Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 41

Increasing the maximum number of changes to show in expanded watchlist
Currently, the "Maximum number of changes to show in expanded watchlist" setting under the "Watchlist" section of Preferences has an upper limit of 1000 changes. It would be really helpful if this limit could be increased, say to 2500 or more. I'm finding that, as my watchlist grows, its range becomes significantly reduced, often to less than a day. If there's something big under discussion on on of the admin boards, it gets even smaller. (Once, I recall seeing 250 changes on an admin noticeboard - that eats up a quarter of the available changes just for one page.) If this is a question of server load, perhaps the expansion could be limited to sysops; after all, I find a lot of the "watched" items involve pages that have been recently vandalized, and the people who have done the vandalizing. Thoughts? --Ckatz chat spy  05:35, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, a higher limit would be very welcome.--Patrick (talk) 05:47, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. Do we need to file a bug report for this? Skomorokh  13:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Probably, yes. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 17:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Infobox overlapping with article
Hello, I'm still relatively new and still trying to figure out how to edit on Wiki. I'm posting here because I came across the Video on Trial article where the bottom of the information box is overlapping with images in the article. How would something like this be fixed? Appellative (talk) 23:09, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Fine here (FireFox 2.0.0.14, WinXP). What's your browser? Algebraist 23:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm using the same version of FireFox...Would being on a Mac make a difference? Appellative (talk) 23:45, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * How is it now? Algebraist 23:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Still no change...Maybe it's just my computer then.... Appellative (talk) 00:01, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you bypassed your cache? Algebraist 00:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I bypassed it and cleared it...still no change. I also tried opening the page with Safari and the overlap was still there. Appellative (talk) 00:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Change your screen resolution ...... Dendodge  .. Talk Help 13:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It is not the infobox. Below the infobox are two images and then a gallery of images.  The gallery overlaps the last image.  You can add clear before the gallery, but it will add a lot of whitespace.  You other options are to move the images or gallery around or to ditch the gallery.  I don't think the gallery adds anything to the article.  --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  13:57, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Since I know sod all javascript...
Is there anyone who can tell me if it's possible to code a little trick for citation formatting? I've got a little test going at testwiki based on this discussion. I've removed the braces around the reference numbers and inserted separating commas to avoid the problem they have at fr.wiki with reference numbers running together (so you can't tell whether it's ref #1, #2 and #3 or ref #12 and #3, or ref #123). The thing is that the trailing comma looks awful, especially on individual references (as opposed to those in a 'cite stack'). The comma's wrapped in CSS : what I need is some way (probably javascript) of hiding the comma if it's not immediately followed by another reference. Is this possible? Happy‑melon 08:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Corrected link to testwiki. { { Nihiltres | talk|log } } 14:05, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

You could do something like this with CSS, assuming the comma is before the number, not after: .reference .cite_comma { display:none } .reference + .reference .cite_comma { display:inline } Of course, that will not do what you want it to do in browsers that do not support CSS, or more likely, browsers that do not support these CSS selectors. I personally think the "bracket issue" should be solved in the Cite.php extension, not in CSS/JS hacks. And of course, adding spans around the brackets for every ref is not a trivial change in the page size - the Barack Obama article has increased in size by about 14 kB! --- RockMFR 16:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Line feed problem
Hi,

While adding a "fact" tag to the first paragraph of a statement in Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp., I noticed that if the "fact" tag is placed at the end of the first paragraph, then the subsequent line feed is ignored, and the next sentence in the article follows immediately afterwards in the same paragraph.

I moved the "fact" tag so there's a period after it, and the problem disappeared.

I think it may be related to the presence of an infobox to the right; when I tried testing this here, the problem didn't occur.

Where would I request that someone take a look to try and fix this? It'd be nice if this tag could exist at the end of a paragraph without messing up the formatting. Thanks - Tempshill (talk) 18:13, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm looking into it. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 19:09, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be the combination of the category at the end of Template:Fact and the link at the start of the second paragraph. Together, they swallow up the whitespace. Weird. --- RockMFR 19:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This is a known problem with the fact template, being discussed here. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Templates on salted pages are confusing and suggest incorrect behavior
You may need to be a non-admin/logged-off to see this, but the templates I see on WP:SALTed pages are incorrect. For example says to discuss changes on the talk page, however, talk pages of deleted pages can actually be speedy deleted at any time per WP:CSD, so that's not really true, as I recently discovered. Please fix. -- Kendrick7talk 01:12, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * . Mr.Z-man 05:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

A better autoconfirm
I wasn't sure on where to start this discussion, since it's more about MediaWiki than en.wiki specifically, but I'd like to throw out an idea for a better form of user autoconfirm. Right now we have it set that a user has to exist for 4 days and make at least 10 edits before being able to upload, move pages, or edit semi-protected pages. While this does stop a lot of sleeper accounts, I think we can take these same basic settings and make it more effective.


 * Make it so the ten edits have to be in the article namespace

and/or


 * Make it so the ten edits have to be to ten unique pages

The thinking behind this is that it makes it a lot less convent to make a sleeper account. Forcing those ten edits in article space means a greater chance of someone noticing them, attracting more attention to the account. A requirement that it would have to be to ten separate pages increases this greatly, but might be over-kill.

Thoughts? -- Ned Scott 01:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm working on a far nicer alternative, which targets behaviour, not users. &mdash; Werdna talk 08:10, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Woohoo! --brion (talk) 13:25, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Looking forward to it! -- Ned Scott 07:38, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't like the first idea; clogging the history of one's own user page with meaningless edits is better, in my opinion, than clogging the history of articles. And if a vandal makes small enough changes to pass under the radar, these could stick in an article not much seen, and if they result in spreading misinformation, that is a very bad thing.
 * On the other hand, the second idea looks interesting. I'd be more willing to accept ten unique pages, however, if the seven-day, twenty-edit threshold came to be approved. One edit per page is too strict, I think. Waltham, The Duke of 06:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If the vandal is making edits simply to reach auto-confirm status then I think they'll try to make those first ten edits as unnoticeable as possible. In other words, I don't think it would increase article vandalism. What we'd more than likely see is a large number of null edits (spaces and line breaks), which would hopefully catch the attention of an editor watching an article in the main namespace. -- Ned Scott 06:02, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

It's silly to bake a lot of project specific complex logic into MediaWiki. Create an autoconfirmer right, grant it to some bot accounts, let them apply magic Bayesian voodoo with astrologically indexed threshold magic and call it done. ;) --Gmaxwell (talk) 06:27, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Parser functions for manipulating namespaces
Given an arbitrary page name (like Village pump (technical)), I would like to be able to construct the corresponding talk page name (e.g. Wikipedia talk:Village pump (technical)) for use in warning templates, something like "Please discuss changes to foo on its talk page", and not have it break if a non-article-space page name is given. Is there anything I'm missing that will do this?

If nothing like this exists, may I suggest a function to extract the namespace from a page name ( → "Wikipedia" (or "4")), a function to do the opposite of      (  → "4"), and a function to construct the corresponding page in a particular namespace (  → "Wikipedia talk:Village pump (technical)"). (sig accidentally nowikied, please resign)
 * gives, but that's not exactly what you asked for. --ais523 12:39, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that gives this page's talk page, but I need some way to get the talk page for an arbitrary page. would suit my purposes here, except that doesn't actually work. Anomie⚔ 21:53, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, you could create a template like testwiki:Template:Nsnumber to find it via #switch, and then #expr that to find the next even number. But it would only work with the correctly capitalized and underscored namespace as a lone parameter. --Splarka (rant) 07:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * does that ...... Dendodge  .. Talk Help 21:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, it doesn't. It is equivalent to  on non-talk pages and is broken (e.g.  ) on talk pages. What I want is some way to convert   into the talk page for  . Anomie⚔ 22:01, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Table of Contents with ≥2 columns
Does anyone have the expertise to create a template that would list an article's table of contents in two or more columns, rather than in one long list?

To illustrate what I mean, the list of NHL statistical leaders by country currently has 45 sections. This creates an awful vertical break between the lead section and the rest of the content. One solution might be to use a right-aligned TOC, such as, but this causes the TOC to push the images down past the section where they would should appear (the image of Wayne Gretzky appears next to Slovakia, and subsequent images are also shifted down). For this article in particular, I want a TOC that has three to five columns. The location would be where it is now, but the TOC would be shorter and wider.

There isn't a suitable TOC at Template messages/Compact tables of contents. The current TOCs only have limited uses, such as (headings must be "0–9" or letters) or  (heading must be a U.S. state). What I propose is a TOC template that has multiple columns and displays the proper headings of whatever article is using it.

Ideally, the template should be versatile enough to let the user choose how many columns the TOC is to have—within limits, say 2–8, since crowding might happen for users with smaller monitors, with lower screen resolutions, or for articles with long section headings. Such a template would obviously have use in many, many articles. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 07:38, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea-someone could maybe try to implement it (I can't) ...... Dendodge  .. Talk Help 08:16, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If there isn't a suitable TOC at Template messages/Compact tables of contents, why not make one? It doesn't even have to be an actual template, if its only use would be in that page you could just code it right into the page.
 * BTW, for that particular page more than 4 would cause crowding on my screen, columns don't work on IE, and some people hate multiple columns for various reasons. Anomie⚔ 15:47, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, but that would not be as useful as a template that could be used all over. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 16:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

When splitting into columns would it be better to keep related sub-sections together under the main section, or to split in the middle of the section to keep the columns the same size (as a general rule)? Actually for the NHL page it might be better to have only the per-country sub-sections split into columns. — CharlotteWebb 16:03, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have been thinking about that. The sections should definitely be split, but I couldn't decide if when the sections "wrap" to the next column, should that new column start immediately with the new section heading, or should it show the hierarchy of headings aboe it? Let me give a rough demonstration.


 * a) Begin next column immediately:


 * {| class="wikitable" border="1" style="width:64em; font-size:95%;"


 * 1 Foo
 * 2 Foo
 * 2.1 Bar
 * 2.2 Bar
 * 2.1 Bar
 * 2.2 Bar


 * 2.3 Bar
 * 3 Foo
 * 3.1 Bar
 * 3.1.1 Foo Bar


 * 3.1.2 Foo Bar
 * 4 Foo
 * 5 Foo
 * 6 References


 * }


 * b) Show hierarchy:


 * {| class="wikitable" border="1" style="width:64em; font-size:95%;"


 * 1 Foo
 * 2 Foo
 * 2.1 Bar
 * 2.2 Bar
 * 2.2.1 Foo Bar
 * 2.2 Bar
 * 2.2.1 Foo Bar


 * 2 Foo (cont'd)
 * 2.2 Bar (cont'd)
 * 2.2.2 Foo Bar
 * 3 Foo
 * 3.1 Bar


 * 3 Foo (cont'd)
 * 3.2 Bar
 * 3.3 Bar
 * 4 Foo
 * 5 References


 * }


 * I think the second is better. In both examples, the numbers may provide some indication of the relationship between sections, but it is easier to visualize this relationship in the second example. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 16:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I see. A javascript hack could probably be used for either format, but it would be difficult to determine which one would be better (based only on the list of section/sub-section headings). — CharlotteWebb 16:51, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Long pages are harder to read, harder to search for, and harder to edit. Those sections are individually self-contained and ideal for splitting into separate pages. --brion (talk) 16:40, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I have given the hockey page a manual fix for now. Maybe this will help it pass as a featured list, but it is still less than optimal. — CharlotteWebb 16:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Formatting

 * Talking about tables of contents... I've been wondering for some time whether it would be possible to use italics in them. Many headings are partially, or even in their entirety, italicised (film titles, for instance), and the lack of italics in the ToC can take away some of these headings' clarity there. Are there technical reasons preventing ToC formatting? (For the record, I only propose enabling italics, which is the only kind of formatting allowed in article headings anyway.) Waltham, The Duke of 17:51, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

dummy question
I don't know what this edit does; can someone assure me nothing was changed? Sandy Georgia (Talk) 17:18, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The edit implements the use of (click on the link for more information about that template). That means that  will have a similar look to other similar templates instead of a design off it's own (although in this case the design was identical between the two versions). I don't think anything was changed with regards to the text (although I havent actualy compared the wording between the diffrent versions). MiCkE 17:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Micke; now I know what I'm looking for. Wording and links look fine, template is a bit cleaner now.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 17:31, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

"new section" uninformative edit summaries
When a user starts a new discussion section by clicking the "new section" or "+" tab, the automatic edit summary reports this simply as "new section", which is unhelpfully uninformative. I wonder whether it is technically feasible to include either Thoughts? Criticisms? Suggestions? Retracted for idiocy. Skomorokh 21:29, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The title of the section added e.g. new section: Section title goes here
 * Or, as with new page creations without summaries, the first x characters of the comment, where x is the character restriction in edit summaries
 * The section title is added, and I like to just see 'new section', it tells me there's a new comment that might be important ...... Dendodge  .. Talk Help 21:34, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Like Dendodge said, the edit summary already adds the name of the thread. Giving the first X characters isn't especially helpful, since it won't necessarily tell you anything about what is being posted (and, in theory, the name of the section serves that purpose). I don't think anything needs to be done. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 21:38, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If an edit summary is uninformative, this suggests that the section is titled uninformatively. The summary "new section" gives an exact summary of what the edit did and the accompanying title gives a suggestion of the topic of the section. The summary format could perhaps be improved: would a summary more along the lines of "New section: → Section foo " be preferable? { { Nihiltres | talk|log } } 21:48, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Mea culpa; my mind has apparently learned to ignore the preceding gray text, sorry for wasting your time. Probably not a problem for most users, shall move this thread to Village pump (neurochemistry). Nihiltres' suggestion would strike me as a marked improvement, as it overrides the subconscious impression that the /Section title/ gives of "new comment in Section title" with "new section: Section title". Nihiltres' version would certainly stand out more in the article history. Skomorokh  22:15, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Problems restructuring a script
I've been trying to restructure the assessment display script at User:Pyrospirit/metadata.js. The script was written using a single wrapper function around most of the script so that it only added two variables to the global scope. As a consequence of this, the functions used by the script cannot be accessed by any other script. What I am trying to do with the script is turn the wrapper function into an object through which the internal functions can be accessed by other scripts, while still keeping the script's internal variables from entering the global scope.

However, I ran into problems attempting to do this. This is the first time I've used custom objects in JavaScript, so it's entirely possible I'm making an obvious mistake. The script seems to fail to load properly; in the current revision, I get an error about how  is not a function, despite the fact that it should refer to  's   method. I have tried a variety of different things in various attempts to get the script working with this new structure, but everything has given an error of some sort.

I am using Firefox 3.0 on Windows XP SP2.

If you can figure out what I'm doing wrong here, please let me know. Pyrospirit ( talk  ·  contribs ) 05:09, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * In Javascript, a function is not bound to its parent object; 'this' is determined at call-time. This allows you do easily create a function using the 'this' variable, attach it to arbitrary objects, and have it reference the "right" object when called using the standard "obj.func" syntax. On the other hand, this means that when you pass MetadataObject.main to addOnloadHook it doesn't keep a reference back to MetadataObject as you are expecting (I believe the onload handler calls the registered hooks without any explicit 'this', so 'this' ends up being the window object).
 * If MetadataObject is intended to be a global singleton (as was clearly the case here), the easiest fix is to reference MetadataObject.begin instead of this.begin. If it's intended to be multiply instantiated, you would need to create some sort of closure to pass to addOnloadHook. Anomie⚔ 05:33, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the clear explanation; now I understand why it wasn't working. I'm going to try running the  method on initialization and then just pass the whole   to  .  Pyrospirit  ( talk  ·  contribs ) 16:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, it's somewhat closer to working now. It does fine with pages that get assessed by the  method, and I've managed to get the   method to work fine for the other pages. However, the   method doesn't seem to work; it gives an error saying that   is undefined, despite the fact that it's defined at the beginning of the method. Anyone have a clue what's wrong with it now?  Pyrospirit  ( talk  ·  contribs ) 02:42, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's probably another "this" problem. I see talk_assess is only used in being passed as the 'funct' parameter to getPageSource, and is called as "funct(request.responseText);". Again, since there is no explicit object being used to make the call, 'this' ends up being set to the window object and window.color being (rightly) undefined is resulting in color being undefined in your "var color=this.color" definition. Anomie⚔ 05:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yep, it sure is. I'll hack around with it some more; eventually&mdash;by experimentation or by luck&mdash;I'll get it to work. Thanks for the help. Pyrospirit  ( talk  ·  contribs ) 03:43, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

TeX img class="tex" scaling poorly
Please compare the smoothness of the first equation here to its raw image here. Is img class="tex" scaling up a little, introducing jaggies?

Or is it just me (Firefox 3 in Ubuntu 8.04 with LCD subpixel smoothing on)? 75.61.106.191 (talk 07:09, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm using Opera on Windows XP, and I see no difference --Enric Naval (talk) 07:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I notice no difference in Fx3 on Ubuntu 8.04 with a CRT. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This is almost certainly because you've zoomed in in Firefox. In Firefox 3, this by default scales images and other items as well as text (unlike previous versions, which scaled only text). The result is usually lots of fuzzy images. Either return the zoom level to 'original size' or try mucking about with your preferences to disable the full-page zoom. --brion (talk) 23:05, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Prevention
Anything we can do to prevent something like this: -- http://www. encyclopediadramatica .com/Talk:Grawp#Template_vandalism_against_Wikipedia -- from happening? (ED link is blacklisted; take out the spaces) NawlinWiki (talk) 11:19, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * While this sounds like an interesting problem, Encyclopedia Dramatica is giving me a 503 error at the moment, so I can't read the post there. Can you summarize it for us? { { Nihiltres | talk|log } } 14:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, the site seems to have just gone down just after I loaded the page. What they're discussing is a just a simple variant of template vandalism, with some huge tables that they hope will crash either MediaWiki or at least the browser of anyone viewing the page.  I don't think it's a particularly novel threat — we've had stuff like that before, and we have various ways of dealing with it.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Ilmari is basically correct, although ED is back up if you want to look at it. Glad you all aren't too concerned.  NawlinWiki (talk) 17:18, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Tractor wheel size
I would like to know the reason as why the rear tires of a tractor are bigger than the front tires, unlike in any other locomotive? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.214.104.176 (talk) 14:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This page is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. You can post to Reference desk/Science instead. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:05, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Running in circles?
Please take a look at User:CambridgeBayWeather/Sandbox, which right now consists of a dead external link. If you copy and paste the link it the address bar it sends you to a 404 page. However, if you either right click or left click on the link it sends you right back to the sandbox. If you open the page to edit and press preview then check the link you get sent to the sandbox but this time it's in the editing state. Is this a new feature or something else. It works the same way in Firfox and IE. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 17:08, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The site you're trying to link to is b0rken. When I "manually" follow your link to http://www.yukonvisitor.com/, it redirects to http://www.yukonvisitor.com/home/home; this is all well and good. When I "manually" follow the redirection, however, it redirects back to the contents of the HTTP referer header. When you click the link your browser sets the referer to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CambridgeBayWeather/Sandbox" and you end up being redirected back to where you came from; when you paste it into your address bar, no referer is sent and you end up being redirected to "". If you spoof your referer, you can get yourself redirected to anyplace you want. Anomie⚔ 17:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I removed the link from the Yukon article because it was doing that. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 17:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Superimpose Template
Hello, I am trying to use Superimpose template, which does not seem to support images with captions (e.g. "thumb" formatting). The template provides parameters, but doesn't use them! Since the template is protected, I can't do anything about it. Was this a design choice, or is there some syntax that I am missing? Thanks, Nimur (talk) 17:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Blue_check.svg|30px|Sort of solved.]]I have a work-around, which I have posted at Intermodulation, (first few lines of the article, with a bunch of divs). If anybody finds a way to clean up this less-than-elegant technique, please tell me on my talk page!  Nimur (talk) 17:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Line cutting through photo
There's a thin gray line (the line under the section heading "Usage") cutting through the photo at Fish slice. Is this a bug? Badagnani (talk) 00:07, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks like it. This edit fixed it but I have no idea why.  —Wknight94 (talk) 00:17, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I made a change to MediaWiki:Common.css that seems to fix it. I reverted my workaround edit to Fish slice.  Make sure to clear your cache.  (See User:Wknight94/CSS fix for my trial-and-error). —Wknight94 (talk) 01:20, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

en dash question
What is an endash? How does an html endash, a hyphen, and a third type of endash (ISO?) dash differ? In what situations is each one appropriate? The article on en dash does not clarify the situation for me. I would so much appreciate a very simple explanation. Thanks! – Mattisse (Talk) 00:51, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * In typography, an endash is a dash with the same length as the letter "n" (emdash is the same but for the letter "m"). It's used everywhere you would want a dash, except as sentence punctuation where an emdash is more correct, although -- I confess -- I usually use two "minus signs" in a row ("--"), since typing an emdash is hard. A minus sign isn't any different from an "n" dash, in my opinion, no matter what the html protocol tells you. Shall we do semi-colon's next? -- Kendrick7talk 01:25, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

You can use them however you want. Though, I imagine you're looking for how they are used on Wikipedia - WP:DASH should answer your questions. --- RockMFR 01:35, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It would be great if a double hyphen was recognized as wikicode for an emdash, since that is a common typographic convention. —EncMstr (talk) 01:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That would have been smart. As a note of interest, that article I linked to suggests the semi-colon almost died out after the telegraph became the main tool of journalism, because the transmission costs encouraged short, to-the-point sentences. The internet has had the same effect on dash forms which can't be made with a single keystroke. It's nothing to really stress over. (Morse code already treated the minus sign and the hyphen as the same so that took care of that.) -- Kendrick7talk 01:41, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * However, what if someone just wants to display a succession of hyphens (--)? Alternatively, when you want to, problems may arise. I've become quite adept at typing ALT+0150 (–) and ALT+0151 (—). − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 02:06, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Me too—I use them all the time, actually. In my opinion, the fact that we are on-line should not affect us much as far as usage of semi-colons and dashes is concerned; we are writing an encyclopaedia, not a compendium of IRC messages. This is an opportunity to educate the Internet on good writing, and I should be very sad indeed if the reverse happened and we were educated on sloppiness instead. Waltham, The Duke of 04:49, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No, en dash does not answer my questions. ALT+0150 (–) and ALT+0151&mdash;is that ISO? On FAC there is a distinction made between a hyphen, an endash (html, I believe), and an ISO(?) dash. There are certain situations where one rather than another is the correct usage for FAC. The FAC people do not explain it in a way I can understand. (I don't know much about computers etc.) The en dash article does not answer my questions about when it is appropriate to use the different types of dashes for FAC. It says that an en dash {html?) must be in article names with dashes. Or am I misunderstanding this? An en dash is html along with em dash? I'm probably just being more confusing to you. Sorry!  – Mattisse  (Talk) 18:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * P.S. How do ALT+0150 (–) and ALT+0151 (—) work? They do not seem to do anything, since you don't have to disable them by nowiki. Am I being dense?  – Mattisse  (Talk) 18:07, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * They're alt codes. Hold down alt and type the number on the number pad. As RockMFR said, correct use of dashes on Wikipedia is explained at WP:DASH. Algebraist 18:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that! – Mattisse  (Talk) 18:17, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Footnotes/References
You'll see something like

"2. ^a b c d e"

You see the a b c d? We don't know excactly what a b c d refering to, because the referencer will just appear as:

"Wizards of the Coast also assigns an internal editor[2] to each set."

What we need is something like:

"Wizards of the Coast also assigns an internal editor[2c] to each set. The different editions of the base set, which have varied in size from 295 to 449 cards, contain cards which have all been printed before, with the exception of Alpha, which was the game's first set. Wizards of the Coast releases Magic cards in expansion packs[2d]."

As you can see, with out my proposal, you don't know WHERE the letter (a b c d, etc.) is refering to.

Ok, so I have a few limitations, such as the pointed hat\accent\carat\lambda does not look like what it does in in MediaWiki:Common.css. —AlexSm 16:17, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also see https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2889 Soon, we will have a MediaWiki:Print.css that will allow us to make definitions for printable styles in local CSS as well. Will definitely help us in cases like these. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 18:04, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorting embedded lists
Is there a script or template that automatically sorts?

The Transhumanist 17:33, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No. The information appears as it is entered, by default. You can use sortable tables with Help:Sorting to allow users to sort on their own, though. Gary  K ing ( talk ) 17:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Or use bookmarklets, to sort tables by yourself. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:33, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Formatting video clips
I would like to use Image:Blue Nuthatch.ogv in an article other than Blue Nuthatch. It is formatted there as , but I would like either to associate  it with a picture of my choice, like this sound file at Nuthatch  , or just have it as a button, like. Are either of these possible? jimfbleak (talk) 18:25, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This seems to work Click here for a video. jimfbleak (talk) 19:06, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, you can use another picture using like so. You do need to make sure the aspect ratio of the image matches that of the video.


 * I have absolutely no idea if this will work in all common browsers (though it seems to work fine in FF3 and IE7). - AWeenieMan (talk) 19:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * many thanks, jimfbleak (talk) 05:54, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll kick myself when I find this discussion page...
Can any admins point me to the discussion page for changes to the "Action Completed" page that pops up when an article is deleted? Thanks, UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 14:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The fastest way to find it would be to choose some unique text from the message (not "action completed" which appears in several places) and look for it on Special:Allmessages with ctrl-F or whatever in your browser. This is what I would do if I knew what text to look for. — CharlotteWebb 14:25, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * MediaWiki talk:Deletedtext. 69.220.173.202 (talk) 14:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Funny MediaWiki:Filedelete-success (talk) seems redundant to Deletedtext. Not sure which one is used. — CharlotteWebb 14:34, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not redundant: it's displayed after file deletion which is different from page deletion. —AlexSm 15:28, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, all - I was right, it was a ridiculously obvious title that I skipped right past on the pagelist. Thanks again, UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 16:48, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Problems installing Twinkle
I keep having problems when installing Twinkle. I put the code in my monobook page and I bypass my cache but I have yet to see the features associated with Twinkle. Can anybody help me? ÁÌÐŠ-ÇĄÑČĘŘ (talk) 20:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * IIRC, twinkle requires autoconfirmed status. You'll have to wait four days. Algebraist 21:07, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It does (I added it via my preferences but couldn't use it till I was autoconfirmed), perhaps we could make this known. 5:15 22:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Post on bugzilla plz ty
It would be nice if there was an option at the top of the history page, where we have clicked on 2 radio buttons and pressed the Compare selected versions button, and then we would go back to that point in history, but having 250 older versions to choose to select and 250 newer versions to select. Effectively, a “centering” option from where we are from compared history page, to back to the choosing a number of versions history page. One application of this is when someone gives a link (such as swearing) and then we click on it, but then we want to find a specific user (such as user: kainaw). As you can see, clicking back on the history tab will only return you to the most recent edits, but if we had this option, we would could see when did kainaw reply to User:IntfictExpert, much quicker, and find out when did kainaw reply much sooner with the ctrl+F than without. Post this on bugzilla please thanks (I don’t have an account).68.148.164.166 (talk) 11:40, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't be hard to create a javascript to add links like this to the diff view, but it would involve converting the visible timestamp "06:08, June 19, 2008" to use as a parameter for the history page e.g. &offset=200806190608SS</tt>. SS being the exact number of seconds after 06:08:00 which isn't visible (except in the API...?). Adding a <tt>wgRevisionTimestamp</tt> js variable would make this very simple. — CharlotteWebb 13:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Rounding up to the nearest minute should work in most cases. Also, you can use Wikiblame, which can do an interpolated search to find the diff when certain text was added. MER-C 14:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually if I understand correctly, 68 (a.k.a. "I don't have an account") is saying that on the diff page there should be two links (directly under the "← Older edit" and "Newer edit →" would probably be best) which point to <tt>&action=history&dir=(next|prev)&offset=X</tt> (where X is the 14-digit timestamp of the current edit, not the revision id) to show the 250 edits (actually 50 by default) before and after the edit seen in the diff. Since this this feature seems targeted toward noticeboard-type pages, some of which do get several edits per minute at times, higher precision could pay off. — CharlotteWebb 14:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Printer version
I assume it is a feature- that on a printout, using a [url text] the url is also printed. Fine. But shouldn't this be formatted as <. small > ClemRutter (talk) 16:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps, but it might be too small for some people to read, especially when a lot of URLs are random characters. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 18:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions needed for template/subpage problem on gene pages
Hi there. Our articles using the User:ProteinBoxBot currently have a lot of template text at the top that will be rather intimidating for newbie editors (see NEURL2 for example). We were wondering about condensing this infobox template into a simple template referring to another page. For example this change (coupled with PBB and ITK_(gene)/PBB). This produces a much simpler main gene page.

However, having a "subpage" like ITK_(gene)/PBB falls foul of WP:SUBPAGE. Is there another way people can think of that would allow us to do this? Tim Vickers (talk) 16:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Place it at Template:PBB/ITK (gene). WP:ELEMENTS does something similar. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 20:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Brilliant, perfect solution. We'll get on that immediately... AndrewGNF (talk) 22:28, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikimedia errors
Is it me or have there been more technical difficulties in the Wikimedia area in the past couple of weeks than for the past few months? Simply south (talk) 18:49, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's happening to a lot of people. Gary <b style="color:#02b;"> K ing</b> ( talk ) 18:55, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm getting them almost every 10 edits now (and sometimes even on WikEd's AJAX preview), and every single ACC account-creation. It's getting annoying. What's wrong? Calvin 1998 (t-c) 03:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I've gotten an error message on all three of my last three edits. Strangely, I interpret the error message to mean "no error"
 * <tt>Request: POST <snipped URL>, from 208.80.152.39 via sq28.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE18) to 10.0.5.3 (10.0.5.3)</tt>
 * <tt>Error: ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT, errno [No Error] at </tt>. Does anyone know what that means? Calvin 1998 (t-c) 04:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The servers use Squid. You received the "ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT" error, which means that Wikipedia's server closed the connection without sending any data. There were probably too many people connected to the servers at the time. Gary <b style="color:#02b;"><i style="font-size:large;">K</i>ing</b> ( talk ) 05:03, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Makes me wonder why I get them more during off-peak hours... or is it because we haven't gotten any new servers since late 2006 per here and here? And wait a sec, I have page caching turned off in preferences, why is it even expecting something from the Squid cache server? :P too many questions... Calvin 1998 (t-c) 05:58, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That page caching option is different from the server's caching. Gary <b style="color:#02b;"><i style="font-size:large;">K</i>ing</b> ( talk ) 06:17, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * More correctly, that option does indeed ensure that nothing is cached by the parser, and thus presumably not by Squid either, but all requests go through Squid anyway. It just means that in this case, Squid doesn't cache the results, it only forwards them.  (Or it might cache them but not use them, or something.  I don't know much about how Squid is configured.) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:10, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting them so often (for the last two days) that I can barely post or get any work done. Particularly when posting with people who re-edit every one of their posts five times, causing multiple edit conflicts. I'm ready to quit. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 01:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Is this still happening? Is there a good test case? Please note that these errors have nothing to do with squid or how it is configured, they come from MediaWiki. -- Tim Starling (talk) 07:41, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * When I was going through this string of edits I probably hit it once or twice, for me it is occurring at least 5-6 times a day.  MBisanz  talk 08:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No test case, sorry. But it does occur sporadically for me, too, maybe one in 50 edits. It only occurs on edits, not on page views. Re-submitting the edit right away usually works. I access the WM projects through KNAMS. Lupo 08:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Here it happened: with the error message " Request: POST http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Spiritia&action=submit, from 91.198.174.38 via sq39.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE18) to 10.0.5.3 (10.0.5.3)

Error: ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT, errno [No Error] at Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:38:49 GMT ". Clicking the browser's back button and resubmitting then worked and created the linked edit, sending me back a page that contained at the bottom the HTML comment "&lt;!-- Served by srv105 in 0.283 secs. -->" Lupo 09:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Same problem for me - normally no problems, but today (27th June) has been especially bad - "Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cable_barrier&action=submit, from 91.198.174.37 via sq23.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE18) to 10.0.5.3 (10.0.5.3) Error: ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT, errno [No Error] at Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:32:24 GMT" CultureDrone (talk) 14:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

DARN IT !! Yes, it's still happening. I'm hitting it TONS of times and losing TONS of work. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 16:12, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Lupo, KNAMS isnt' the only one with problems, I connect through PMTPA, I get it too. Happens far more often on account-creations (I work with the ACC tool), sometimes 4 times in a row. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 20:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Are we all referring to the same error or different ones? I was referring to that recently i have been trying to edit and that (or sometimes move) but every now and then it has come up with an error page saying something like "Wikipedia has a problem!" and the rest. Simply south (talk) 20:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Same error, yes. At the bottom of the error page, you should see the message we've been referring to. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 20:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Exact same problem for me. Happened a couple of times now. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 02:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Interestingly (?), I've just had the error above (err_zero_size_object etc.) while logging in - not editing, just logging in... weird ! CultureDrone (talk) 09:42, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I just got an error of "Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist, from 208.80.152.28 via sq21.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE18) to 10.0.5.3 (10.0.5.3)

Error: ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT, errno [No Error] at Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:55:52 GMT"  MBisanz  talk 00:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

New template Talkarchivehist
I wrote User:Flatscan/Template:Talkarchivehist based on Template:Talkarchive. It displays useful historical links below the header, as described in Help talk:Archiving a talk page. It appears to work in my limited testing, but any fixes or optimizations are welcome. Is there anywhere to request non-technical feedback?

Sample Special:ExpandTemplates input (currentpage parameter may be omitted):
 * Context title: Talk:UCLA Taser incident/Archive 1

Thanks. Flatscan (talk) 02:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I suppose you could go to WP:HD to get non-technical feedback. Gary <b style="color:#02b;"><i style="font-size:large;">K</i>ing</b> ( talk ) 03:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reply, I'll try there. Flatscan (talk) 18:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I like lists, but the information I seek is rarely organised in one
This instalment concerns fonts: is there anywhere a list of those recognised by the MediaWiki software? I see all sorts of fonts in signatures and talk pages, and I always wonder if the editors owning them simply tried out those fonts they knew about until one of them worked. If this is the case, I guess I'll have to start my own list.

I know, yet another question that has absolutely nothing to do with the mainspace. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 04:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * MediaWiki doesn't do fonts -- it's the job of the web browser to decide what font to use to display text. If you want to increase your chances that other people see the text in the font you want, use a web-safe font or specify a CSS font family instead of a specific font. --Carnildo (talk) 05:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You can use any font you want, but as the person above suggested, choose a font that other people are more likely to have installed. Usually this means making sure that the font comes preinstalled with popular operating systems such as Windows or Mac OS X. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 06:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you both for your responses; I suspected that the (almost) universally accepted fonts would be few, but probably not so few. Still, good to know.
 * A fresh question, now, for those willing to give it a go. I have noticed that in many talk pages all text is assigned a font different from the standard one. Can this be done selectively, namely only for headings? (Level-two headings, in particular.) I am thinking of adding some style to my talk page but I'd like to restrict it to headings and keep text as it is.
 * PS: I see that you are experimenting with your signature, Mr King... Interesting results so far. Glad to see the giant K go, by the way. (evil grin) Waltham, The Duke of 07:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes. Just set up a CSS rule like  and it'll apply only to h2 elements (second-level headers). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:03, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm glad you like the new signature :) As for the CSS rule, generally you should only use that on pages where other people will not edit, such as user pages, because otherwise people might be confused as to why headings look a certain way without realizing that there is a CSS rule applied to them. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 18:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that would be a problem... I mean, if people see that all the headings on the talk page are of a certain font, won't they assume that it is intentional? (And I never archive everything on the page.) Additionally, I could leave a HTML comment at the top, for those a little more keen to investigate.
 * Now, how does this work, Mr Cunningham? Do I simply paste it on the page? (It can't be that easy, can it?) Waltham, The Duke of 23:14, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Regardless, custom CSS rules are disabled and so you can't use the suggestion posted above. You can, however, make custom CSS appear only for yourself using monobook.css, but that is probably not what you are looking for. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 01:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No, not really. Well, thanks. I wasn't too desperate to do the formatting, but it is a minor pity.
 * I have one last thing to do now... (draws sword) What did you say Cunningham's address was? :-) Waltham, The Duke of 08:49, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Image mystery
Here is a gallery of four image, two of which I personally uploaded to commons. The thumbnail of one of them has ceased to display on FF3.0 running on XP. Click on it- and it loads the correct file. It works on Opera 9.21, and FF3.0b5 on Ubuntu Hardy.ClemRutter (talk) 16:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * How do the thumbnails look now? They appear fine for me. Could you show us a screenshot of how it looks like for you? Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 20:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The minute I made the post the image reappeared. So I put it down to a faulty download, followed by a cache problem. Testing now, it is fine-- but on doing a page refresh the Image (Notice board at Howard Park) appeared last, a flicker after the rest. I Shift-Refreshed the page and now they all occur simultaneously.ClemRutter (talk) 08:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Rollback problem...
I'm trying to rollback two edits by an IP on History of the Knights Templar (because it was a changed word and self-rv, so it's not helpful to the edit history), and I've clicked rollback (twice, actually) and although the page tells me the edits were rolled back, it appears neither in my contribs nor the edit history for the article. MSJapan (talk) 22:16, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The IP reverted whatever it added. Nakon  22:18, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This oversight has existed for a long time - if user A adds something, then user A reverts the article back to where it was before he edited, then user B comes along and clicks 'rollback', User B is told the rollback occured, but since the version being rollbacked from, and the version being rollbacked to, are identical, there's no actual rollback performed. But you can't remove things from the edit history even with a rollback, so that's certainly not a reason to do it. --Golbez (talk) 23:25, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's just going to make the edit history worse if you try to do this. I agree that it would be nice to remove such fluff from the edit history (it really makes it hard to follow, especially when most of the edits are vandalism and reverts), but we can't trust people to remove stuff from the article history, even admins. It makes it too easy for people to make things disappear. I have thought a lot about how we can make edit histories tidier, but all options (e.g. letting users 'mark' or 'hide' vandalism, self reverts and other trivial stuff) require an edit history of edit history modifications (a meta-page history) to avoid people messing around with it and being untraceable, a situation that is even worse than the original. Richard001 (talk) 00:15, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There is a way to make edit histories cleaner: (a) have the software calculate hash totals to determine when one version is absolutely equal to another (this is already being done for images); and (b) give editors the option, when displaying a page history, of hiding all edits where one or more editors changed the page, and then an editor came along and reverted it to a prior version. (This can be easily done if there are hash totals.) -- John Broughton  (♫♫) 21:16, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Missing User Contributions ???
If a user has an article speedy deleted (but not oversighted) does his "contribution" vanish off the Special:Contributions log ? Low Sea (talk) 02:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, Special:Contributions only shows non-deleted edits, admins have access to Special:DeletedContributions, which shows the deleted ones. Mr.Z-man 03:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. I thought maybe there was a software glitch as I found notations (in talk pages) for creation and deletion of a certain article but no contribution log for the creator. Low Sea (talk) 03:50, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Image question
Is there a way to make an image go above the Wikipedia logo? It is on my userpage, and z-index doesn't work because the image isn't static. And I do know this is a silly question.  JohnnyMrNinja  08:57, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the MediaWiki prevents that from happening, unless there's a way to do it via CSS. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 22:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There is a way. Some user pages do have images over the globe.  However, I can't think of the userpage that does have it. hbdragon88 (talk) 23:00, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I knew those secret pages weren't totally useless. Half of them have a rotating star or something similar on top of the globe. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 04:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I thought those rotating barnstarts were underneath the globe? Calvin 1998 (t-c) 04:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I shouldn't remember; I haven't looked at any for some time now. Been a productive editor instead, pro-establishment. (evil grin)
 * Anyway, there must be something over the globe. I am not good with such technical stuff, but me assumes that if Uncyclopedia uses MediaWiki, then an example from there must be as good as any here (I hope). I am referring to this classic. Waltham, The Duke of 07:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC}
 * That looks under the logo, if I'm not mistaken? Calvin 1998 (t-c) 14:21, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The banner is, but the logo is different. It seems to be done using a skin? I don't know how that works but here is the skin.  JohnnyMrNinja  21:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ahh, now it is personal. I could safely ignore this section before, but I wrote Uncyclopedia's Aaaa.css (and made the Aaaa logo). And did most of the tricks setting up per-page and per-namespace logos. Here is the juice: The p-logo {z-index: 3;} is above #content {z-index: 2;}. These are inherited. This means nothing inside the content can have a higher z-index, no matter what you do to inline css (even if you put a floating div outside the content and give it a z-index of infinity + 1). This also prevents you covering the selected p-caction tab (but not the unselected ones, because they use a lower z-index trick in monobook to appear behind the content, which is very hacky!). You need to have control of a style sheet in order to change this, like MediaWiki:Monobook.css. Then you can do what I did: #p-logo a { background-image: url(/images/1/1f/Aaaa.png) !important; }. But please note, that is Uncyclopedia, this is Wikipedia. Short answer is you not only can't do it, you very obviously shouldn't be able to, so there. --Splarka (rant) 08:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Dang.  JohnnyMrNinja  05:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Categories missing at an AfD page
At Articles for deletion/The Colbert/O'Brien/Stewart feud, the usual categories are not showing up, and the AfD is then not listed at the relevant category pages. Does this have something to do with all the slashes in the page title? ...the software thinks this is a subpage of a subpage? Does anyone know any way around this? Paul Erik (talk) (contribs) 20:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, the slashes are to blame. The template compares the BASEPAGENAME with 'Articles for deletion'. In this case, the BASEPAGENAME is Articles for deletion/The Colbert/O'Brien, so it leaves out the categories. I can't immediately see a better workaround than adding the cats manually (along with a note to remove them when closing). Algebraist 00:07, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing it. Paul Erik  (talk) (contribs) 00:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It should work to change the use of to  in the template. Anomie⚔ 15:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This would cause the log pages to be categorized, unfortunately. There are quite a few solutions that almost work, but fail in rare cases. --- RockMFR 19:18, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * What are the specific requirements for what is to be included/excluded then? Anomie⚔ 21:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

SUL cookie conflicts
I now maintain two SUL accounts, and just now they start conflicting - I can't keep logged into two different wikis on the same browser. Is it possible for the developers to include an option to disable the SUL auto-login-to-other-wikis? hbdragon88 (talk) 06:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You do realize the S in SUL stands for single right? Heh...
 * But anyway, you could try disabling images (or disabling images from external domains) briefly while using the login screen (I am not completely sure if this would work). You could also try having one account use regular http URLs, and one use secure.wikimedia.org. --Splarka (rant) 07:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I was horrified at the idea of using IE, so I installed FF3.0 and am setting that up to hold my second account. Perhaps some time in the future I'll merge the two accounts together. hbdragon88 (talk) 08:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Specific date history selection
On page history, we can display up to 500 edits and go to the earliest and most recent edits. But when you have a file that is say, 4 years old, and has been edited several thousands of times, and you need to view an edit that is say, 2 years old and about 5000 edits back, it is a real pain to get to as you can only get there 500 edits at a time. Can the capability be added to go through the history from point A directly to a specific edit or at least a specific date? If this capability currently exists, please educate me. Thanks. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 13:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If you go to the history of an article and click "earlier", then look at the URL of the new page, you see a parameter  or similar.  This is the timestamp of the first revision on the page, so if you know the exact (or approximate) time of the edit you're looking for, you can just edit this parameter to go directly to the correct time. <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 13:26, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, by again manually manipulating the URL (set  to whatever number you want), you can set higher limits than 500; I sometimes go for 1000 if I need to manually search a list quickly. This might slow down one's browser somewhat, but I haven't had a problem yet. { { Nihiltres | talk|log } } 13:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I get a parameter called &offset=20080628184647. This is YYYYMMDDhhmm (UTC) for the most recent displayed edit. There are two more digits I don't know the meaning of, but digits can be omitted from the right when changing the offset, for example &offset=20080628 to omit hours and minutes. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:33, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, that's the one I'm talking about - I was too lazy to actually check the parameter name. The last two digits are seconds: the edit timestamp is recorded and stored down to the nearest second, but is usually only displayed to the nearest minute. <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 17:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Why aren't the instructions for this post at the top of the history page? But thanks guys! — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 18:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I added m:Help:Page_history.--Patrick (talk) 20:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Great, that helps, many thanks, but most people won't go to meta, they'll never click beyond the history page, but I guess that'd take a developer coding change. Thanks guys this really helps me out, makes it much easier. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 00:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Page histories link to Help:Page history which is copied from m:Help:Page history so Patrick's addition should be copied to Wikipedia at some time. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist from rollback
How comes whenever i rollback on an article for mainly vandalism, it does not add this article to my watchlist, even though my prefs are set so that everywhere i edit does, or is meant to? Simply south (talk) 18:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think that option is only set if you actually click "edit this page" and then "Save page," because that option simply makes sure the "Watch page" box is automatically checked. When you rollback, you don't get that screen, hence, probably why it isn't added to the watchlist. hbdragon88 (talk) 18:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Userboxes in Infobox user
As mentioned here, there is a problem with userboxes in a Template:Infobox user. Can it be resolved by correcting only the code in the template? It would be great if someone could take a look at it. Thanks. --Kochas (talk) 22:34, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * "This thread is useless without pics" or examples :D Give me either and I might be able to help out, but reconstructing such a case from scratch is just a bit too much of a waste of time if you don't know exactly what it is that YOU see as a problem. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 23:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Now there, I changed my infobox type on my userpage. And there you will see most of the userboxes with text moved up – in FF, IE or Opera.--Kochas (talk) 01:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Porting Template:Navbox to other wikis
I finally stopped dragging my heels and made a version of Navbox that will work with most other wikis, such as those hosted by Wikia, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Transwiki/Template:Navbox. It's a "pure wiki table" version, with !'s equaling |'s, making it work with parser functions. There is still one problem left, the use of a div for each group/list

Because the div tag starts in one parser and ends in another it breaks, resulting in a visible  tag at the end of each list, as seen on wikia:fashion:Template:Grands couturiers. This is the same reason the template code needed to be wikitable code and not HTML, because when the opening and closing HTML tags get separated they then break on these wikis. (because of a different Tidy setting than what we have)

How vital is this div tag? When I took it out of one line it didn't seem to make a difference when viewing on Safari. There's probably a way to still keep it, but use a single parser function, so that the opening and closing tags don't get separated.

Also, on Tnavbar there's a switch to use either div or span. Since this also places the opening and closing tags in different parsers, the tags won't apply and will result in orphaned and  tags being visible. I assume this is for browser compatibility?

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. -- Ned Scott 23:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

''Cross posted to Template talk:Navbox. Please respond there.''

"source lang=asm" formating tag messes up the first line
Eg

pushq	%rbp is moved to the far left instead of tabed over. I have seen other spacing styles used for assembly as well (4 spaces instead of a tab) but the error persists there as well.

Also new registers for 64bit processors aren't highlighted. (%rax, %rbx, %r12, %r13, %r13d etc etc) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 1veedo (talk • contribs) 04:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Invisible infoboxes
Is it a problem on my end, or is Template:Infobox Restaurant not showing up in any of the articles? For example: 21 Club has no infobox as far as I can see, but if you click on "edit this page" you can see all the code for the infobox. Same goes for all the other restaurant articles I checked. Is anyone else seeing this? Kafziel Complaint Department 04:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Infobox Restaurant had an open noinclude tag. Fixed. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 04:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Good eyes! Thanks! Kafziel Complaint Department 04:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Assistance at Template:WikiProject Video games
Kariteh has been working very hard to update Template:WikiProject Video games at User:Kariteh/Sandbox and could use some assistance. I know nothing about template code, so am unable to help. The decision was made at WikiProject Video games to automatically assess a non-article page's class based on namespace, i.e. Category:Video games with time travel would automatically be assessed as Category-Class and be placed into Category:WikiProject Video games categories. It now appears to sort properly, but does not display the line "This article has been rated as Category-Class on the assessment scale." Could anyone with a knowledge of template code and a desire to help please take a look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games, Template talk:WikiProject Video games and User:Kariteh/Sandbox? There have been other small improvements at User:Kariteh/Sandbox, so that is definitely the version we'd like to use, but we'd really like to get the bugs out. Thanks!  JohnnyMrNinja  05:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Huggle/Whitelist
If you go to Huggle/Whitelist, instead of getting the usual list of usernames, you get 1.) Right under the header is a description of the page that does not exist in the wiki-code anywhere. "This is a list of users whose contributions may be ignored while finding vandalism. It is updated automatically by Huggle."

2.)The rest of the page content is hidden and replaced with instructions on viewing the raw page with <tt>?action=raw</tt>, yet, this also doesn't appear in the wiki-code at all, either in the edit box or the raw page text. It's obviously not MediaWiki generated, it wouldn't be able to recognize the page as a list nor know why to leave the rest of the page alone and append the message there. A look at the page history reveals no one edited that into the page. It wasn't like that before, yet no one changed the page to do that. What in the world is up? Calvin 1998 (t-c) 05:43, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Huggle/Whitelist/Header shows that there is a at the end of the page.  Nakon  05:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, I mistook to mean  :)  Calvin 1998 (t-c) 05:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Can't stay logged in?
For the last three or four days I have been unable to remain logged in to Wikipedia -- I go to Special:UserLogin, enter my password, click "Remember me", get the "Login successful" page, and then no matter where I go from there, I am logged out again. Cache doesn't seem to have anything to do with it, and logging in with the secure server doesn't help either. Is anyone else having this problem? 76.175.32.147 (talk) 19:38, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No this is not an error, i don't think. I have found that after a period of inactivity, most times, it has logged me out so i have to log in again. This has happened for a long time and is pretty normal. Simply south (talk) 20:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is indeed normal and by design. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 20:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * But there's no period of inactivity! I log in, try to move to any other page (main page, watchlist, random page) from the "Login successful" message, and I am logged out again.  76.175.32.147 (talk) 22:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Did you trying deleting your cookies? -- Kendrick7talk 23:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yep, cookies is often the culprit here then. The usual suggestions are to: delete your cookies clean, and try another browser. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 01:11, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think i now know what you mean when it logs you out straight away, so it seems. Just click on the refresh on the page you return to, and it should register you have logged in. Simply south (talk) 13:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Normal - not
When I paste text into an edit box with wikiEd on, it adds "Normal 0" in front of the pasted text, just a minor irritant, but what's happening? jimfbleak (talk) 10:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You'd better ask here, but can you please add what kind of browser and version you are using? That sort of information is usually crucial in tracing any issue with Javascripts. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 00:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Another question is, where are you pasting text FROM? I've always had a problem copying text from word processors because formatting codes often get copied and translated into readable text like the kind you describe. Copying text from word processors can also get you unwanted soft line breaks which translate into hard line breaks. If you are trying to prepare text for copying to WP or anything else in your web browser, you might be better using a plain text application such as Wordpad. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 22:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Global counter variables and discursive notes
With regard to Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_27 (circa March 2008), I was unaware of the morphic discussions elsewhere. I posted to discussion in Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources (circa April 2008 - now archived Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_22), basically to make a request for code development so that something like the following would support narrative notes with a list style type of lower-roman numerals ( ( i ),( ii ),( iii ), etc.), which I suggested might be good with a new <nb> tag...

<pre style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word; white-space: -moz-pre-wrap; white-space:  -o-pre-wrap; white-space:     -pre-wrap; white-space:      pre-wrap"> Example text,<nb>This is an example discursive note</nb> more example text.<nb name=Discursive>Discursive notes can be shown separately from references or citations - giving a neater appearing alternative compared to having mixed "Notes and references" or "Notes and citations" sections. This is an example of such a note. It is wishfully generated via a companion to the ref footnotes method (i.e. via use of nb and notes/ tags).</nb> A point made with a supporting reference. A second appearance of a note.<nb name=Discursive/>

&#61;= Notes ==

&#61;= References ==

—Remember the dot (talk) 01:34, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, looks redundant; the CSS is being inserted inline when using . EVula // talk //  &#9775;  // 04:45, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Check the page history and ask the person who added the code? Or check the talk page archives? --MZMcBride (talk) 05:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll ask someone at WP:BOTREQ to do a sweep through a database dump for it; if it comes up blank, I'm all up for removing it. <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 20:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

searching diffs
So, I'm looking for the holy grail for searching wikipedia... the ability to search across all diffs of a single page. So you're only searching within one page, but all the versions of that page. Has anyone hacked this up? -- phoebe / (talk to me) 18:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yep. WikiBlame. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 22:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * User:Franamax also has a tool, WPw5, for the job. It works differently from Wikiblame, and may be faster for repeated searches on the same article. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 22:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not yet available as far as I know, though. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 23:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

From help desk — Putting category= inside a thing inside a thing
I'm working on the new redirect meta-template This is a redirect, which embeds other templates as chosen by the user. I'm trying to get it so that if one uses the template with "cats=no", then none of the embedded templates give their categories. (With many templates that categorize, one can use the argument "category=" to cause no categorizing to happen, as explained here.)

Simplifying it somewhat, here's an example of what I'm dealing with:

Using tests with substing and R from brand name, I found that currently, what happens is that the embedded template takes "category=" as the content of its first argument (that is, it thinks "1=category="). (Everything else works.)

I've tried using a template whose content was literally, so it might "print" the string "category=", but no luck. What does work is to put the "category=" before the ifeq, so that R from brand name takes the argument "category=result of ifeq" — but that won't ultimately work with what I'm trying to do.

Any ideas? $$\sim$$ Lenoxus " * " 04:38, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's possibly due to having templates within templates confusing things. Hmmm... <small style="font:bold 12px Trebuchet MS;display:inline;"> RichardΩ612  Ɣ ɸ 08:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This is weird, I can see no reason why it's not working. As Lenoxus mentioned, it seems to take the cats param as part of . Odd indeed; I will have another look later. If anyone else solves it in the meantime, I would be very interested to know how! <small style="font:bold 12px Trebuchet MS;display:inline;"> RichardΩ612  Ɣ ɸ 10:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Just as a general observation, the MediaWiki parser may contain bugs. Some templates on Wikipedia do not work on other MediaWiki wikis that aren't running HTML Tidy - that's probably not a factor here, but it points out how MediaWiki's wikitext syntax isn't well-defined for some of the complex template stuff. And of course your example above uses the ParserFunctions extension. You might want to ask on WP:VPT which a larger number of technically-inclined users frequent. It would be nice if MediaWiki had a template debugger, that would let one step through all the transclusions and parameter expansions in the order that MediaWiki's parser (and possibly, HTML Tidy) apply them. --Teratornis (talk) 15:41, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This is described in Migration_to_the_new_preprocessor: "The equals sign between parameter and value can no longer be generated (by transclusion, parameter, parserfunction, etc) as a delimiter in the template parameters, it is interpreted literally."


 * However, the parameter name can conditionally be the relevant one or a dummy (like also explained below):


 * Patrick (talk) 21:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I know where you're going with this. The issue is with the way the parser handles null and undefined parameters. Each redirect template contains the code If the parameter category is defined, with anything including null, then this is output instead of the category link. So if you were to call, you would get an unwanted "Foo" appearing somewhere in the display - however the way the anti-categorisation system works, you call it as , passing null to the category parameter, so null it output instead of the category link, as desired. However, when you call the template from within another template, you have much less control over what is passed through to the inner template. You can't just put: Because this will always define category for the inner template, so it will always stop categorisation.

There are two ways to circumvent this problem. The first is to be a bit sneaky with the way you call the inner template: Notice what this is doing: if the category parameter is undefined in the outer template, then the logic test equates to true, and the (corrupted) null value is passed to an unused parameter, leaving the category parameter undefined in the inner template. If, however, category is defined in the outer template (as long as it is not defined as "foo", of course) then the logic test fails, and the category parameter is defined for the inner template. This is the simpler method for solving the problem, but it is fairly inelegant, and also a little risky: if another meta-template is created which doesn't contain the same code, then there will be problems. So avoid this, the recommended solution is slightly different: it requires editing all the subtemplates as well, but not in a breaking fashion. In each subtemplate, replace: with Note the use of the uncommon character "μ" - the greek letter mu, which is the standard for this system, as the likelihood of anyone ever calling a template with μ is laughably small. Then in each meta-template, you can use code like this: This system makes it easier to create meta-templates, and most importantly, template chains of any length can be created using the same syntax, passing the μ arguments right down to the bottom level. Essentially, if the category parameter is defined at any point in the chain, then that argument replaces the "μ", and is only evaluated at the bottom template. This makes it a simpler system for creating long chains of templates. I know that's not what you want to do here, but for consistency's sake I suggest that you use the μ system. I hope this explains what you wanted to know - this really should be documented somewhere (any suggestions?). <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 19:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Wow, thank you so much, Patrick and Happy-melon. I had started to come to a similar conclusion, feeling that there ought to be the option of calling "category=default" to get the deault categories, or something like that. I will meditate on this and see if I can't spread a μ trend (or something like it). In the meantime, I think I've figured out a short-term solution involving two alternate versions of the inner template, called depending on the status of the "cats" parameter. $$\sim$$ Lenoxus " * " 00:56, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Userpage problem...
I wanted my committed identity box at the bottom of the page, but for some reason the background stretches out across the whole page. I reorganized all my userboxes into a sidebar box to try to fix the problem, but it didn't make a difference. I'm guessing that it shouldn't be a Firefox problem, but that is possible as well. Does anyone have any ideas or a fix for this? MSJapan (talk) 02:09, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I fixed it by inserting - 5:15 02:52, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

text
is all the text really messed up for everyone else or is it just me? 76.1.243.193 (talk) 00:36, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't noticed any difficulties. What, precisely, is the problem? Algebraist 01:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It looks fine to me. Perhaps post a screenshot of how it appears for you. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 01:08, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Good idea on Gary King's part - and is all the text on your screen messed up, or only a certain part? IceUnshattered (talk) 23:01, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Loss of autoconfirmed status
I was at the help desk and noticed this comment. I thought "that's impossible", but his contributions show that he is (or should be) autoconfirmed. I asked at the admin IRC channel, and instructed me to block the user, which I have done Unblocked; concerns raised that the decision was made off-wiki An unfortunate misunderstanding on both our parts. This has apparently happened to someone else, so I'd like to know how an autoconfirmed user can stop being an autoconfirmed user. Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk)  10:04, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Autoconfirmed isn't so much a status as an implicit threshold, so if the conditions upon which one needs to meet that status are changed, they will not be autoconfirmed until such time as they do. I believe that with TorBlock, the sysadmins can set a higher edit and time threshold for those users. Ask the users if they perchance use tor. --Splarka (rant) 11:34, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * If someone makes an edit, and then that edit is oversighted or removed by an admin, does the edit count to their 10 edits?  Corvus cornix  talk  18:15, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Simple reversion, or even deleting the revision, does not remove it from the editcount - deleted contributions are still counted towards the total count. I'm honestly not sure what would happen if an edit was oversighted. <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 18:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

"Mean Time Between Edits" function ?
How hard would it be to incorporate some kind of function that would scan an article's (or a user's) past 50 edits and determine the average/mean time between edits ? The result from this function could be useful in determining what constitutes a "reasonable amount of time" and could be incorporated into any tags that reference that policy. I also suggest that similar to the algorithms used by Fair Isaacs/FICO that multiple edits by the same editor on the same day be treated as a single edit. This is because I believe "reasonable time" for responses should never be measured in anything less than whole days. Low Sea (talk) 13:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC) Also, edits by bots should be ignored as machine generated edits have no bearing in the reasonable time issue. Low Sea (talk) 13:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * One way you could do this is to get the time difference between the first and last edit in the range and divide it by 49 (since there are 49 time intervals between each of the 50 edits).
 * However, if you're taking into account multiple edits in one day and bot edits, it gets a bit more complicated. What you could do is decide which edits you would class as 'ineligible', e.g. if the user made 4 edits on one particular day, 3 of the four edits made on that day would be ineligible, and any bot edits would also be ineligible. Count how many edits you have classed as ineligible, subtract that number from 49 and divide the total time range by that new number. Tra (Talk) 18:14, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Tra, I guess my wording was fuzzy... What I mean is how hard would it be to create a template that included automatically calculated numbers saying something like <P> Also, how would one go about getting such a feature created? Low Sea (talk) 17:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A template like that couldn't be made with the current software. You'll need to file a feature request at bugzilla but be aware that it may take a while for it to be implemented. Tra (Talk) 20:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not a function, but AKA's WPPageHistStat tool gives mean time between edits. Unfortunately, it bases the figure on the entire history of the article so if there's been a major change in editing frquency it won't capture that. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 18:37, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Bizzare IE7 bug


Why is it that all links to my shoutbox are in large text and highlighted in red? This is the most bizzare thing I've ever seen. I have firefox and this doesn't happen, just tell me why in the world IE7 does this? and why only to my shoutbox. -- penubag  (talk) 16:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It's IE7, need there be any more reasonable explanation? :D
 * I won't patronise you and ask if you've done the usual purge/restart/kick routine. What does the HTML source code for the relevant areas look like? Have you tried it with a clear .js/.css?? <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 16:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hehe, pass me my trout. If you're going to put something like   in your monobook.css, then why are you surprised when it actually works?? Why it's only just started showing up for you when you added it in March I don't know, but in the immortal words of the car repair salesman: "there's your problem!"... <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 16:39, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow, thanks Happymelon. Why in the world did I put that in there? Only god knows.... -- penubag  (talk) 16:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

HTTP Header
For some reason, the HTTP header for the connection between Wikipedia and I showed up in random places on my edits, , and (diffs are in reverse chronological order). I might want to note that right after I saved those edits, I got a "403 Forbidden: You do not have access to / on this server", so I tried resending (and then I noticed the HTTP header was in my comment) Does anyone know how that could have happened? Calvin 1998 (t-c) 22:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:Export
I've created Export as a way to easily create a link that will generate the entire history of a given page in xml format. For whatever reason, Special:Export is limited to 100 versions, but not when using the url formatted in Export. Right now it works in two different ways, one is like purge, in that one can throw it up on a page and then click on it (for export people should probably use preview, since it's unlikely they'll need a constant link on the page at all times). It can also be used by putting in another page title, for example creates "", which could be used on any page as an export link for Taco.

The thing about these links is that they're sometimes huge. An exported article could be a few KB, or 10 to 20 MBs (or more). I'm thinking some kind of warning needs to be formatted into the template, but in a way that still allows it to be a relatively small link. I would like it to be simple and flexible, so that it could even be put into things like the links of an AfD.

I got to thinking about the concept of a covered switch, like in the movies. You flip the class cover up, then press the big red button. The idea would be to use the show/hide function seen on many nav and other templates (like the ones on WP:DRV). The default view would be something like "Export" with a link that said "warning" to the side or below. The warning link would actually point to some form of instructions page (possibly WikiProject Transwiki/exporting). An editor could then dismiss the warning portion with another link ("show", if it can't be renamed to something else) and then be presented with the actual link.

Before I put a lot of effort into this I figured I'd throw the idea out on the VP. There might be a better idea that I'm not considering. I'm also not sure how to exactly go about this technically and from a style perspective, so any feedback on that would also be very helpful. -- Ned Scott 03:34, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Any easy way to contact a whole bunch of editors at once, e.g. those in a category?
I was wondering if there is any way that a group of account holders could be contacted. If they all watch a common page they could hopefully be reached by posting on that page, but what if they don't? In my case, I'm referring to photo requests: I want to quickly send a message out to all Wikipedians in Bristol. Here the number is only a dozen, so doing it manually isn't too much of an annoyance, but it certainly would be if there were 120 of them. Is it technically possible to do this? It would be nice if all such people would watch such categories so that they could be spoken to as a group, though this seems difficult to achieve without making it somehow compulsory, which isn't going to stick. Richard001 (talk) 00:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:Autowikibrowser was made to do that. I personally don't really know how to use it, though, you'll have to read up yourself. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 00:15, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, right. I won't use it in this case but that's good to know, thanks. Richard001 (talk) 00:31, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Another option is to post a request at WP:BOTREQ; this is the sort of thing that a lot of bots (and bot owners) do, since it's very similar to delivering a newsletter for a WikiProject. I posted such a request about a month ago, regarding a scheduled meetup, where I wanted a message posted to editors living in a particular region who had so self-identified via a category.  -- John Broughton  (♫♫) 21:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Making posts to a lot of users could bring up charges of canvassing or spamming.  Corvus cornix  talk  18:14, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * There is definitely some judgment involved here. A brief message, done infrequently, and clearly targeted, isn't a big thing - say, for a meetup or about photo requests. But lengthy messages, or repeated messages (say, the same invite sent once per month to join a geographically-based WikiProject) - yes, that could be irritating.  And messages soliciting support - certainly canvassing.  -- John Broughton  (♫♫) 21:26, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Pipe trick bug
Okay, so most people who post here are aware of the pipe trick that lets you post internal links in a short form. However, there's a minor bug — if you combine a colon-separated prefix (namespace or interwiki, it doesn't matter) with a section anchor, it breaks: Village pump (technical) works, but Village pump (technical) doesn't. That's a bug, sure enough. However, it's not clear to me what the exact correct behavior is (otherwise I'd just post to Bugzilla). Apart from the current breakage, there are four ways this could be formatted:


 * 1) Village pump (technical) - do nothing except link. This is not very useful, and probably not what's intended by the person who typed it.
 * 2) Village pump (technical) - clip both the beginning and the end of the link text. This is what happens if you use the pipe trick on a link with both commas and some other markup the parser knows how to handle, e.g. Bold, revert, discuss → Bold. However, as this example shows, that can produce really baffling links; it's not clear that this is what's wanted either.
 * 3) Village pump (technical)#Pipe trick bug - just clip the prefix off the front. This would be useful for hard interwiki links, but probably not for on-wiki links (it's rare that you want to hide the namespace).
 * 4) Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) - just clip off the section anchor at the end of the link. This is useful for shortening internal links to sections, but probably useless for interwiki links (how often do you want to link to a page section on another wiki?).

So, for the purpose of suggesting the correct behavior in a bug report, does anyone have an opinion on just what the correct behavior is? — Gavia immer (talk) 18:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * To help people understand your examples, you should probably give the original text in nowiki tags next to each link — for example, " Village pump (technical) produces "Village pump (technical)". As for my opinion on the matter at hand, I disgaree (I think?) with your comment on the first example — straight-up no-pipe links should always produce the exact linked text, because what if a full link is what you want to display?
 * As for possible ways of doing it, here's one thought: The basic rule could be, "hide whatever's just behind the pipe, and reveal everything else." So VP (T)#Pipe would give VP (T)#Pipe, #Pipe would give WP:VP#Pipe and Pipe would give Pipe, and WP:VP (T) would give VP#Pipe. Hmm, not perfect, but maybe an improvement… $$\sim$$ Lenoxus " * " 19:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd personally have it display as Pipe trick bug. &mdash; Werdna &bull; talk 07:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course, this is what i get for suggesting that there are only four ways to do it — people immediately post more than four ways to do it :p I like Lenoxus' logic, but I'm more concerned with what people will want to happen most often. With regard to Werdna's suggestion, I think that would most often be useful to link to a thread on the same page, but you can already do that with less typing: makes a link like. Of course, if you see it as likely to useful for something else, the preceding doesn't really apply. — Gavia immer (talk) 14:06, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, ha, I realized I'd been somewhat misreading what you were asking, but I think I now understand. (That's why I scratched my first comment.) Well, I agree with Werdna — all other things being as they are right now, A:B (C) should result in D — that seems the most intuitive.$$\sim$$ Lenoxus " * " 23:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, Werdna's suggestion is not what I would have instinctively thought of (hence why I completely missed in in my list of suggestions above), but then again that's why I posted this — I don't know what the correct behavior is supposed to be. If there's no other suggestion (I'm going to wait a bit just in case), that will be the suggested behavior in the bug report. — Gavia immer (talk) 20:07, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Today's date on Ref Desk and Help Desk pages not automatically generated
If someone posts the first question of the day on Help desk and the various Reference desk pages, should the heading for the day's date be generated automatically? I'm asking because I noticed on the Help Desk page that the "Skip to Today's Questions" link didn't work. To make it work I simply added it manually as per this diff, but I'm wondering if something's broken. Another example is Reference desk/Humanities where you can see people have asked questions yesterday and today (2 and 3 July), but there's no corresponding heading.--92.40.59.17 (talk) 03:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I thought a bot added them, but then I began noticing editors adding them, so I don't know anymore. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 04:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * A bot is supposed to add them, but the bot is manually-run, so it's constantly ~3 hours off true. So help desk volunteers started putting them on themselves. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 05:22, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I see - thanks. (So looking at Reference desk/Humanities it's presumably over a day since it got run.)--92.40.241.163 (talk) 08:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC) (a.k.a. 92.40.59.17}

Redirect to section in article: no favicon appears
In Firefox 3, when clicking a link which redirects to a section in another article, the favicon does not appear in the tab. For example if I go to Double dissolution, it goes to Australian electoral system and the favicon does not appear. Same with Segoe UI which redirects to Segoe. I can't go straight to the developers at Bugzilla and blame them, because the problem doesn't occur in Internet Explorer 7. Well I could, but it wouldn't be nice, especially if it was a problem with Firefox, not MediaWiki ;). Anyone have an idea what's going on? <b style="color:darkblue;">Harryboyles</b> 04:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Favicon appears in Firefox 3 for me when clicking those links. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 04:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * That's odd. It's working for me again. Must be a random glitch or something.<b style="color:darkblue;">Harryboyles</b> 09:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Question about Wiki search on "Anderson School"
Greetings, I would like to add content to the UNM Anderson School's Wiki page, but first I wanted to make sure that the way this page is titled makes sense. When I search Wiki with the phrase "Anderson School," the results list (2 total) does not include the UNM Anderson School. This page is currently at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson_School_of_Management_%28University_of_New_Mexico%29.

Do you know why the search would not return this page as a result? Would you recommend creating a new page with an adjusted title and moving content from the existing page to the new one?

Thank you,

Jennifer (FIBEA1) 64.106.59.16 (talk) 19:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Try again. Works for me. -- Kendrick7talk 19:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I still just receive two results: the UCLA Anderson School and a K-8 Anderson School. No result displays for UNM Anderson School. Jennifer (FIBEA1) 64.106.59.16 (talk) 19:50, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've figured this out. I just needed to edit the results page for 'Anderson School.' Thanks, Jennifer (FIBEA1) 64.106.59.16 (talk) 20:10, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

is technical problem temporary?
I tried to save a 305,000 character page containing about 7300 wikilinks, an update of WikiProject Oregon/Admin. In response I get the message
 * Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon. Please try again in a few minutes.


 * You may be able to get further information in the #wikipedia channel on the Freenode IRC network.


 * The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organisation which hosts some of the most popular sites on the Internet, including Wikipedia. It has a constant need to purchase new hardware. If you would like to help, please donate.
 * If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below.
 * PHP fatal error in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/parser/Parser.php line 4238:
 * Allowed memory size of 83886080 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 931966 bytes)

In the last twelve hours, there have been 20 or 30 attempted saves and previews with zero successes. I now suspect this is not a temporary error at all. (The allocation size value varies from about 1000 to millions.) Does anyone know? —EncMstr (talk) 17:50, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * These have been occurring more often over the past few weeks. If this happens, just refresh the page and your edit should be re-submitted. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 19:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

This is an out of memory error. It's not going to go away, because it's caused by you trying to upload a page that's too large. Notice that the error occurs in the Parser. Make the page smaller, such as by splitting it up. Note that until the last week or so, you would probably have gotten a white page when you tried to do this. Tim just recently wrote a PHP extension that outputs a proper error page on PHP fatal errors like this. So it's not connected to any trend that extends beyond the last few days. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:28, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Meta-data about other pages
It would be useful to get meta-data about pages other than the one you are looking at.

For example: that would give the last-updated time of someotherpage. This would aid in transcluding summaries: The summary would include the lastupdated time of the transcluded page. An example might help: Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee is being split up, with summaries transcluded back into the main page. It would help to put the last-updated time of the transcluded pages in those summaries, for example,. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  20:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * All feature requests go to Bugzilla. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Where do I find skins colors
I want to alter a color slightly so that lines stand out a bit more. I desire however to keep the page looking near the hues of the default skin... just a bit darker. Thanks // Fra nkB 22:52, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Where is the background color defined. I can't seem to find anything in common.css that uses the term 'default'
 * 2) If anyone's got a specific tested color which is near but a bit darker. Please drop me a note ASAP!


 * See WP:SKIN. If you're using the default theme, start at MediaWiki:Monobook.css. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:16, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Cluster differences
I want to know about the cluster differences like  2Node cluster & 4Node cluster & 8Node cluster ? (two-node cluster and four-node cluster and eight-node cluster) —Preceding unsigned comment added by M parasar (talk • contribs) 01:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

PLEASE ADD CATEGORIES AND INTERWIKIS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE
I've just created some templates that will be useful (i.e. are being used) in chess and paelontology projects, and one of the paleo ones may be useful for other biology articles. When I create the doc pages for these, the "blank" doc page contains the text PLEASE ADD CATEGORIES AND INTERWIKIS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE. There are 2 difficulties:
 * I dont't knnow what an Interwiki is.
 * I don't know where to find the appropriate list of Categories, Interwikis, etc.

I've seen similar problems when adding images.

I suggest the edit screens for items items for which categories, interwikis, etc. should be modified to provide links to the appropriate lists, which should open in a new browser window / tab so that the user can copy and paste. I'm sure it's not that difficult to modify the edit pages:
 * The edit page for newly-uploaded images pesters the life out of users for FURs.
 * The box in which I'm typing this post is a modified version of the standard edit box, with the subject box above the text areas instead of below.

It would also be helpful to modify the relevant Help pages so that e.g. Help:Category has at the top a link to the list of categories. Philcha (talk) 22:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * An interwiki is a link between corresponding pages on different wikis. You'll see the list on the left side of your page under "languages" so that the en-wiki article Chess has several dozen links to the article in other Wikipedias.  The format is Chess (for a non-English wiki's back-link), or, say Échecs for A link to the French article.  There is no master list of interwikis, nor is there an easy-to-navigate master list of categories apart from Special:Categories - you have to look for likely candidates. See also: InterWikimedia links.   Acroterion  (talk)  15:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * There is a master list of interwiki prefixes supported at present at Interwiki map (which, of course, is itself an interwiki link). Splash - tk 13:52, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That's right, but you still have to manually look for corresponding articles on other wikis, or wait for somebody on a given wiki to have a look around en: for a link to their article.   Acroterion  (talk)  04:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Problem with g12 speedy template
I had the following problem with the template:

This thread resulted into nothing. How can we fix this in such a way that a user receives an error message if the entered URL is equivalent to the URL of the current Wikipedia page. Alexius08 is welcome to talk about his contributions. 06:25, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * How common a problem is it? --Carnildo (talk) 08:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No comment on whether or not this is a technical problem that needs fixing, but I highly doubt any admins reviewing CAT:SD would delete a page with a G12 tag pointing at a Wikipedia article. Also, if anyone's going to fix the problem, it should also give an error when linking to diffs or old versions of pages.  Cheers.  --<i style="color:green;">lifebaka</i> (Talk - Contribs) 11:21, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * There might be a way to add an IF argument somewhere that triggers if the url includes "en.wikipedia.org", for example... The purpose would be twofold; yes, it flags the problem for the reviewing admin, who would presumably decline the speedy, but it also flags the problem for the tagging editor - maybe they meant a different url, copied the address bar from the wrong tab, or whatever. If I tag an article and get a big red ERROR, I'll fix it immediately. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 12:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Wheras if you tag an article and get a big red warning template, you know you've done the job right? In seriousness, we don't have a more prominent warning message than the CSD templates!! From a technical standpoint, however, incorporating a check on the URL would be extremely difficult, since there is no parser function that can operate on only a fragment of a parameter (there is no method, for instance, of searching for a substring within a parameter). You could check if the URL was for the exact page where the template was placed, which is better than nothing, but anything more complicated than that would be extremely difficult. <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 12:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, now it will refuse to link to the exact same page, at least. It will return a text that says the text can't be a copyvio of itself and asks them to re-check whether or not the url is correct. --Eivind (t) 14:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I played around with the display a little to add it as another box above the main CSD template - it should be more noticeable that way. You can see it in action above. <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 15:18, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the problem is not yet solved. This test tagging shows that it is not yet corrected. Alexius08 is welcome to talk about his contributions. 08:59, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This is now fixed. It was set only to react when the "url" parameter was used, but parameter "1" had the same function and is probably even ofter used. --Eivind (t) 08:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

margins on wikitables in common.css
re: {| class="wikitable" style="float:right;text-align:center" ... Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
 * +Comparison of tangent and sine gradients for various angles

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

(Need to have someone translate that for me one day.) // Fra nkB 06:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Just spotted the margin gap on the right side... perhaps a class="wikitable-right" is in order??? // Fra nkB 06:31, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Just to let you know, translating it wouldn't do you much good. :) Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:12, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Duh, yah! Sorta figured that... reason I have it in 19349th place in my top 100 To-Do's ~:-) But thanks! // Fra nkB 15:45, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

We could change MediaWiki:Common.css to add a wikitable-right quite easily: You see, easy as pie :D --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 15:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Strange default sort behavior.
Under Category:Toyama geography stubs there three articles being sorted under Ō. Each article has a proper DEFAULTSORT key set to sort under O. Compare with Category:Dissolved municipalities of Toyama Prefecture where all three articles correctly sort under O. Why is it working for one category but not another? Is there something blocking it? Bendono (talk) 11:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The use of Template:Toyama-geo-stub in the articles is the problem. That template pipesorts the articles into Category:Toyama geography stubs using the sortkey . This piped sortkey over-rides the defaultsort sortkey. To fix this, either change the template by removing the PAGENAME bit and adding  instead (though this will only work if you place the stub template above the other DEFAULTSORT, as the DEFAULTSORT used on any page is the last one on the page). A better alternative is just to remove the PAGENAME bit from the template. That kind of "sort by PAGENAME" set-up is really only needed outside of article space (to lose the "talk"/"template"/"wikipedia" etc. prefixes). It is not needed in templates used in articles, though as it is rather widely used anyway, maybe there is something I'm missing? Anyway, this edit fixed the problem. The DEFAULTSORTs are now working again, because there is no PAGENAME to over-ride them. Carcharoth (talk) 11:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the explanation and fix. I neglected to check the actual template. Bendono (talk) 12:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, so I really ought to learn my own javascript...
Instead of filching off other knowledgeable people. I'll put it on my list... just below PHP, Perl and C# :D. I don't know how many people have noticed the cool new "number-of-pages-in-category" numbers that now appear after subcategory lists on category pages, but whoever wrote that code deserves a (probably another) medal. Now, how do I go about mucking around with the styles of those numbers based on their values? The numbers are wrapped in  spans, but have no attached class. My humble knowledge of CSS suggests that they can't be 'got at' that way, so how would I, for instance, set the font color to grey for X=Y=Z=0? <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 15:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, hmm its not the simplest thing, but it can be done. This seems to be part of the CategoryTree extension, which does feature classnames for it's category bullets. I can use that to find the , parse them to confirm they are all 0 and give the span a different color. I'll start writing something, should take half an hour or so. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Did you try <tt>span[title="contains 0 subcategories, 0 pages, and 0 files"] { your css here }</tt>? —Remember the dot (talk) 21:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * hmm why didn't i think of that. Although that won't be supported by IE6 of course. Still, its the easiest way. Alternatively, you can use User:TheDJ/CategoryTreeColor.js now :D --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 22:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Can't edit watchlist
My watchlist has over 9,000 entries and I'd like to trim it down. However I can't seem to do so. "View and edit watchlist" simply gives me a blank screen. "Edit raw watchlist" presents me with a list of watchlisted pages, but when I try to save the revised list I get a blank screen, and the changes aren't saved. Is is timing out? Do I need to find a developer to do this by hand? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:02, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The long (and I mean long) way would be to go to each page you want to remove and click 'unwatch', although that's hardly practical ......<em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:#008000"> Dendodge  .. Talk Contribs 20:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Wow, how do you get to 9,000?! I suppose you do need a developer then. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 20:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's been over 10,000 several times before but I was always able to edit it using the "raw" function. (I haven't been able to edit it using the standard method for years.) ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 21:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * FYI, I created a test account and pasted in 5,000 pages, which I could edit. When I added more to bring the total to 7,721 the list could no longer be edited. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 23:21, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That is interesting to note. Can you perhaps try another, more powerful computer and see if the problem isn't that your computer can't make the huge POST submission? Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 01:11, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It has worked from this computer before with an even larger watchlist. And I'm trying to post a 100-entry list to replace the 9,000-entry list. I was able to post 5,000 entries without any problem, on the test account. I tried it again a while ago, thinking that lower traffic on the weekend may help, but I got "HTTP gateway timed out. You tried to access the address http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Watchlist&action=raw, which is currently unavailable. " That may be an unrelated server problem. But now it's back to just going to a blank screen. I'm wondering if the time-out thresholds have been lowered. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 22:13, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This is not an uncommon phenomenon: I remember hearing about one bot which accidentally ran for a month with the "watch all pages I edit" button checked and ended up with 56,000 pages in watchlist. IIRC someone in the bot community wrote a script to streamline the unwatching process (basically calling http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ThePage&action=unwatch for every page on the watchlist).  There also used to be a special subpage Special:Watchlist/emtpy or something, which was the same as Special:Watchlist/raw but with the box empty (so the list of however many thousand pages didn't have to be fetched from the server) - not sure if that's still active, or where it's located if so.  <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 09:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * FWIW, I've been able to edit the list directly in the "Raw" page. What it won't accept is a list edited in a text editor and pasted in. So, I'm whittling the list down that way. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 20:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's over nine thousand... 13250 is closely related to this. — CharlotteWebb 17:53, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I do not have a Bugzilla login or care for one, but would it not be desirable for this issue to have the "raw" watchlist presented in groups of 1000, or 500 or something? Perhaps optionally?  JohnnyMrNinja  20:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, but a better solution would also include the ability to have multiple watchlists on the same account, and to edit (or clear) one namespace at a time from a watchlist. — CharlotteWebb 17:49, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Move should be renamed into rename
Warning to regular editors: you might find that you don´t like it because you are used to "move". Please, leave that to a side and be objective.
 * Article
 * Discussion
 * Edit this page
 * History
 * Move >> to rename
 * Watch

Can it be done? Prietoquilmes (talk) 13:03, 29 June 2008 (UTC) P.S: This would be better for the new users.


 * Yes, it can be done, by editing MediaWiki:Move (only editable by administrators) to contain the text "Rename". To justify such a sitewide change, however, it would be preferable if we can find a reasonably significant number of editors to be in consensus for it. { { Nihiltres | talk|log } } 13:40, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This would be a bad idea for the following reason: The MOVE function actually does just that, move the data from one file to another. It also triggers the insertion of REDIRECTS to prevent REDLINKS. In the event that the target already exists you end up with a file conflict that has the potential to completely overwrite the old target file. Calling it RENAME would be an inaccuarte description and cause new users to be confused when file conflict situations occur. Low Sea (talk) 14:02, 29 June 2008 (UTC) In this case practicity should be above a correct use of the language. Besides rename is not incorrect Prietoquilmes (talk) 14:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This would be a good idea for the following reason: When a new user wants to rename a page does this: just copy and paste the contents, destroying the edit history of the page. The reason why i ask for this change is for reduce the amount of cases in which this happens. Prietoquilmes (talk) 14:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * True"Calling it RENAME would be an inaccuarte description" Prietoquilmes (talk) 14:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * False "cause new users to be confused when file conflict situations occur": Move is far more confusing than rename. Prietoquilmes (talk) 14:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC) This is the error message when you try to rename it and the article already exists:

The page could not be moved: a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid.

Please choose another name, or use Requested moves to ask an administrator to help you with the move.

Do not manually move the article by copying and pasting it; the page history must be moved along with the article text.


 * Please, put in the position of someone who doesn´t know what move does and doesn´t know about th GFDL nor about keeping the history of the page Prietoquilmes (talk) 14:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The 'ignorant' user is the one who is more likely to be confused by "rename", in my opinion. I would consider copy-and-paste actions to be very obviously 'moving' text from one place to another - the move feature is a way of achieving the same end (of 'moving' content) without mucking up the GFDL etc.  "Rename" would suggest that the only thing that happens is that the title of the page is changed; this is not the case at all: redirects are created, contributions are updated, log entries and histories are moved to follow the content to its new title.  The old title remains as a redirect: what has happened is that the content has been 'moved' from it to a new location.  If the new title is already occupied then the content cannot be 'moved' there because something is in the way: this makes sense, but is not so intuitive if the action is just thought of as a 'rename'.  In short, I can't see how "rename" is more or even as intuitive as the current "move". <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 17:16, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Why are you moving the content?. The answer: to rename itPrietoquilmes (talk) 17:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Look at the definition of move from Help:Merging and moving pages A move renames a page, giving it a new title. Prietoquilmes (talk) 18:58, 29 June 2008 (UTC) And even though this has been always move, there are a lot of references in that same article to rename.Prietoquilmes (talk) 19:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * If you still don't see how "move" can be as or more intuitive than "rename", I suggest you read my post again. You may not agree with my arguments, but please accord them the same attention that I have given yours.  You will achieve nothing by sticking adamantly to an unsupported assertion: if you have substantive arguments for prefering "rename" over "move" that you have not already presented, then I would like to hear them.  Similarly, if there are flaws in my rationale for prefering the status quo, please explain them.  There is no question that the semantic differences between "rename" and "move" are minor, and the two are largely synonyms - hence their use interchangeably in the help files.  However, the differences are, in my opinion, sufficient to prefer the latter. <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 20:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Read Help:Moving a page Prietoquilmes (talk) 20:46, 29 June 2008 (UTC) It says:

"Moving a page means giving the page another name. The page history is then attached to a new name. Another page with the old name is created and automatically redirects to the new name." The reason why rename is more intuitive than move is that the reason why you "move" an article is to rename it. The users that do it for something else (E.G: archivate an old discussion) already know what move makes and they don´t need it to be intuitive.Prietoquilmes (talk) 20:50, 29 June 2008 (UTC) The problem that this change brings is the changes that should be make because of this. So if they are too many this might not worth the effort. The main change that should be make would be rename move protection >> rename protection. And this is something i realized after propose the change. Prietoquilmes (talk) 20:59, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I shall surprise you both and inform you that this has been discussed quite recently. The relevant discussion, which resulted in a consensus against the change, was archived three weeks ago. Nothing has happened in this short time period suggesting that consensus has changed.
 * So... This is the second time in this year that the issue comes up. Will a third suffice to list this as perennial or will more be required? Waltham, The Duke of 05:45, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That doesn't surprise me in the slightest, although I only started following VPR very recently so I wasn't aware it was quite that recent. I think a couple more times should be sufficient to earn it a place at PEREN... <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 18:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I wasn't aware of This discussion Prietoquilmes (talk) 19:57, 30 June 2008 (UTC) The votes where 11-9 (counting only the oppose-supports). But if you count user by user those that supported the change and those that didn´t i don´t know which was the result.Prietoquilmes (talk) 20:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Consensus is not just in the numbers; the arguments count as much, if not more. Waltham, The Duke of 04:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * so, you are saying that your arguments where good arguments..., simply amazing. Where is the consensus that indicates they were good arguments?Prietoquilmes (talk) 22:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think an argument which the opposing party cannot successfully refute counts as a good argument. Waltham, The Duke of 06:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Most of the oppose was that technically move is correct, when that was refuted. Besides if someone says that move is technically correct should give technical information, not a metaphor.Prietoquilmes (talk) 13:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)