. -- Hoary (talk) 01:00, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I've already told them about the duplicate messages, and Dispenser reported the visible-HTML problem (in his case it was related to Qualtrics being in one of the browser-extension Ghostery's blacklists). I'll send this additional problem, too. Thanks. --Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:32, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Not receiving emails when watched pages are changed
Haven't changed the settings in my preferences. Sometimes I get an email. Sometimes I don't. I'm forced to visit pages I've edited to check their history for any recent changes. Pyxis Solitary (talk) 04:58, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Have you tried the "Mark all pages visited" button on your watchlist? You only get one email to alert that the page has been changed since your last visit. If you don't look at it, or click that button, while logged in, you get no further emails for that page. I also don't get an email for my talk page, even though I have it watched, but have my Notification preferences set to email me, instead. —PC-XT+ 07:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC) 07:54, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It says: "Email notification is enabled. Pages that have been changed since you last visited them are shown in bold." It's not doing what it says. The point of requesting email notifications is so that I don't need to keep going to Watchlist to see what pages are marked in bold. Since posting my comment here some hours ago and adding this page to my watchlist, there have been five dozen page changes added to it that are ALL related to this Talk page. What a waste of my time. Pyxis Solitary (talk) 16:04, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Those 2 sentences in the watchlist interface are unrelated to each other. If you turn off the userpreference "Email me when a page or file on my watchlist is changed", then the Interface sentence "Email notification is enabled." will vanish, but the second sentence (about bolding) will remain.
 * As PC-XT wrote, the enotifwatchlistpages function ("Email me ..." userpreference) is ancient, and fairly simple but logical. Once it has sent us an email about page "foo", it will only send another email about that same page, after we have visited that page. I.e. it works on the logic that once you've gotten one email, it doesn't need to bother you again, until you've seen and clicked on the link in that first email (and hence visited the page and reset the marker). Possibly we should clarify that sentence in the preferences menu? HTH. Quiddity (talk) 06:53, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Technical input requested on template issue
Please comment at Template talk:interlanguage link on how a possible problem with this template should be addressed. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 15:35, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Redundancy in TemplateData
We have many templates which use TemplateData, and alongside it have duplicate prose descriptions, in a variety of formats, of the same parameters. I raised the issue of this redundancy and duplication of effort at Extending use; removing redundancy, a while ago, but there has been little response. Please review and comment as you see fit. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:16, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Navbox templates with ndash (or mdash) Missing bold in article
Greetings, Noticed some Navbox templates that I've been adding & updating with a dash in the title/name do not show as 'Bold' on the article page when the RC Ecclesiastical Prov Navbox is opened. Wondering how to fix?

BTW this is my first question here at VP and editor since March, 2014 (somewhat new). I have previously asked at Teahouse but I think this is a more technical question, so asking here...

Part 1: NOT CORRECT

Navbox example:

Article example: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston–Houston

Part 2: IS CORRECT

Navbox example

Article example Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling–Charleston

Note: for the "Not correct example" above, it has an article Redirect. Is there something going on with "Mdash" vs. "Ndash"?

Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 20:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In navboxes, bolding of the links only happens if the link is direct, not via a redirect. I've made : changing a hyphen-minus to an en-dash, to match the article title and so bypass the redirect. This is one of those cases where WP:NOTBROKEN does not apply. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:19, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks Redrose64 for your help. In the edit display window the hyphen-minus & en-dash look the same. There are a few more navboxes with this same issue, so I'll go forward & "Be bold"! :-) Best wishes, JoeHebda (talk) 21:36, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Database error
Just tried to view my contributions, filtered for "file" namespace, and got:

"A database query error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software.

Function: IndexPager::buildQueryInfo (contributions page filtered for namespace or RevisionDeleted edits)

Error: 2013 Lost connection to MySQL server during query (10.64.32.25)"

Note the lack of any guidance as to where a user may report this. Repeating the query returned the expected results. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:18, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This sounds like a recurrence of a problem that we had in December 2013 - January 2014, see 58157 / T60157. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:45, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Harvard refs
I usually just use the cite web, cite book etc when I am referencing articles and am unfamiliar with Harvard referencing. Boston Corbett was recently converted from various ref styles to Harvard citations and I noticed something. When I go to the bottom of the article, under the Notes heading, there are blue links with the name of the refs in them. Are these blue links supposed to *go* anywhere? Are they supposed to link to or show the full book citation? They seem to go nowhere... but it seems like they should link to something useful. If someone could explain that to me I'd appreciate it. I did look on the various help|pages for links to example articles so I could see if these blue linked refs are a normal phenomenon and found none. Maybe it would be useful for there to be links to articles with Harvard refs at Harvard citation template examples, WP:HARV etc. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 17:46, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Make sure that each, etc. has a harv. See NBR 224 and 420 Classes for a working example. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:54, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Installing User:Ucucha/HarvErrors will help identify these issues. --  Gadget850talk 19:44, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the responses (especially the working example!) but when I look at the Harvard refs and how they are set up it just looks like gobbledygook to me. I don't understand how it works and I didn't do the changeover to Harvard referencing.  I've learned what I know of Wikicode by finding examples of what I want my overlying text to do and then lifting the underlying code from the example...so anyway I am now trying to understand this Harvard referencing.  If someone could just change one of the refs so I can see the difference I'll be glad to do the rest.  I like to understand the why & the how before I edit.  So if I look at one that was changed to the way it's supposed to be then I can fix the rest of them.   And when I run into this issue in the future I'll be able to fix it myself. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 20:15, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * As requested, I've . That has fixed all the Jameson 2013 refs: numbers 1, 11 and 17. More information at . -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:13, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I've been trying to fix them all for ages but some of the linking isn't working. So I finally gave up and just put the code |ref=harv at the end of all the cites. Would appreciate it if someone could tease out what is wrong with the following refs: Walker 1998, Swanson 2007, Sparks 1889, Chamlee 1989.  I'm giving up for now.  Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 04:46, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: Ok, I think I've figured out what one possible issue might be. When a cite has multiple authors with last1/first1 & last2/first2 for the co-authors' names, the linkage doesn't work.  When I removed the second author's name from "Walker 1998" and also deleted the numbers from "last" & "first" for the remaining author then the linkage to the full cite worked.  I have no idea if there is additional code that I am missing from the Harvard cites or if this if a bug of some kind.  Any help on this issue would be wonderful. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 07:56, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It appears that John of Reading . When the parameters last2 last3 etc. are used, you need to supply matching names to the, to a maximum of four. All of the issues above should be covered at ; they're certainly covered in the documentation for . -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:56, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks Redrose64 & John of Reading for all their fixes. I appreciate everyone's patience on this.  Heh, I know it is all covered in documentation and notes, but I'm not a coder and most of the time the explanations are more confusing to me than the actual code.  But when I can see the actual code along with what the underlying code does to the text skin in front of me as an example, it all becomes crystal-clear. Before I came here I really did try to do my own research but couldn't understand the explanations.  (I also asked the editor who converted the refs to Harvard why the bluelinks didn't go anywhere...they said they didn't know either.)  Shearonink (talk) 16:23, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

userscript dependencies
I'm starting to try and work with userscripts a little, and, probably due to my inexperience with both javascript and with mediawiki, I'm running in to a couple of questions. This is moderately off-topic here, so let me know if I should bugger off to the MediaWiki wiki. The questions all have to do with loading and dependencies.


 * I would like to use some functions/objects in multiple scripts. What is the suggested way to inject the dependencies into the executing script? There are the functions,   and  . I can't figure out how to inject the dependencies in to the executing script however, other than injecting them into the global namespace and picking them up from there, which can't be the intention.   takes a callback as an argument, but that callback doesn't have parameters for the dependencies. It returns a promise, but I can't find what the promise contains (it looks like nothing).


 * Scripts that actually do something other than providing functions tend to depend on the DOM, which may be built asynchronously. The mediawiki guidelines advice to use the mw.hook events rather than document.ready, which seems reasonable, but the three listed events there seem to be rather sparse. My specific usecase for now is adding a portlet link. On which event should I add that? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 11:16, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Seconded (your questions ;-) –Be..anyone (talk) 13:20, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Diff incorrectly highlights the entire line

 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Acupuncture&diff=642701128&oldid=642700956

I have verified that the only change is the addition of "|title=Acupuncture for Bell's palsy", yet the entire line is highlighted in both revisions. Is it possibly this bug? Anyone know what triggers it? Manul ~ talk 12:27, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The technical term for the behaviour of our diff engine, I believe, is that it "sucks balls". You could add this diff to the bug; I'm not sure is anyone is working on it, plans to work on it, or actually knows what triggers it. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 12:41, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In that particular case, it's probably because that line is over whatever limit (10000 bytes, I'd guess) the diff engine uses to avoid spending too much time trying to find the individual characters that changed in a line. Anomie⚔ 13:21, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * WikEdDiff (available under Preferences->Gadgets->Editing) handles this example just fine.- gadfium 01:39, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

CharInsert
Since this has come up a few times over the last month, I created Help:CharInsert. --  Gadget850talk 18:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks rate limit
Is there a rate limit for "thanks"? This log shows abuse. Johnuniq (talk) 08:24, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * A ten-per-minute restriction is mentioned at mw:Extension:Thanks. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:11, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Waldorf–Astoria (New York, 1893)
Hi, can somebody please modify Template:Multiple image to allow the option for clumps of four and six images etc with two on each line. If you can do that please replace the separate ones with singular templates in the Waldorf and Astoria sections to reduce the gaps between the images.♦ Dr. Blofeld  10:03, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

?♦ Dr. Blofeld  11:24, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Have you tried posting this request on Template talk:Multiple image? GoingBatty (talk) 17:45, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

One byte added - but where?
According to my watchlist, the contribs of, and the page history, added one byte. So why does it show as "(No difference)" in the diff? -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:23, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Interesting. What I did was change ##: to #:: to get rid of a subsidiary numbering set that had started. It ought to be zero size change unless a : is bigger than a # . Peridon (talk) 20:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Hang on - it's code. Does that count in a diff, or it it only content? Peridon (talk) 20:05, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The hash character (Unicode U+0023) and the colon (U+003A) are both single-byte characters. It should make no difference whether the change is to Wiki markup or to plain text: for example, the edit to yours, which changed one hash to a colon (specifically,   to  ) is clearly present in the diff, and shows in history etc. as a zero-byte change in size. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:09, 17 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Based on the timestamps, I'm guessing it is showing no diff because both of the edits where identical and came in at the same time despite being from different users. As to where the +1 byte difference came from, I'm going to speculate (that's all I can really do here) that one of the lines ended with just a   or   character and Peridon's edit made it a   which wouldn't show up as a diff in a comparison but would explain a one byte increase in size. —   02:39, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Manage Template Data bug
When I define a "type" on the new Template Data editor, the type remains undefined - even when I set it as a string.

Regards

NetworkOP (talk) 21:24, 17 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this note, NetworkOP. I'd like two pieces of information from you:
 * Which browser/computer OS are you using?
 * What steps are you following to add this information? (For example, are you using the GUI tool or editing the JSON manually?  And what is the exact sequence of buttons you're clicking on?)
 * The dev who mostly deals with this is offline at the moment, but I'll send her e-mail so she knows that a problem has been reported. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:51, 17 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Browser: IE explorer and Chrome (Bug exists in both)
 * OS:Windows
 * Steps:Clicking on Manage Template Data and trying to add a type (for example: string)
 * Note:The Manage Template Data function was recently updated so that it is similar to VisualEditor, prior to this update it was working fine
 * NetworkOP (talk) 00:14, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The bug exists in Safari and Firefox on my Mac, too, so it's everywhere.  It seems to be contained to the 'Type', if you follow the process, which is (once you're in the GUI tool):
 * Open the parameter.
 * Make your changes.
 * Click 'Back' to get back to the main window. (Your changes to the just-edited parameter will be silently kept.)
 * Click 'Apply' to move all your changes into the wikitext window.
 * Save the page.
 * But it seems to be dropping the 'Type' (a bug), and the dev's description of the process involved the word "nonintuitive". Design changes will be forthcoming, and if you have ideas about how you want them to work or what labels the buttons should have, then please share!  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:34, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, it seems to completely ignoring the 'type' input (which is in a drop down menu), so this suggests the drop down menu is either not configured properly or it's just failing to do anything with the input from the drop down menu. I would appreciate it if I could have a look at the code myself. Regards.NetworkOP (talk) 12:31, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Or another suggestion, revert back to the old "manage template data" and add the new version under beta (so that it's opt-in), as it clearly contains a major bug. Regards.NetworkOP (talk) 12:33, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course you can look at the code yourself. All the links you need should be at mw:Extension:TemplateData.  The patch has already been written:  https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/185693/
 * By the time they could roll it back (which is no earlier than Tuesday morning; the windows are very limited for the rest of the month), they can just fix it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:09, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

hi
ive left a message on "cyberpowers" talk page about the "revision history statistics" link like ive been told to do here in the past, however ive gotten no response or rather the xtool thing is down, now what do I do?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:49, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * There are now replies User talk:cyberpower678. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:11, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Redirect gone wrong
Hi. I moved the page Rachel Sassoon Beer to Rachel Beer over a redirect. The result was a circular redirect which I can't fix. I tried to undo the supposed "second" redirect but got a message that it had already been undone. I now cannot see the history of the Rachel Beer page. Please can you help me sort it out? Deb (talk) 03:50, 19 January 2015 (UTC)


 * One of your moves deleted the target to make way for the move. I have restored Rachel Beer. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:07, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I still can't figure out how I did that - or why I couldn't find the history. Deb (talk) 04:52, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You probably accidentally hit the "Delete and move" button twice quickly. It's happened to me, too. Graham 87 07:55, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Help:Download as PDF
Started Help:Download as PDF. --  Gadget850talk 15:24, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-04
<section begin="technews-2015-W04"/> 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 download the new version of the Wikipedia app for Android. The new version shows lead images, better galleries and content from Wikidata. It also has many other new features.
 * Programs and bots still can't read information about images on many wikis. You can see the list of wikis with the most files to fix. Wikipedia in Italian, Indonesian and Japanese language have the most files to fix. On the biggest wikis you should use bots. Bots can add information templates to groups of files. You can ask other tech users to help you.

Problems
 * All JavaScript on Commons was broken for a few minutes on Tuesday. It was because of old code in the HotCat tool. The same problem happened on some Wikipedias on Wednesday. It is now fixed.

Software changes this week
 * There are no software changes this week and next week due to annual meetings.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2015-W04"/> 18:13, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Missed pings
A few times recently, I have been "pinged" on a discussion page to get my specific input, but the ping did not appear in my notifications area and I only found the discussion by chance. Examples : Talk:Noel Lee (executive)/GA2, Articles for deletion/Direct Ferries - in both cases somebody wanted my feedback, but I didn't know about it. Has anyone else had this problem? <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  11:19, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This usually happens when the 'pinger' does not link to your user page, and signs his/her port in the same edit. Those are the required conditions to trigger a notification.  11:24, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, now the harder question is - how do we educate people about that who think they've pinged me when they actually haven't? <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  12:44, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Point them to WP:PING.  12:56, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There are more requirements at mw:Manual:Echo. Did [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Noel_Lee_%28executive%29/GA2&diff=641946551&oldid=641946244] not produce a ping? PrimeHunter (talk) 14:14, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhpas the lower-case "user:" part is to blame here?  14:30, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd like to mention that there have been many threads at WT:Echo concerning why notifications fail, and some of the questions above may have already been answered there. Using  shouldn't make any difference. If it does, this post won't notify Edokter. -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:03, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It did notify. Problem is also that only the notifyee can check if a notification is sent. Is there some log that admins can access?  16:10, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Not that I know of. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:25, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

So if I have this right, the user will only get a ping if the "U" in user is uppercase? Is there a way to fix that? I use lower cause "u"s all the time and never realized users were not actually being pinged. In the interim I'll just start using the big "U"s CorporateM (Talk) 19:44, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * user:CorporateM: That was just a guess by Edokter. I don't think it's right. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I got your ping just now with a lowercase "u", so I guess that's not it! CorporateM (Talk) 19:51, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Edokter's comment "It did notify" at 16:10, 12 January 2015 confirms that lowercase "user:" does notify. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:01, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Likewise I have missed some pings which the diff suggests should have generated a notification. Adding complexity would be a problem, but it would help if feedback could be given to the notifier to let them know how many pings they sent. Perhaps something like the "your edit has been saved" box could say "1 notification sent", or the edit might be tagged: "tag: 1 notification". Johnuniq (talk) 21:29, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * i thought that T68078 would be good measure to mitigate those issues, at least partially. if you agree, you can weigh in on this task to help convince the developers of its importance. in a nutshell: this is a suggestion to add to the "your edit was saved" notification some "the following user(s) have been tagged: (1), (2)" content. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:35, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Just to throw in another datapoint, this edit has  verbatim and what appears to be a valid signature, yet I still didn't get pinged. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  15:03, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you have "Mention" enabled at Special:Preferences? PrimeHunter (talk) 15:17, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I do <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  15:18, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it might be because it is in template space. This shouldn't really matter, but perhaps it does. I wonder if Rich Farmbrough or Redtigerxyz got a notification? Was also thinking about your first two examples, maybe the problem is that they are both subpages? --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  16:03, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Subpages are not a factor: I was notified by to a subpage. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:08, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Notifications says "Mentions: When your user page is linked to on any talk page or on a page in the Wikipedia: namespace by another user." I don't know why template space and other non-talk namespaces are omitted. MediaWiki:Notification-mention says "talk page" even when it's a project page. I still don't know why [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Noel_Lee_%28executive%29/GA2&diff=641946551&oldid=641946244] wouldn't cause a notification. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:53, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

OK I've got a couple of theories about this, which either or both may or may not be correct:

1. Perhaps Manual:Echo does not parse all diffs, but only diffs from pages that it considers to be discussion pages. If this is the case, certain pages might never generate a notification, as they might not be seen as discussion pages, despite discussions taking place on them. It would be interesting, for example, to see if pages in the Template: namespace (not Template talk:) could ever trigger a notification.

2. Perhaps Manual:Echo is buggy, and doesn't always parse page diffs correctly. So all page are checked, but only some posts on a given page generate a notification, despite fulfilling the rules. A good way to check would be to see if any pages give notification only for some messages.

I think perhaps 1. is more likely. This has also happened to me in the past, but I can't remember where the occurrences occurred. --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  18:14, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If 1. turns out to be the case, some exceptions from it, most obviously any AfD or DYK nomination (which are, despite the namespaces, discussions), would be useful. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  12:21, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * AfDs are in Wikipedia: space, where pings certainly work - just look elsewhere on this page which is also in Wikipedia: space.

In case it helps, here's an example of a ping I missed, which was not misspelled or unproperly signed. The signature was separated from the mention, and was also reformatted soon after. (Also, pings that are removed and readded properly in the same edit don't seem to work.) I heard that some fixes have been applied, or something, and I hope I am not missing many pings, now, but I would like a way to confirm that I am sending them. —PC-XT+ 05:30, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

OK I've been testing things out a bit with an alternate account, User:Mrjulesd(alt). Now I've made the following diffs,, and  and generated no alerts! Something is broken, and I'm starting to suspect the CSS in my signature may be to blame... --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  19:15, 14 January 2015 (UTC) Correction: the diff on this page has just caused a notification. But the other two diffs have failed so far --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  19:18, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

User:Mrjulesd(alt) this is a test edit, and is fine to ignore. See this thread for an explanation. --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  19:04, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Question: would anyone like to help testing? If someone could try to ping me on this account on Template:Did you know nominations/Je suis Charlie or Template talk:Did you know it would be interesting. All my Special:Preferences notifications are ticked. These pages do not seem to be generating notifications. I'm especially surprised that Template talk:Did you know didn't work, I thought that a Template talk namespace would work, but it didn't, despite notifications for this being ticked (default settings) on my alt account. --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  19:39, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd go along with the styled-signature theory, because didn't notify me. However, my sig doesn't seem to cause the problem, as I shall demonstrate to Mrjulesd and Mrjulesd(alt). -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:20, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Current view
Thanks Red rose64 both pings received. Yeah I'd already discounted my signature theory as I did receive a ping on this page on my alt acc eventually. But my current view is my earlier view 1.

It does NOT seem that notifications (a.k.a. pings) are working on the following pages:


 * 1) Template talk:Did you know (User:Mrjulesd(alt))
 * 2) Template:Did you know nominations/Je suis Charlie (Mrjulesd(alt) and <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b>)
 * 3) Talk:Noel Lee (executive)/GA2 (Mrjulesd(alt) and Ritchie333)
 * 4) Articles for deletion/Direct Ferries (Mrjulesd(alt) and Ritchie333)
 * 5) Talk:Man (Redrose64)
 * 6) Others, I've experienced it earlier, but I can't remember which.

List updated 15 Jan 15 11.32

What links all these pages? This is unclear. We've established subpages can ping. But I'm not sure about “Template:” and “Template talk:” namespaces yet. But it seems that even article “Talk:” pages don't work on occasions.

So at the moment it all seems a bit random really. Annoying!

I think the thing to do would be to compile a list of pages (these and any others), and open a bug at mediawiki.

If anyone wants to test this, please try pinging my accs from the pages listed, and I'll report back. You can leave a message on my talk page to make things clearer if you like. Also, any other pages would be interesting if reported. --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  21:29, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I would expect notifications to fail in Template: namespace, since the only non-talk namespace where they are documented as enabled is Wikipedia: - see Echo (Notifications)/Feature requirements → Notes: → second bullet. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:17, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The restriction by namespace seems odd to me. If someone tried to ping me from an article/category/whatever, I'd want to know ASAP so that I could fix the page. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:46, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well I'm not sure if there are any restrictions in place. I've been talking to Mandarax and he thinks that Template: space didn't ping at first, but that was changed at a latter date. So possibly the namespaces allowing pings was updated, but the documentation at Echo (Notifications)/Feature requirements wasn't. --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  11:49, 15 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Another data point: I didn't receive a notification from this message. Manul ~ talk 13:19, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This edit to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Direct Ferries did generate a notification for me. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  20:47, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * OK so it doesn't look like these pages are never generating pings. But at the same time I feel maybe that some pages are worse than others. I say that as at the village pump I don't seem to ever missed a ping, while this has not been the case on other pages.
 * So it seems apparent that some sort of software bug is causing this. But beyond this perhaps not much more can be said. I think the next step is maybe to report this to mediawiki so they can look into it if possible. --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  01:06, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Mrjulesd,User:Mandarax, User:Ritchie333... etc...   It seems to me that a signing "event" is the interpretation of, ~ or maybe even  ~.   I agree with User:John of Reading that all pages (namespaces)  should generate pings - perhaps we should request this?  All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 09:29, 17 January 2015 (UTC).


 * Rich Farmbrough thanks for the ping, didn't get it! Wondering if the others received theirs...
 * As far as I understand you must leave 4 tildes to create a ping, as this generates a signature and timestamp. 3 tildesonly gives a signature which is not enough. Not sure what 5 tildes do 5 tildes creates a timestamp only.
 * Not sure what namespaces work with pings. It seems that initially it was only talk: and Wikipedia: namespaces included, but I have been told that this was expanded to include Template: namespace too, and possibly others. It seems the problem is that all namespaces seem to be unreliable, and I'm not sure any pattern has emerged. --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  13:53, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Hm, well I sign with 3 tildes - which is a sig. without timestamp, though in my case the timestamp is built in. Five is just the timestamp. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:00, 19 January 2015 (UTC).


 * I've been back through the last six months of notifications, and the only ones with your name on were "left a message on your talk page." - there are none like "mentioned you on the ... talk page". I strongly suspect that the problem is not the number of tildes, but the format of what is produced by those tildes. I'm fairly certain that it's those four  in the timestamp. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:43, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No,, I did not get a notification from 's edit. I've previously tried manually inserting a signature and adding five tildes for the timestamp, and that did work. But I've never tried three. I'm going to sign this with  . Let's see if you guys and my alter ego get pinged.  M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M   Actual time for this edit: 00:19, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No, that did not generate a notification for me. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  00:19, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * M AN d ARAX I didn't get a ping either. --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd  <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  01:11, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It probably wasn't a good example, since the timestamp wasn't subst-ed. Incidentally,, your ping, telling me that my ping didn't ping you, didn't ping me. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  03:10, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Phabricator report
A search on Phabricator has revealed that this bug has already been reported:

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T78424 "Mention notification not sent, Missing Pings - unknown cause" mentions this thread as an example.

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T75366 "New comments are not generating mention notifications" same problem on Portuguese WP.

I found another interesting report: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T68078. "When mentioning other users, indicate mention notifications in the "your edit was saved" message". If this is implemented it would mean that you would get feedback over whether your ping "worked". So even if pinging remained buggy you would at least be able to find out whether or not the receiver received the ping, or whether you needed to contact the user directly or not.

So I'm hoping that a fix will be forthcoming, particularly T68078. --<span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:blue;">Mrjulesd <span style="font-family:'Segoe Script',cursive; color:orange;">(talk)  17:26, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I can't overstate how useful this feature would be to me
I've been dwelling on this for years, and I can't be the only one it's occurred to; why no tickable option in the user contributions interface to "show only my most recent edit for each page"? It would make navigating between the various articles and discussion spaces I might be editing at a given time (and, especially, making sure nothing gets lost the mix), such a more streamlined process. Am I missing something? Is there an obvious workaround to get the same effect that I'm missing? The utility seems so obvious. <font color="#19a0fd">S <font color="#66c0fd">n <font color="#99d5fe">o <font color="#b2dffe">w  talk 09:43, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This idea strikes me as being obviously sensible and practical and as being useful to many people, including me.
 * It was proposed two years ago, and User:Bawolff said then that it might have performance issues.
 * I don't know if some sort hack could be devised as a workaround (e.g., something CCS-based to hide any line that didn't contain the "top" label?), but if someone figures it out, then please let me know, too.
 * (As for its "Only show edits that are latest revisions" item, I often want "Only show edits that are not latest revisions", i.e., talk pages that aren't on my watchlist but that someone might have replied to.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:43, 17 January 2015 (UTC)


 * : [//en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=usercontribs&format=jsonfm&uclimit=max&ucuser=Snow%20Rise&ucshow=top&rawcontinue= your contributions that are most recent only]
 * : your contributions that are not latest revisions
 * The API can return these results, shouldn't be too hard to get the Special page too as well or create a script that will allow users to add that functionality. —  22:13, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Awesome, thanks T-13; even the rough API readout is useful for reference and I'll follow the ticket with hopes of a more integrated approach eventually. Cheers! <font color="#19a0fd">S <font color="#66c0fd">n <font color="#99d5fe">o <font color="#b2dffe">w  talk 22:38, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Can you combine those two? I want a list of pages that I have edited, that I was not the last person to edit, and only the most recent instance of each of those page.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:19, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That is two separate queries. It could be done through the API with a script that builds an array of pages from the first request and then runs that list to get the most recent contributors to all the pages, but playing in the Special:ApiSandbox I can't get it to return your request in one shot (not even with generators). :) —   15:50, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * While you're waiting for UI changes my User:Markhurd/hidetopcontrib may be useful to you, especially with the  feature. Mark Hurd (talk) 11:38, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Mark, thanks so much -- it definitely seems from the documentation that this would serve well, but for some reason, though the script is installed, the contributions don't seem to be filtered, with our without the argument. I'll give the situation a look-over later (probably I'm missing something obvious) but in the meantime, wanted to extend my thanks! <font color="#19a0fd">S <font color="#66c0fd">n <font color="#99d5fe">o <font color="#b2dffe">w  talk 15:47, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If you're using Vector skin (the current default), the "'show/hide top' choice" is available in a dropdown on the right hand side next to "Search". It's subtle until you know where to look for it. Mark Hurd (talk) 00:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, there we go, it was indeed something obvious (and I see now I glossed over that detail in the documentation). In any event -- absolutely smashing, Mark! Just what I was looking for.  This is going to improve my workflow considerably when I'm working on edits and discussions across multiple areas.  See, this is why I love VPT; somebody always comes through here, generally in no-time-flat.  If the rest of the project were as efficient as this space, we'd have already accomplished the goal of encapsulating all human knowledge. :) Cheers! <font color="#19a0fd">S <font color="#66c0fd">n <font color="#99d5fe">o <font color="#b2dffe">w  talk 01:08, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You definitely want to look at User:Markhurd/hidetopcontrib. Mark Hurd (talk) 14:07, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Problem with "redirect images ...." gadget
File:Trent House, 15 Market Street, Trenton.jpg With "Media viewer" off and "Redirect image links to Commons for files that are hosted there" on in user preferences (gadgets) clicking this image leads me to a wrong Commons page with a corrupted filename. Parentheses in the original filename (OK, the name's essay-like length is sub-optimal) are removed somewhere during the search processing. Anyone know this problem or a possible fix? GermanJoe (talk) 22:21, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * PS - the same problem appears, when I show the en-Wiki page first and then click on the "View on Wikimedia Commons" tab. GermanJoe (talk) 23:01, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I seem to recall this sort of thing from a few months ago, but IIRC it was the presence of commas that caused the problem. Your image has both commas and parentheses: please try an image with just commas, and one with just parentheses, to see which one is causing it. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:16, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The normal pipe trick always strips bar in foo, bar as well as foo (bar). The oddity here is apparently at least consistent. –Be..anyone (talk) 00:38, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Whatever is wrong, it appears to be at Commons and not here. I haven't found a way to make a working link to the Commons page but you can get there by copy-pasting "File:Trent House, 15 Market Street, Trenton.jpg" to the search box at . If I do that and copy-paste the url in Firefox then it says https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trent_House,_15_Market_Street_%28changed_from_539_South_Warren_Street%29,_Trenton_%28Mercer_County,_New_Jersey%29.jpg. It doesn't work as a link here but it also fails if I paste the url into the browser address bar I just copied it from. I don't have that problem at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trent_House,_15_Market_Street_%28changed_from_539_South_Warren_Street%29,_Trenton_%28Mercer_County,_New_Jersey%29.jpg. The only difference between the two url's is the domain. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:57, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I have done a few tests at User:GermanJoe/sandbox, but with no conclusive results: commas and parentheses are OK in other files. GermanJoe (talk) 00:10, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Here is a shorter example with a non-existing file: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:(B versus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:(B. The file doesn't exist but the effect of removing parentheses at Commons and not at Wikipedia can still be seen. If any of the four characters in the file name are removed from the Commons link then it works in the sense that all characters are preserved:


 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:(B fails by removing all parentheses
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:B works
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:( works
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:(B) works
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:(B( works
 * PrimeHunter (talk) 00:34, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem is unrelated to files. The same happens for Commons mainspace:


 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/(B fails by removing all parentheses but happens to hit an existing page at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/B
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/B works
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/( works
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/(B) works
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/(B( works
 * PrimeHunter (talk) 00:45, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Any idea, who would be responsible for testing (fixing) such a bug? Testing with the long "Trent House" string is even weirder, removal of all commas OR removal of the 2nd "(" character would result in a working link. GermanJoe (talk) 01:02, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm unable to reproduce this bug. It's working fine for me. —   02:24, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmm, Firefox 34.05 and Windows XP here and "Always use a secure connection when logged in" activated in preferences. Just fyi. GermanJoe (talk) 02:36, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * For me it's apparently caused by NoScript in Firefox. The problem goes away if NoScript's Anti-XSS protection is disabled as described at https://noscript.net/faq#qa4_5. I don't have the problem in other browsers. I don't think MediaWiki should try to work around this if it only happens for NoScript users on certain rare url's which may look like code. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:21, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * When you make file links (as opposed to displaying the image), you should never need to use a full URL - just put a colon before the  part - File:Trent House, 15 Market Street, Trenton.jpg. If you need to force a link to the commons file description page, instead of the local one, put a   before that colon: c:File:Trent House, 15 Market Street, Trenton.jpg. -- Red rose64 (talk) 10:35, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I know how to make file wikilinks but this was an odd url problem and I wanted to eliminate the possibility of the cause being MediaWiki's processing of wikilinks. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:57, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Good call on the Anti-XSS setting, disabling it solved the problem. But I have turned it back on, as you said, it's a rare bug. I'll just ask for a rename (or add a redirect) on Commons for this file, that should solve it as well in this case (fixed with rename) GermanJoe (talk) 12:10, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Related Commons discussion with a (possible) improvement for the Regex-filter in the NoScript configuration: Forum (no guarantee, no refunds). GermanJoe (talk) 18:34, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Single column pdf?
A reader tried to create a pdf of some articles, (example Exterior_algebra) but noted the pdf creator automatically creates two-column output. In some cases, formals are cutoff. The reader wondered if there was a way to generate output in a single column. I did not see a way to do this directly. I thought I would be clever and create a one article book, noting that the Book creator has an option to choose one or two column output. However, while the Main page rendered as a single column the Exterior_algebra article rendered as two columns.

Is there a way to get the output as a single column?-- S Philbrick (Talk)  21:21, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Try the "printable version" and print to PDF. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 14:27, 19 January 2015 (UTC)


 * That would work but you would need a PDF print tool installed. I started Help:Download as PDF and am starting to see how bad our PDF support is. --  Gadget850talk 11:57, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Vandal edits tagged as bot
Hey all, Jackmcbarn recently blocked this long-term abuser. What is odd to me, is that in my watchlist, several of the vandal's edits were tagged with "b", indicating a bot made the edits. Does anyone know why this would be the case? I also don't know how to show you what I mean, since I don't see the b in their edit history, and the user's edits have moved out of my busy watchlist. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:46, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Confirming this. These three two edits were all labeled with "b" or "mb" when I checked on my watchlist just now. I'm not sure what could cause this, however. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 02:54, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, the bot flag doesn't appear in contributions lists, so that's unrelated to this issue. See, for example, Special:Contributions/AnomieBOT. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 02:59, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Right. The bot flag appears in recentchanges and nowhere else. Here's a dump of all of the recentchanges entries from that user:


 * I'm not sure how this could have happened at this point. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:08, 19 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Could it have been through the API with ? MW:API:Edit implies it can be done. —   03:17, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Doesn't look like it. I just tried that and it didn't work. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:24, 19 January 2015 (UTC)


 * This would happen if used the &bot=1 option when doing the rollbacks (or used a script that did it). Mr.Z-man 04:48, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That'll be it, then. It's a bit strange that you can flag edits by other users as being bot edits, but that explanation fits the facts. (Maybe the "b" could also be hidden from the watchlist, as it is obviously confusing people.) All of the reverts in question were made by Jackmcbarn; Jack, was there any special script-fu that you used? — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 06:54, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, looking at the watchlist output more closely, the edits marked with "b" were by Unorginal 2015, and the edits marked with "mb" were actually by Jackmcbarn. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 06:58, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Using bot=1 should have only resulted in the reverts being tagged as bot edits, not the original edits. It seems like there's a bug there somewhere. I'll look into it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:47, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * this actually makes sense, and i believe that (bug or no bug), this behavior is "by design". the main purpose of "bot flag" is to allow people who trust bots, to mask bot edits in recentchanges. if you trust the bot(s), it makes sense to also mask the edit being reverted. think of the bot flag as meaning "made by bot or handled by bot" (where "handled" practically means "reverted"). to a certain extent, it's the same behavior as the "patrolled" flag WRT rollbacks: on wikis that use the patrolling mechanism, people with certain permission (called "patroller"), can mark an edit as "patrolled". and everyone can mask patrolled edits in recentchanges. so, anyone who trust the spatrollers, can ignore patrolled edits in recentchanges (same for watchlist). now, when someone with a "rollbacker" permission rolls-back an edit, the origial edit (the one being rolled back), is marked as "patrolled", so one can focused on edits that were not handled yet by someone trusted. turning on "bot flag" for edits being rolled back makes sense. enwiki, one of the permissions of administrators is "Mark rolled-back edits as bot edits (markbotedits)". peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 18:12, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * See the mw.org page I linked to. That's how it's intended to work. Mr.Z-man 02:44, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You're right. Wow, that's obscure. Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:54, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Image on preview popup
What determines which image shows up on a hover over a wikilink? For example, when I narcissisticaly hover over Ent, the image that appears is File:Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_Groot_movie_poster.jpg instead of the top / primary File:TREEBEARD.jpg. NE Ent 14:50, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it looks for the first "File:" or perhaps "Image:" in the wikitext; it doesn't understand image names that are passed as template parameters with no "File:" prefix. I take advantage of this on my user and user talk pages. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:19, 19 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I get the Treebeard image when I hover. --  Gadget850talk 11:55, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, and "weird," respectively. Do popups only work on mainspace pages?? I tried putting "Ent" into a user space sandbox and Draft:Ent but I'd don't get an image when hovering. NE Ent 01:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Pitiful plea for help with jquery - javascript
Since en.wikisource is mostly frequented by bookworms and not-so-much the techie types, I don't know where else to turn but here for some help in [re]developing some of our now-obsolete jquery scripting that affects a large portion of all main-space works for us.

Background. — At some point in the development history of en.WS, a feature called "Dynamic Layouts" was implemented for a certain type of main namespace works that, in short, auto [re]formats the content to render in 1 of 4 preset layouts. Since the specific type of content under the spell of Dynamic Layouts are those transcluded-in from another namespace, anything manually added in the main namespace -- like headers, footers, copyright disclaimers, authority control banners and similar entities much akin to Wikipedia's infobox usage -- are inadvertently auto-[re]formatted as well. The "long-time fix" for this has been the below snippet applied from our Common.js; moving the containing DIV or TABLE holding the non-content related items "outside of" the influence of Dynamic Layouts before final rendering of the viewable main-space article takes place.

The problem. — In the time since the above's inception, some of the "advancements" at en.WS have made it obsolete, if not crippled altogether. The new points resulting from those advancements that I need help with in coming up with a "new design" now are (specifically)...
 * 1) the need to expand the current affected/detected namespace for both "moves" from just the main namespace  to include the <tt>Translation:</tt> namespace ( ?)
 * 2) the need to tweak the first item moved to target the DIV with an  id=  attribute of licenseContainer instead of the current target -- a DIV with a  class=  attribute of licenseContainer (same) -- BUT ONLY when the new target container is not a child or descendant of a table cell   element.

Any and all comments or help is greatly appreciated & welcomed in advance. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:28, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Are these the 10 most powerful tips?
A tip that will be displayed on January 27th presents the following 10 tips as the most powerful tips (for using or editing Wikipedia):


 * 1) Use your watchlist
 * 2) Super-customize your account with gadgets (Navigation popups, etc.)
 * 3) Work faster using keyboard shortcuts
 * 4) Navigate faster using Wikipedia shortcuts
 * 5) Edit Wikipedia faster with AutoWikiBrowser
 * 6) Jump to the search box with Shift
 * 7) Search Wikipedia from any website
 * 8) Use your browser's toolbar to navigate Wikipedia
 * 9) Templates
 * 10) User scripts

My question for you is, are these the most powerful tips?

If not, what are?

Thank you. The Transhumanist 10:42, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 3 and 6 (keyboard shortcuts) can go to "esoteric" from my very not-neutral POV, pick what you like better and be BOLD. –Be..anyone (talk) 11:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Be..anyone, what's the most powerful trick or technique that you use? The Transhumanist 11:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I like mw:Help:Magic words, mw:Help:Parser functions, Cite web (excl. the bogus YYYY-MM "error"), the new mw:Help:TemplateData, I hope to grok more of (wikidata) soon, and I link to SoFixIt often, unless I'm busy fixing something. –Be..anyone (talk) 12:14, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I would extend "Wikipedia shortcuts" to interwiki prefixes as well. For example, you can type "mw:LUAREF" into the search bar to go to the Lua reference manual on mediawiki.org, or just "mw:" to go to its main page. Also, for beginners, turning on VisualEditor is probably going to be the most powerful tip out there. I'm guessing that quite a few people give up when they first set eyes on the raw wikitext of a properly formatted article. And I hear that many editors swear by WP:REFLINKS. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 05:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Just the other day, found Tip of the day/August 25 list of 4 help articles that clarifies where to look for help. Don't know if it would qualify to be one of the most powerful though. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 14:40, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Adding the importance tag to a WikiProject
The Cycling Project currently doesn't have the importance tags built into the project template (WikiProject Cycling as most other projects do. Some of the main categories have been created recently. How can the template be edited (as it's currently locked) to add the necessary parameters? Thanks.  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 19:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You could post a request on Template talk:WikiProject Cycling with edit template-protected at the top of your post. Good luck!  GoingBatty (talk) 20:00, 20 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks - I'll give that a try!  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 20:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Auto-numbering on GNU License
I raised an issue at  but it is somewhat technical in nature so it was suggested I raise it here. In short, is there any way to disable the automatic heading numbering (selectable in Preferences) from appearing on Text of the GNU Free Documentation License (for all users)? It is interfering with the section numbers already included in that document which may raise legal issues. —sroc &#x1F4AC; 14:37, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Having problem with SFN template.
Hi, I hope this is the correct place to ask this. I have never had problems using this template, however I have ran into trouble with the following one. Can anyone advise what the issue is and how to get it to work? Thanks.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 04:51, 21 January 2015 (UTC)




 * Yes, this is the right place. You need to leave "Rieser" out of the sfn template, as it doesn't support adding more than four authors. (That's why it says "Boyer et al. Rieser" instead of "Boyer et al. 2009".) If you use the code  then it should work. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 05:23, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much!EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 00:11, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

New menu
Where can I find a discussion of the new menu? And it may have settled down, but I've been getting some pages with the old configuration and some with the new. Dougweller (talk) 10:45, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * what do you mean by "the new menu"? What page(s) does it show on, what does it look like, how does it differ from "the old configuration"? -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * When I look at a talk page the menu at the top that I see says Read Edit + View history More ▼ Page ▼ User TW - "View history" used to be the Page dropdown menu, which now has new analysis tools and a set of tools for copyvio detection, checking external links and checking dab links. Some pretty major addtions which look great, but I don't recall them being announced. Dougweller (talk) 13:38, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you have enabled? There were some recent changes to MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition but this option has been available for a while. --   Gadget850talk 14:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, not a menu but the tabs on Vector skin. Since I use MonoBook, I see no changes. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I've had that enabled for yonks, so it has something to do with recent changes, perhaps by User:MusikAnimal. Dougweller (talk) 14:59, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, we pushed out a long overdue vectorized update to the "dropdown menus" gadget. The relevant discussions are here and here. A link to those was also dropped at WP:VPR.There are some big differences from the old menus (see documentation). Admittedly moving View History back as a tab (as it is natively) was my bold doing. I figure, along with "Edit", these are buttons we hit so much we wouldn't want it nested in the menu. I think you'll get used to it and prefer it, but that's up for debate, though! We can easily move it back to it's old place. Note also when the browser window is so small that the View History tab would not be visible, it is in that case placed under the Page menu. Are there any other concerns you have? This is a big update so it's without surprise we'll have some feedback, good and bad. Thanks (PS – please ping me when on this page) &mdash;  MusikAnimal talk 15:47, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * User:MusikAnimal, I really like the history tab being on its own so I can open it with just one click. And now that I can find the documentation I'm very pleased. I like the new tools (although at least one gave me a 408 - is wmflabs ever going to work properly? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 16:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


 * User preferences can be offered as well if some people would prefer that the view history was always nested in the menu. —  16:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Example of wmflabs problem: Dougweller (talk) 16:37, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Bug found in new menu usage
I went to The Simpsons (season 7) and selected Page -> Analysis -> Analysis - Wikichecker. The Wikichecker received the name of the article with the Parentheses turned into %28 and %29, which Wikichecker did not turn back into ( and ) and so it didn't run on it. When I changed the value in the Wikichecker input box to ( and ) it ran fine. Having the drop down fail on any page with ( or ) seems a really big flaw.Naraht (talk) 16:47, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Another one. My talk page, and others, now show Read Edit + View history Unwatch More TW - none of the tools I saw an hour or so ago. Dougweller (talk) 17:04, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I can fix the wikichecker issue. It sucks because some tools like it encoded in different ways, guess I missed this one. If the Page and User dropdowns recently disappeared it's because we just added ResourceLoader back to the core script. It may take a few hours for it to return. We can restart xtools as needed but for now there's bound to be regular outages. T13 is working on a permanent fix. &mdash;  MusikAnimal talk 17:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ping as well. &mdash;  MusikAnimal  talk 17:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Try bypassing your cache (in Chrome: CTRL-F5).  17:24, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks all, bypassing the cache fixed the menu problem and I can wait for wikichecker. But while I'm here, [[User:MusikAnimal, what I and others really need is xtools, eg the ability to check range contributions. Why are they so problematic? Dougweller (talk) 17:44, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem is the service is so popular yet lives on a shared instance on tool labs. On top of that, there's memory leaks. So it's slow to begin with (presumably due to traffic), then eventually locks up after so much usage. A restart always temporarily fixes it, which I, T13 and Cyberpower678 do regularly. T13 is working on the memory leak issue, and once that's resolved I believe they'll be moving xtools to it's own dedicated instance where it can have more dedicated resources and performance will be improved. &mdash;  MusikAnimal talk 17:49, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * User:MusikAnimal - thanks, that's very reassuring. Dougweller (talk) 17:51, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I can also add a link to tools.wmflabs.org/rangecontrib, an alternative tool for range contribs. Does that one work well? &mdash;  MusikAnimal talk 17:53, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * [[User:MusikAnimal ouch, that's the one I was thinking of and have had problems with, but it seems ok today. Dougweller (talk) 17:56, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No it isn't. I got it to work once for 71.127.128.0/21 which needs blocking as it is Til Eulenspiegel socking, but then when I tried 2 other ranges he uses, 71.127.132.0/22 and 71.246.144.0/20, no luck. Dougweller (talk) 18:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Range is blocked. Dougweller (talk) 19:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Section headers in collapse boxes
So, I've noticed an issue recently, I'm not sure if it's worth fixing. If a section header is in collapse boxes (like collapse top), it still appears in the table of contents, but clicking on the link in the TOC doesn't work. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 00:41, 18 January 2015 (UTC) Looking specifically at the paragraph headed "Section A", the element with the anchor relating to that is the Section A. The next element out is the <h2 ></h2> which encloses it. The next element out from that is the <td ></td> and the next one out from that is the <tr ></tr> That is the one which is fiddled by the JavaScript, to add or remove the. When that is present, this <tr ></tr> element is absent from the document, so any HTML markup, and thus any anchors, which it encloses are also absent from the document. We might consider shifting the, and therefore the anchor, to some point that is not within that <tr ></tr> element, and thus make it somewhere that can be reached by clicking a link, like those in the TOC. It could go on the next element out, which is the <tbody ></tbody> element. Moving the  attribute might be possible in JavaScript, were it not for the possibility that two or more section headings might be inside that collapsible section (as shown with Section B in my example). You then need to handle two or more anchors, in this case  and  ; and an element can have only one   attribute. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:57, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a known issue. I'm not sure what a fix would be. I certainly don't think the TOC should change when a hide/show link is clicked elsewhere. The TOC link might go to the start of the collapsed content or automatically expand it but I don't know how well-defined such behaviour would be or whether it's technically possible. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:52, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The TOC is prepared by the MediaWiki parser. The links in it point to anchors (in the form of  attributes on  tags) within the section header elements (like <h2 ></h2> etc.). So far, so good. The mechanism for producing a collapsible section has two main components: first, there are the templates / which make a two-row single-column table. The first row of this table is the green stripe bearing the box title and the show/hide link; the second row is the actual content. The second component of this mechanism is some javascript, which essentially adds (hide) or removes (show) the CSS declaration   in the   attribute of that second table row. If a browser has been designed to be fully compliant with CSS 2, any element which has   is not just hidden, it is not physically present, therefore, any   attributes on section header tags within that collapsible section are also absent, which means that the link in the TOC has no anchor to jump to. There's no easy way of making it jump to the next element out from the one that is absent. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:17, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Am I correct to assume that "no easy way of making it jump to the next element" also implies "no easy way of making it stop at the previous element"? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:12, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You are correct on that that is indeed the case. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 14:13, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * By "the next element out" I also meant "the previous opening tag" (n.b., not the previous element - tags and elements are not the same - elements are comprised of an opening tag, some content, and a closing tag). Let's consider the wiki markup  this is rendered as the following HTML5 structure
 * Isn't the issue of "unable to jump" from one element to another here because the ToC is still based in a HTML table rather an all DIV based scheme mimicking a table?


 * Just copy and paste the above to your favorite sandbox, save and you should see an DIV based rendering of a 2 row, 5 column TABLE -- without all that HTML TABLE non-flexibility baggage. And THAT is one of the biggest problems facing Wiki-whatever; the over-use/abuse of the HTML TABLE spec for purposes other than intended. Fortunately modern browsers and OS'es recognize CSS3 and the above implementation -- and good reason for all existing legacy features built using TABLEs (like ToC) to be revisited and possibly redesigned. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:38, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * there should be no connection between the way the TOC itself is rendered, and the current complaint: the problem here is that the "hidden" element kinda loses its anchors (or rather, the ability to "jump" to these anchors., : i believe it should be pretty straightforward (and short, sweet js snippet) to teach the collapsing script to create "alternative anchors" that will live in the header and will "disappear" (either through display:none, or simply by strict removal) when the hidden section is expanded. if i hve some time, i might try to knit a little prototype to do this: since jquery collapsible mechanism triggers events before and after collapsing and expanding, i think good chances something _like_ this could work


 * this is 100% purely untested code - it might not even compile. it is meant as illustration for a simple mechanism to allow collapsible elements to provide "alternative anchors" when they are in collapsed state.
 * peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 23:58, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Another idea would be to uncollapse any sections that the targeted header is inside of, probably on the  event. That would probably be more what the user is expecting. Anomie⚔ 00:02, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * hmmmm... : something like
 * i must admit it's more elegant than my "faux anchor" solution, and is probably exactly what the reader really wants... peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 00:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I concur. (not a hi-jack but...) Any of you scripting experts care to take a stab at my pitiful plea made earlier today and now somewhere down below? -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * took another stab at it. it is actually quite tricky when the section name contains non-ascii chars, b/c mw replaces it with ".xx.xx" (where xx are the hex for the bytes in the UTF representation), and the periods in the ID confuse the hell out of jquery (or rather, confused the hell out of the js programmer...). in any event, the following seems to be working:


 * what this code supposed to do is to expand the collapsible containing the section clicked in the TOC. i'd love to hear from anyone who tried it, especially if it didn't work: if it fails on some page on enwiki, i'll appreciate it if you can post a link to the page. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

"Your edit was saved" notifications
Hello! When a page is edited and the changes are saved, but a browser tab is closed before updated version of the page is fully loaded, the "your edit was saved" popup-style notification is displayed the next time that page is freshly loaded in another tab. The update information is probably stored within the session, so it's propagated and used the first time the page is loaded, no matter whether that's immediately after the edit was saved or at some later point in time. Such behavior could be confusing, so it might be worth fixing. Thoughts? &mdash; Dsimic (talk | contribs) 07:45, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't remove the feature completely if possible, with my often lousy connections it's no nonsense. –Be..anyone (talk) 11:55, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's been doing that ever since the feature was first added. It was mentioned on this page at the time, by myself amongst others. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:03, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * My thought has always been....


 * ... can't say that it prevents the behavior but not seeing it all -- either way -- is just as good when comes to avoiding possible confusion. -- George Orwell III (talk) 13:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Judging by previous posts on this matter, e.g. Small new feature coming on Thursday; Pop-up box when edit saved; WP page editor changes; Question; Pop-up (and pop-down...), you don't actually need that  -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * On a related pop up note, what's the code to stop the messages about "this page has been added/removed from your watchlist"? Nthep (talk) 15:17, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , it seems to be . —   15:46, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion, perhaps I haven't explained it clearly enough. I'm not complaining against this notification, in fact I love it. :) What I'm complaining about is a possible bug in its implementation, as I've described it; in a few words, this notification is displayed on pages that weren't edited immediately before.  Makes more sense?  Please let me know if it's still confusing and I'll try to explain it better. &mdash; Dsimic (talk | contribs) 15:58, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's what I understood when I made my first post above. There are Village pump (technical)/Archive 105 and Village pump (technical)/Archive 104 where commented on fixes for that. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:50, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, and sorry if I was overexplaining it. Went through both discussions, and all bugs mentioned there are either already fixed or different from what I've described.  That makes me think a revisit might be a good thing. &mdash; Dsimic (talk | contribs) 17:02, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

downloading complete revision histories for >10K pages
I am a researcher and would let to download complete revision histories for about 10,000 musicians because revision frequency is an indicator of popularity. I have a list of artists but do not know how I can download the quantity of data in an automated fashion. Could someone point me in the right direction? I should mention that I'm not a programmer or technical person. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicholashays (talk • contribs) 19:52, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * See WP:DUMP. Sorry I cant give longer answer, but I'm on a tablet. - X201 (talk) 21:49, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You can also sign up for Labs access so that you can perform the database queries on the Labs servers without downloading the entire dumps yourself. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 22:36, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Or you can export the relevant articles with their revision histories (that's mentioned in the link above about dumps, but I thought I'd clarify it here). Graham 87 10:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Special Export is limited to 1000 revisions. The user wanted the full revision history of each article.- X201 (talk) 11:39, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, I didn't know about the revision limit! Never mind me, then. Graham 87 10:31, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Off topic!
A disruptive editor has moved Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple to Topic:Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple. Someone please move it back! &mdash; RHaworth (talk · contribs) 21:46, 22 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Tried manually using Special:MovePage/Topic:Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple, but got the following error: "You do not have permission to move this page, for the following reason: Moving a discussion board is currently not supported." Since it seems admins can't revert moves like this, I've boldly created filter 658 to disallow any other moves like it. {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits}&#125; 22:22, 22 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I've reported this in Phabricator at T87396. This needs to be fixed ASAP - could someone let Ops know on IRC? — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 23:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Most of Ops is supposed to be dutifully paying attention in a meeting right now. I'll send e-mail to the team in the hope of distracting one of them, but if you found someone else, please post here.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There is a wikibugs feed in the -dev channel that some of the "ops" watch. Also, it's not critically important because no-one can move Main page &rArr; Topic:Main page. (Please, don't try...) —   00:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


 * IMO  should not be a selectable option in the   dropdown on Special:MovePage, especially since it is not revertable. ☺ ·   Salvidrim!   ·  &#9993;  00:34, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If it is a big concern or becomes an issue, it wouldn't be hard to eliminate that option from the menu with JavaScript in MediaWiki:Common.js. . —   00:50, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The Flow devs are looking into it. Thanks, Nihiltres, for the quick bandage solution. --Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The history of Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple has now returned to its rightful place, so I've deleted it again per Articles for deletion/Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple. Thanks for the quick response! — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 01:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The article was actually up for 2nd AfD at Articles for deletion/Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple (2nd nomination) (this first was speedy'd as author requested). It appears the all the 22 January revisions are still at Topic:Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple, so I don't think we're done here yet... :/ &mdash;  MusikAnimal talk 02:09, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oops, sorry about that... — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 02:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Not all of the history was in the right place, unfortunately. We're working on repairing this, so please don't anyone else work on this for now.  I've undeleted the topic page temporarily.  We'll move it into the main namespace, then re-delete it.  The goal is to get it into the state of a normal deleted article, so it can be handled with normal processes e.g. if someone files a Requests for undeletion or whatever, and all attribution is in the normal place for a deleted page. Mattflaschen (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This is done. Mattflaschen (WMF) (talk) 01:09, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Generating a numbered list of Wikipedia's medical articles
I want to take a random sample of 300 (1%) from our 30,000-odd medical articles (listed here). I think the most objective way to do that would be to generate 300 random numbers between 1 and 30,000 (here), and pick those numbers off a numbered list of our medical articles. Can anyone here generate a numbered list of those 30,000 articles for me? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:41, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * See . The 300 articles in the result are randomly selected (For another set, run the query again). Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 08:03, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yay! Thank you Zhaofeng Li. I am truly very grateful. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:08, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Zhaofeng Li, could I ask you to run it just one more time, please, this time retrieving 400 random articles? I don't know how to. (A few of those results are biographies, companies, etc. and I'm just looking for diseases, symptoms and treatments.) Never mind. I worked it out. Thanks again. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:28, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
There is some sort of a bug, in this page. As you can see, in the first line, it looks like there is no space between the words "the" and "Crown", although there is a space between them in code. Even if you add as many spaces as you can think and then press preview, the words remain conjoined. Moreover, this bug exists in previews versions of the page, at the exact same place but with different words.--85.74.124.232 (talk) 08:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't see a problem in any of the recent versions in Firefox 35 on Windows Vista. Maybe your browser has problems handling lines with Arabic text. Did it help that an editor used lang-ar in the current version? Before without lang-ar:

Muqrin bin Abdulaziz (مقرن بن عبدالعزيز آل سعود) (born 15 September 1945) is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
 * Now with lang-ar:

Muqrin bin Abdulaziz (مقرن بن عبدالعزيز آل سعود; born 15 September 1945) is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
 * PrimeHunter (talk) 11:51, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes. It has been solved.--85.74.124.232 (talk) 13:09, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Admin assistance needed for overdue DYK sets at Template:Did you know/Queue
The queues are empty at T:DYK/Q, it doesn't seem like someone noticed the bot message. - Anonimski (talk) 19:46, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Spelling in search - broken record?
I go to wikipedia first for a factual/reference question and too often, I get the confused look on wikipedia's face. It happened again this morning with "X-ray Phase Contrast Tomography". While that did produce the same quote about scanning the same scrolls and a few other links, it did not show this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-contrast_X-ray_imaging - I went to the article about Phase-contrast imaging and under X-Ray, it said Main article: Phase-contrast X-ray imaging.

Of course, for those who use google as in index to wikipedia, this is not a problem.

So, here is my question, does anyone look at the search failures to see if there are common mistakes or easy algorithms that can be applied? If not, are they easy to get, just in case I have some spare time this weekend?

BTW, I added a redirect from "X-ray Phase Contrast Tomography" to Phase-contrast_X-ray_imaging. I spose I should add a link from the quote in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_papyri

Bodysurfinyon (talk) 18:23, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't think so. From what I've heard, the terms that people search for are not kept at all (not even temporarily or anonymously).  When editors happen to find issues like that, they create WP:Redirects to solve the problem (just like you did), but there's no systematic way to find out what people are searching for, much less where they ended up.
 * User:^demon or User:NEverett (WMF) might be able to tell us more about how the search tool is expected to work in this sort of situation. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:32, 22 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi, Whatamidoing (WMF). Regarding "the terms that people search for are not kept at all (not even temporarily or anonymously)", the WMF:Privacy Policy states that the WMF "may use cookies to learn about the topics searched so that we can optimize the search results we deliver to you." Surprisingly, that's all it says about privacy related to search. I'd like to see the Policy explicitly state how search information is stored and precisely how it's used. Ideally it is not stored or used at all in any way that connects to users. This lack of specifics regarding search in the Privacy Policy seems like something that requires more discussion. The search box should have "no memory" at all. The best way, I think, to view the search box is as a librarian whom you are asking for help, and I expect some confidentiality with a librarian. It'd be interesting to review some different code of ethics for various librarian organizations like the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions to how well the idea of treating the search box as a "librarian" could/should be taken. I believe that librarians make some exceptions to confidentiality under some circumstances but I don't know if we should. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:01, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Even though the privacy policy may permit it, the last time I heard anything about it, nobody was actually doing it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:52, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for all of your responses. I certainly don't want to associate the failed searches (or any searches) with anyone. I just want the searches got more hits. Bodysurfinyon (talk) 21:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Banner ad with non-obvious "hide" button
There's a CentralNotice-type banner advert up at the moment, which has this background image, and linked text "Help choose the best image of the year. View the candidates and vote for your favorite." which I couldn't hide at first, because it doesn't have an obvious "hide"/"dismiss" link/button at upper right. Eventually I found two: one is in the usual place, to the right of the "Image credit (2007 winner)" link but is not at all visible because [//bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.17/common/images/closewindow.png this image] doesn't exist, so it falls back on the alt text "Close" in the default colour for unvisited links - which would be OK were it not that the effect is of blue text on a blue background. The other is very tiny, and in a non-obvious place - the &times; symbol halfway across the screen, below the banner's background image and above the link "Round 1 of the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year competition ends January 31. Click here to learn more about the contest and vote for your favorite image." Does anybody know where I should complain about this? I got as far as m:Special:CentralNotice, but I can't work out which notice it is, nor where to discuss it. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:19, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Awesome tip, thank you! It's so much better not to have it eating vertical space. :) &mdash; Dsimic (talk | contribs) 13:22, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , found it at this config page. From the code inserted when "Insert close button" is clicked, it looks like whoever created the banner forgot to click it, as it depends on [//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/20/CloseWindow19x19.png this image] instead of the broken one.
 * We can ping anybody listed at m:Special:CentralNoticeLogs with "POTY_2014_R1" (the code name of this campaign) listed under the "Campaign" column. I'll go ahead and ask m:User talk:Beria, as he or she was the last admin to edit the banner. APerson (talk!) 15:56, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, POTY_2014_R1 - right at the top of the list. I passed over that one, because it's now 2015 and I assumed that the notices were listed oldest first. However, it also doesn't have any immediately-obvious discussion page. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:24, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It should probably be Closewindow.svg and someone screwed up, but I threw together a quick PNG that will do in the meantime. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:12, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * By the way, can I just say that that Image credit is rather shameful? Instead of actually giving credit to, say, User:Newton2 who took the photo, it just states the image was the 2007 winner. That's not what image credit is. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:14, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a wiki, you can edit it. I've added a FYI on c:Commons_talk:Picture_of_the_Year/2014. –Be..anyone (talk) 03:49, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The file description page is easily editable, yes; but I believe that since said "the image was the 2007 winner", this is the "Image credit (2007 winner)" link, which is part of the white text in the banner. I cannot edit it, because I don't know where or how to do so. I strongly suspect that it's only editable by those with appropriate rights, otherwise we would see a lot of banner vandalism - but I've never seen any. -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:06, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Exactly. This may be a wiki, but I'm not a global sysadmin. I can't edit text on the ad, even if it's shameful behaviour. Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:12, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The page on commons isn't protected, I miss a clue what you're talking about. But c:Template:Credit line is tricky, I added it, please fix what's missing. –Be..anyone (talk) 03:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * We're not talking about the page that the link takes you to, we're talking about the text of the link itself, the phrase "Image credit (2007 winner)". This is not in any editable page, so far as we can tell: it's part of the CentralNotice code that is set up on Meta. If it is editable in the normal way, please direct us to it. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No idea, I block these notices. Looking now, m:Special:CentralNoticeLogs shows the history, and m:Special:CentralNoticeBanners/edit/POTY_2014_R1 is the current text with "Image credit (2007 winner)". That's a link text, the link goes straight to the image page with full credits, attribution, license, etc. Beria (on m: or c:) is one of the POTY committee members, and the POTY help desk on Commons should be also able to arrange required fixes on Meta if you tell them. –Be..anyone (talk) 16:31, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * BTW the &times; link has been removed, and the blue "Close" link now shows as a cross-in-circle image, so that accessibility issue is sorted. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's an example of the type of things I'm looking for
Throughout your activities on Wikipedia, no doubt you've picked up a useful trick or two that few other people know about.

Here's an example of such a trick:

You've just grabbed the page's title to place a link on another page, but now you want to add a section title to it to create a section link, but the copy cache is already full. Instead of making two trips back and forth to the page you wish to add the link to, try this...

...use the search box as a quick-and-dirty edit window:


 * 1) Copy/paste the title into the search box, followed by a "#"
 * 2) Copy/paste the section title after the "#"
 * 3) Enclose in double square brackets and copy/paste the whole string to the page you wish to edit.

The search box is also a handy place to store copy text while you copy/paste something else.

Do you use any interesting or useful tricks or little known but cool tools (for navigating, editing, anything to do with using or improving WP)? If so, please tell... The Transhumanist 23:01, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I would do it this way:
 * Scroll up to the table of contents, and click on the section you wanted
 * Copy the article title and section from the browser's URL
 * Paste the string in the page you wish to edit, and add the double square brackets
 * Hope this helps! GoingBatty (talk) 00:24, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Cool, I hadn't thought of that. What other cool tricks do you know? The Transhumanist 00:32, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You can use and  to do the copy and paste.  I also have a list of tools I use on my talk page.  GoingBatty (talk) 01:37, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I amended your post - is for marking up clickable buttons, keystrokes are marked up with . -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:40, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You can also use User:Bility/copySectionLink to generate sections links directly. I've made a prettier version on User:Zhaofeng Li/common.js along with other tools I use. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 14:41, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Speaking of little-known shortcuts, you may have a need to convert a full URL into a wikilink. See User:Js/urldecoder for that. If you have the script installed, you place the cursor at the end of the URL (in your edit window) and click a button. It converts the URL into a proper wikilink, with square brackets and everything. EdJohnston (talk) 18:19, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You can also use my very own Template:Urltowiki for that if you don't feel like installing a script. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 00:07, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

How do you put comments on your vector.css page?
The Transhumanist 06:30, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * They are done with C-style comments. /* Like this */  —EncMstr (talk) 07:10, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, just like on the .js page. Thanks! The Transhumanist 08:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Not quite the same - js (and some flavours of C) allow end-of-line comments
 * but these don't work in CSS. The inline kind  can be used anywhere that a space is valid in CSS, besides js (and all flavours of C). -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:17, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

TOTD
I'm in the process of updating the WP:TOTD department's tip collection, as some of the tips have gone obsolete. So I'm looking for useful techniques and tools, that is, tips, to replace them with.

Any leads on the latest and greatest wiki-related programs, extensions, plug-ins, scripts, commands, or methods, would be most appreciated.

So far, I've added the following new tips:
 * Wikipedia industrial-powered search
 * How to make redirects turn green so you can see them

If you spot any errors in them, please let me know. Or edit them directly. Thank you. The Transhumanist 08:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Some 2007 stuff might be seriously obsolete. You can ask Help desk or Teahouse regulars what new users would want to see, if they add the TotD-template to their page. Some tricks for the Visual Editor (I don't use it and therefore can't judge it) or the Media Viewer, maybe, because that certainly didn't exist eight years ago. New ways to archive talk pages could be interesting. Or something about user boxes, #babel:-extension, and scribunto. How to get Tech News or Signpost, what's a Village Pump, where are the real help pages, the works. –Be..anyone (talk) 10:21, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, some things to do with VisualEditor might be nice. It is very useful for basic to intermediate editing, and especially for editing tables. However, any tips relating to VE would have to include information about turning it on, and would also need to be updated in the future when VisualEditor becomes available by default for all users. — This, that and the other (talk) 11:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Template:Discreet abbreviation
This doesn't appear to be functioning as advertized – can someone confirm and, if so, use their powers to fix..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 11:22, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It has never omitted the dots at the English Wikipedia. The template code was copied from the French Wikipedia but they define the abbr class without dots in fr:MediaWiki:Common.css. It may be controversial to do that here. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:39, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It was controversial when created, see Category talk:Wikipedia formatting and function templates - IIRC there was discussion elsewhere too. Is there any reason why is unsuitable? -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:23, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

RSS feeds for Edit Filters?
I've recently taken an interest in edit filters and feel like having the option of an RSS feed for the log of any given filter is a feature which could be very useful. For example, a filter set up to catch a vandal who often acts very quickly making dozens of subtle vandalism edits would be enormously more useful if I received a notification when the filter was tripped; I could stop them instantly rather than a few hours later when I happen to check the log. That might not be the best example because such a filter can be reported automatically to AIV using Mr.Z-bot, but I think the feature could be useful regardless. Is this something which can be enabled here or would it need a software change of some kind? Sam Walton (talk) 11:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Opt-in for removal of "patrolled" notifications
There are many who create a lot of articles. I browse through the PERM pages to evaluate requests and place a if required, but I have observed one thing common to many (including myself): Most don't like to get notifications for their pages being patrolled. A lot openly declare it while requesting for autopatrolled while others express it through other means. I am a coder as well, so from the technical perspective it's possible, and I thought of creating a script; but there's a problem. To begin with, I do not know the code architecture from top to bottom- and thus I do not know what triggers the notification when a user clicks "patrol". Secondly, it has to cater to a lot of users and thus it being a MediaWiki gadget is a much better idea, than people pasting  into their scripts page. Thirdly, I personally prefer client-side operations, and thus JS is the language for me. So if anyone thinks about implementing the idea here, I think it's worth a go. The only thing to make sure is that it should be optional: if the user wants, he enables it, else it's just not there and he gets those patrolled notifications.  Ethically  Yours! 13:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * for both web and email and you'll never get another notification that your page was patrolled. —  16:52, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I am working on an article
about the muralist Ethel Edwards and have discovered that some helpful person has already linked her name to the article about her husband, Xavier Gonzalez. I believe that their wedding vows were 'till death do us part", so since they are both deceased, can someone let me know (or just do it) how to make this separation so that Ethel can have her own article? thanks, Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 15:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * See Redirect. The page history has a stub [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethel_Edwards&oldid=540165700]. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks PrimeHunter, looks like a fun time ahead. Perhaps I'll do my laundry first. Carptrash (talk) 15:54, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I can get as far as "To do this, go to the redirect page by clicking the redirect note on the target page, " and then peter out. Namely, where do I find this " redirect note on the target page,"? Presumably somewhere on Xavier Gonzalez, but where? Carptrash (talk) 16:23, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * When you click on Ethel Edwards, you're automatically taken to the Xavier Gonzalez article. Right above "Xavier Gonzalez (1898 – 1993) was a..." is text that says "(Redirected from Ethel Edwards)"  Click there to get to the redirect page.  Good luck!  GoingBatty (talk) 16:29, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * life is sweet. Now off to the Duffeeland Dog Park Club exec committee session.  then back to this business.  Thanks Gone Batty Carptrash (talk) 16:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I broke a talk page
Good friends, I've broken the wiki. It did not seem very complicated at the time but when I turned a redirect into a real article at Garfield Park Conservatory its talk page is to the old redirect article talk page and not to the proper article. Help please and mea culpa. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * You can just edit the talk page redirect in the same way as the mainpage redirect: Click Talk:Garfield Park Conservatory, click "(Redirected from Talk:Garfield Park Conservatory)" at the top, click the "Edit" tab, remove the redirect code. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:49, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes. Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:57, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

ABC no longer showing as disambiguation page
Any idea why ABC is no longer showing up as a disambiguation page in tools such as WPCleaner and Dab Solver? The page still has the disambiguation template, and the page hasn't changed since October. Some examples of articles where I would expect ABC to be reported as an ambiguous link are Firelight (2012 film) and MetLife Building. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 21:21, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There's a bug (which I can't find the number of at the moment) where the links tables somehow-or-other don't get updated, which seems like it might be triggered by ClueBot reverting very quickly. It should be working now, after a null edit. Anomie⚔ 22:58, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

New Help:Internet Explorer information page
This is a note to let people here know that Help:Internet Explorer has been created as a location for FAQs about the Internet Explorer web browser's issues with certain Wikipedia display features. The page was created as a result of a discussion at a citation Module Talk page.

Anyone who cares to expand it, or link to it from relevant locations within WP's other Help pages, is welcome to do so. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)


 * It should be merged or linked to Browser notes. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:14, 25 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree, there is not enough information to warrant a separate page.  09:43, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Arabic display issues
The last line of the lead section of Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean isn't displaying correctly (the link is to Zeta Ceti). I think the problem is the Arabic earlier in the line (right-to-left problem?). Anyone know the fix? Thanks Wbm1058 (talk) 04:40, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It looked OK to me but I've added a lang template as a good idea anyway and properly marks it as Arabic.-- JohnBlackburne words<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">deeds 04:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that fixed it! lang is exactly what I was looking for, but I was at a loss as to how to find it. WP:Arabic... didn't give me any clues. Wbm1058 (talk) 05:14, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Vitamin B12 on the mobile site
asked me, on my talk page, to take a look at strange stuff displaying at Vitamin B12 when viewed on a cell phone. I normally view using the desktop site on my Android smart phone, and the article looked fine that way. But when I switched to mobile, there is a bunch of stuff that looks like gibberish. My hunch is that it is coding for the Simplified molecular-input line-entry system that isn't displaying properly. Can anyone correct this? <b style="color:#070">Cullen</b><sup style="color:#707">328  Let's discuss it  06:47, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * For me, the SMILES gibberish looks the same. The only different is that I have to click the show button on the desktop site to see it, where it's the default view on my phone.  GoingBatty (talk) 07:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You could post at Template talk:Infobox drug, and ask if the SMILES and InChI information is supposed to look like that. Personally, I would say that it is. -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:00, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Search utterly fails on dashes
A search for U.S. Route 75 Alternate (Sapulpa–Beggs, Oklahoma) should be able to find U.S. Route 75 Alternate (Beggs–Sapulpa, Oklahoma). --NE2 20:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Added a phab bug for it. No guarantee I'll be able to get to it quickly but I agree it should certainly work. NEverett (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

A diff without markup?
Is it possible to generate a diff without markup - just the text and references as they appear on the public-facing page? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't understand what you want. Can you clarify? PrimeHunter (talk) 20:58, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think Anthony means a diff using rendered page content rather than a diff of the source wikitext. I don't think there currently exists code to do it, but it's presumably possible. {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits}&#125; 21:05, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You mean the diff page showing the rendered text of both the old and new version? I don't know a way to do that. If the goal is a side-by-side diff with rendered text pieces to the left and right when the source differs then there would be a lot of complications and it would probably often be impossible to produce a meaningful result. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:13, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems like it'd be fairly simple for prose, but HTML, templates, and tables—especially in combination or when nested—would complicate things. You'd want to expand the scope of the quoted portion of the diff to include the entirety (opening to closing syntax) of those elements, which would probably require analysis of the rendered HTML and be prone to breaking. It might be worth some experimentation, though. {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits}&#125; 22:00, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There was some talk about a different diff-viewing approach last year. I'm pretty sure that the information is in my other brain.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Expert-reviewed versions of en.Wikipedia articles are starting to emerge, and I'd like readers to see something they can understand when comparing that version and the current one, WhatamIdoing's other brain. Unlike this "diff". Is there a solution? User:Eloquence, User:Magnus Manske, does this interest either of you? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:30, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it is called "inline diffs".  10:33, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


 * OHH!! I think I know what the OP is asking for now! This wouldn't be overly complicated to offer as a userscript or gadget.  The API actually will return rendered version of the page.  The only tricky part might be deciding how to highlight the differences if difference highlighting is requested.  The reason this might be tricky is I'm unsure how things like images or parts of tables would be highlighted. —   13:20, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Technical 13, I think a user script or gadget would need to be installed by the reader before they could use it wouldn't it? If that's the case, it wouldn't really do. I'd like all readers to be able to access a simple diff with one click, not just those with an account who have installed a script or gadget. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:40, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , typically yes although it could be set up as a default gadget after being tested and vetted. The problem is in the way that they store the diffs in the database, few past the current one are cached in a rendered state so the API returns "not cached". I just found this out with a little testing. Sorry if I got your hopes up more than that. —   14:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No worries. Thanks for looking into it, anyway, Technical 13. Much appreciated. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Creating a link parameter
Piggybacking on this question: We have been trying to create a template for a successful expert certification or peer review on an article. The template can be seen at User:Konveyor Belt/sandbox and a transclusion test at User:Konveyor Belt/sandbox2. When entering the parameter for a link at sandbox2, it does not convert it into a link properly as seen there. What would I have to do to make it work?  Konveyor   Belt   19:32, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Your broken example says . It's unclear from that how you intend the parameters to work but if you use external link syntax like now then you need http:// or https:// or // to make the link work. See Help:Link. If it isn't added by User:Konveyor Belt/sandbox then it must be included by the caller. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:08, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Contradictory template instructions
Template:Infobox hockey team says, in subsection Subtemplates:
 * Use start date for the date on which an organisation was "established", "founded", "opened" or otherwise started, unless that date is before 1583 CE.

and somewhat lower down
 * Use Birth date for the "founded" date.

Isn't this a contradiction? Which is right? Not that I expect to use the template myself, but I noticed this while browsing randomly and editing HC All Stars Piemonte.

To discuss this with me, please me. Thnidu (talk) 23:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * MOVE: I'm putting this item on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Archive63, which seems more appropriate. To discuss this with me, please me. --Thnidu (talk) 04:01, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Interwiki link
Hi, Can someone put in links between The Sea Girl and A Menina do Mar on the Portuguese Wikipedia, Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 15:25, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ ☺ ·  Salvidrim!   ·  &#9993;  15:38, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks ! GrahamHardy (talk) 16:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Compact Personal Toolbar beta removed
This is notification that Jared Zimmerman has now removed the beta feature Compact Personal Bar which reduced the top menu items to a dropdown menu and simple icons for the watchlist and notifications. I'd even forgotten this was a beta feature so very sad to see it go. It was the first time I'd seen a design move away from a text-heavy interface, one of the—if not the most—important factors in Wikipedia's look being off-putting to readers and those we should be encouraging to edit. Hopefully this is just a prelude to the introduction of the Winter/Fixed Site Header feature (which uses a similar system), but I don't see why it isn't available as a gadget for those people happy to keep using the toolbar before that is released. SFB 22:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It requires some server-side code, so a gadget is not possible. Personally, I found the design pretty horrid, with it's non-descriptive icons, which jumped all over the place when scrolling, so nothing had a fixed spot. Imagine a car where the accelerator and brakes moved around depending on which way you steered... I do hope that Winter is more intuitive and not too afraid of text.  22:37, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, since the extension, VectorBeta, is still loaded, you can activate it with an one-liner in vector.js:  There is a discussion on undeploying the extension from WMF wikis. Zhaofeng Li [ talk... contribs... ] 00:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I feel that the Winter prototype strikes the image-to-text balance in the interface very well. I understood the setup within a minute. I think this is the first technical change for Wikipedia that I've actually been excited about and immediately see value in. If categories and portals are added to the right rail then that will completely transform the way we interact with and use those areas. SFB 00:56, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * SFB, I've heard that it was removed because it broke the Universal Language Selector. It will be back as soon as they can get the bug fixed (maybe as early as next Wednesday, if I've read the deployment calendar correctly).  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:09, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No, it was removed because currently there are no plans to fix it in the short term. --Glaisher (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Arabic font
Does anyone know if something about the way WP displays Arabic has changed recently? For me, it seems to be clashing with the proceeding Latin script, which I'm 100% certain it didn't used to. Formerip (talk) 20:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Is this the same as above? -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:19, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It could be related, but it is happening for me with the lang template already in place. I am seeing the last part of the Arabic (bearing in mind Arabic reads right-to-left) overlaid with the last past of the preceding Latin. I also *think* the font looks different overall. I was wondering whether maybe someone who has access has been playing around, which might explain it. Formerip (talk) 23:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Formerip, what's your broswer and OS? Can you link to an article that has this problem?  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * the description sounds very similar to an issue Google Chrome browser developed recently (well, not that recently: several months ago, maybe with version 38 or 39) with RTL languages - the problem seems to be closely related with use of diacritics in the text. so if the browser is chrome, and the problem does not appear with other browsers (prolly better to compare with IE of FF, not safari), please file a bug report with google (either through Menu=>About=>Report, or simply ). i sent a report several months back, but i think that the more people report the issue, the better chances it gets to actually getting fixed. if you do send a report, i think it's best to use "permanent link" from the side-bar to get a link to the page (press "permanent link", and then issue the report - chrome will include the link in the report automagically), so the report will remain valid even if someone edits the page in a way that disappears the issue. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 19:56, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Edit notice filter
Hellow, how can I add an edit notice when some wants to edit an article and imform him not to add a common misconseption. Eg. above the edit box there is an notice saying: wait until the results are published (eg). --C messier (talk) 12:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * See Editnotice. --  Gadget850talk 13:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * And if I am (I want to know how add one in el.wikipedia, where I am am admin)? --C messier (talk) 14:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * See Editnotice for the name of the page you must create. The English Wikipedia has made it easier by creating MediaWiki:Editnotice-0 which links to the edit notice page when you edit an article with an admin account. It may be difficult to convert it for use in el:MediaWiki:Editnotice-0. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You can see examples at el:Special:PrefixIndex/Template:Editnotices/Page/. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * If you are and admin, then you can simply use Editnotice. I don't see the the Greek Wikipedia has the help page, but you could translate it there or just copy the section to your userspace. --  Gadget850talk 15:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Vertical bar in a table?
I'm trying to build a table that has cells that contain a vertical bar character, |. I tried but that gets interpreted as }}. Anyone know the trick? Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Use the magic word | (formerly a template). --  Gadget850talk 13:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Using  as a HTML escape also does the trick.  However, using   is a cleaner solution. &mdash; Dsimic (talk | contribs) 13:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) If you want to display a pipe and not make it part of any syntax then you may have to use Pipe or . It looks like that is needed for your intended usage. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-05
<section begin="technews-2015-W05"/> 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 software changes
 * You can now translate articles with the new ContentTranslation tool on several wikis.

This week
 * There are no software changes this week due to annual meetings.

Future changes
 * You can join a project to improve WikiProjects.
 * The Compact Personal Bar will be removed for now. It has a bug that breaks the tool to choose your language. It will come back when the bug is fixed.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2015-W05"/> 16:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)