Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 47

Some problems with an infobox
If you compare the infoboxes on Silvio Foschini and Allan Greenshields you will see that because I implemented the 'debut' information of the latter, the text in the 'playing career' section is pushed down one line. In other words '(Goals)' appears under 'Games' instead of beside it. Is there something that can be done to Template:Infobox afl player NEW to stop this from happening?

Also at the bottom of the infoboxes there is some small text which reads
 * Club statistics to end of { – } season
 * Representative statistics to end of { – }

The first is relevant to all infoboxes but the rep stats one is not applicable to all footballers. Regardless of whether they played rep football or not that text appears so is there a way to make it optional?

Cheers. Crickettragic (talk) 03:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * 1. Avoid leaving space for a third column in parts of the table with only two columns: use colspan, or tables in a one-column table.
 * 2. See other optional parts of the template.
 * Patrick (talk) 04:35, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't make the template and it's far from my area of specialty so I don't really understand what I'm required to do to fix it. Could someone please edit the template for me? Crickettragic (talk) 07:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Cite news
I have found that the "location" parameter as used in Cite news never actually displays. A discussion on the talk page suggested that the location would display when there was no "work" parameter (which itself would be problematic -- the location is supposed to identify where the work is published when the publication title doesn't indicate that), but in fact it doesn't appear to do that either. The proper functioning of the parameter would be to have the location appear in parentheses after the work title. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about how to create complex templates such as this one, so I can't fix the problem myself. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 07:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It works, provided that also the publisher is specified. I added an example on the template page.--Patrick (talk) 07:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The location parameter refers to the publication now.--Patrick (talk) 11:21, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your help. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:40, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Centering entire table column in wikimarkup
Is there a way I can center an entire column in a table with a single statement, using wikimarkup (rather than having to repeat  for each line)? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Normally you would use a COLGROUP element to do this, but Wikimedia doesn't support it. However, there may be a template that at the very least saves you a few keystrokes. SharkD (talk) 11:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Or a class. wikitable automatically centers any th columns, for instance. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * What is a th column? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 13:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * If thumperward is talking about  tag, what it does is it defines a table header cell in a table. It also renders text inside it bold.Brilliant trees (talk) 13:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ahh, I thought he might have meant something specific to wikimarkup. This   would still need to be repeated in each cell, though; and the text in the cell would appear bold. I am looking for a statement that I can put in the first row of the column, such as  . — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 14:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I dislike new list feature at "search"
Let me vote *against* the feature, new since several months ago, where a list of choices appears when one types in the search window. The list would be fine *except* that it blocks access to the Go and Search buttons underneath. If one wants to click Search, one must first click elsewhere (to eliminate the list and make Search button reappear) then click Search.

My objection would of course disappear if the list were relocated slightly. But this may be hard to achieve in Html.

I appreciate that the new list will often lead to time savings for the user, but in my opinion this slight savings should be balanced by the irritibility users will have when the interface seems to behave in an unexpected "I think I'm smarter than the user" way. On many occasions I've done a simple click (*usually* works as desired), but found that I have to backup, click to disable the list, click Search -- four total clicks to get where 1 click used to take me.

Jamesdowallen (talk) 09:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The quickest way to close the the list is the ESC key - it's what your left hand's for.
 * More seriously, I like the list and use it a lot. It's particularly convenient for editing, e.g. "I think article X has a useful citation" or "How does that template work?" - especially if the title of the article I'm looking for is one whose spelling or case I often get wrong.
 * Help with the spelling and case problems will also be useful to readers who don't edit. -- Philcha (talk) 09:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You can turn it off with "Disable AJAX suggestions" under Search in Special:Preferences. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:43, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * As documented at WP:RFAQ. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  13:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * And even when it's on, you can still access the search button by pressing tab twice. Algebraist 11:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Personally, I like the list, but I sometimes think the search bar would be better if it wasn't located in the sidebar, but was located right at the top of the screen (next to your username for instance). Aside from the annoyance of having to click elsewhere, or hit esc, to press "search", the list has the problem of not being wide enough. When you are looking for a page with several words in its name (which a lot of pages are), then it becomes virtually impossible to differentiate between similar names, unless you hover the mouse over each individual one, which is very inconvenient. Deamon138 (talk) 14:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I was surprised when the list appeared recently. It is annoying in some instances, but overall I am indifferent as to whether it is removed or not. SharkD (talk) 15:25, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I should also point out that it's in the exact same place as the autocompletion drop-down built into most browsers, which is what usually gets shown there if you disable the search suggestions. Which is to say, a drop-down usually obscures the buttons either way. --brion (talk) 21:13, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It wouldn't obscure the buttons if the buttons were to the right of the box. DuncanHill (talk) 21:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well.. yes, you're right, but then it'd be horribly cramped. Just uncheck the appropriate box in the Preferences and viola, problem solved. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 21:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment. I think most of you are missing the point. I commented about this previously. I pointed out that I have over 14,000 edits on Wikipedia over several years, and that whenever I couldn't immediately figure out how to get rid of the dropdown list of suggestions, I didn't use Wikipedia search. So I rarely used it. Sometimes I think that the Wikipedia staff likes the fact that many people don't use Wikipedia search since it lightens the load on the already-overburdened servers. If the search form was put at the top of the screen to the left of the user name, then the go and submit buttons would be to the right of the search form. Then the dropdown menu would not block the go and submit buttons. Best of all Wikipedia could charge Google and Yahoo millions of dollars to put them as options for search as in the advanced search form at Special:Search. Then maybe the servers and staff here could be increased. See Advertisements. The 3 other search forms at the top of my browser have dropdown menus, and their menus do not block their search/submit buttons. The 3 search forms that I am talking about are the Google toolbar, the Firefox search form that comes with their browser, and the address form which doubles as a search form. --Timeshifter (talk) 22:04, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The current placement of the search form is known to be suboptimal; at some point the main layout skin will be redesigned in a way that is a bit better at this. This has not yet been done, but this has nothing to do with an alleged preference for people not to use our search engine (which is false -- we prefer people to use our own search so we can get feedback on how to improve it, making a good search engine and interface available to the open source world).
 * In fact it has nothing to do with the search engine at all; rather it is because of a lack of good UI designers to create a new skin that meets the necessary criteria:
 * looks good
 * is more usable than the current one
 * remains recognizable as Wiki*edia/MediaWiki
 * In the MonoBook skin there's just not a good place to put a horizontally-laid out search box without shoving everything else down. It may eventually happen anyway. --brion (talk) 21:50, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikia user interface designers may be able to volunteer some help. I don't know. They have been modifying skins there lately. I am using the MonoBook skin here, and I see a spot to put a horizontally-laid out search box without shoving everything else down: To the left of this line of links at the very top of all my Wikipedia pages:


 * Timeshifter - My talk - My preferences - My watchlist - My contributions - Log out


 * Half the screen is open on my 17-inch monitor screen. All the links are on the right half of my monitor screen. This leaves the left side open. Putting the search form there would also free up some sidebar space. Hopefully for some optional ads that individual users might choose to allow. :)


 * I missed your reply in this section at first because this page is so long, and I didn't remember all the threads that I had participated in. I look forward to LiquidThreads and talk page section watchlisting. I also had a problem replying to this section because in between the time I opened this page and when I clicked the edit link for this section someone had started another section, and the section numbering changed. I never understood why this weird thing happened before. I sometimes gave up trying to reply to some discussions for awhile. Because it baffled me so much. I now realize (today!) that I need to reload the talk page in order to get the section edit links to work correctly. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: derestrict page creation by unregistered users in Wikipedia namespace
Currently, unregistered users can create talk pages but not in any other namespace. The Articles for Creation process is designed to allow unregistered users to contribute articles, which if suitable, are moved into mainspace by a registered user. Currently contributors are guided to create their articles in project talk space (they all have the prefix WT:Articles for creation/Submissions/). This is not ideal for several reasons, including: It would be much better for this process if unregistered users could create the page in project space (e.g. WP:Articles for creation/Submissions/xxx). This would solve all the problems above, and allow the talk page to be used by reviewers to discuss the merits of a contribution, which is the appropriate use of talk pages.
 * It is an abuse of namespace: talk pages should be about discussing the corresponding page. In this case the corresponding page does not even exist.
 * Contributors get the default message "This is a talk page. Please respect the talk page guidelines, and remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes." which is not appropriate in this case as we are not using them as talk pages.
 * Sinebot often signs submissions which makes a mess of the page. (The bots template could be used, but would have to be added to every new submission.)

It would be okay if the restriction is lifted just in subpages of Articles for Creation. However a developer has suggested to me that it would be technically simpler to derestrict all of project space. Arguably, the anonymous page creation restriction was only ever intended to stop pages being created in mainspace, and not designed to stop people creating pages in project space, but I don't know what people think about that. MSGJ 16:18, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Personally I would be all for lifting the page creation restriction altogether from the project as a whole. I think we have cut off our nose to spite our face with this temporary turned permanent restriction. &mdash;Elipongo (Talk contribs) 16:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This is very unlikely to happen. (I think it was last discussed at Requests for comment/Anonymous page creation.) I am not proposing that here. MSGJ 16:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Not entirely as an aside, when I saw the title of this section I thought for sure the motivation was going be a desire to let anons nominate AFDs, so I was about to unleash an angry diatribe about the sort of growth-reactionary attitude which deliberately makes it easier for a newcomer to have content deleted than created.

Back on topic maybe what we really need here is some sort of draft/sandbox namespace (accompanied by its own talk-space) with a clearly defined purpose, where even anons can create pages.

Or, another option would be to link to a tool-server script which asks them to enter a title. Let's say they want to create 1992 in Eugene, Oregon, they enter this and a bot creates Articles for creation/Submissions/1992 in Eugene, Oregon, containing some kind of placeholder sections for generic article structure. Over time more selectable pre-fab layouts could be added and maybe the bot could be intelligent enough to decide which one is most appropriate. These could be listed chronologically on an index page where they can be reviewed by registered users (who can mark it for deletion if it's no good, or move it to article space if it is "ready for prime time").

On the other hand maybe all these options are un-wiki-like. Granted, some articles are born "good" or "featured" due to previous refinement and review they have undergone on the author's user-space sub-page (Kim Bruning made an interesting post about "article bombs" months back). Personally I've never done any rough drafts outside of article-space, but then I've always liked the "fuck it, we'll do it live" approach.

(now, if only anons had that prerogative...)

— CharlotteWebb 17:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Charlotte, maybe you would like to check out the Articles for Creation page, because a lot of your ideas sound similar to the process that has been running since 2005! You might even like to help review some of them ;) MSGJ 19:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll be the first to admit that I'm not familiar with this process (and I would be happier overall if there was no need for it, and I certainly have no desire to participate in it). I'm only going by what you've told me, but I will say this:
 * Putting content pages in a "talk" namespace is a manifestly bad idea regardless of the reason (which in this case is to circumvent a ridiculous first-post restriction). If the software is unwilling to change to accommodate your needs, using a bot for this special AFC case (to create the "submission"/sandbox-draft page on behalf of the editor who for whatever reason refuses to create an account—I know we've had a lot of them but I haven't noticed any lately) would be the best bet. If nobody shows up to edit it, the same bot could auto-tag it for deletion in a few days (or delete it outright if said bot has admin access, no harm no foul).
 * Personally I think the multiple-choice layout assistance is the most interesting idea. Even registered/experienced users could benefit from things like choosing the most appropriate infoboxes and and section titles and categories etc. based on info provided by the user prior to page creation. Hell, I might go back to anon editing just for this if someone creates it [[Image:Smiley.svg|15px|]]. — CharlotteWebb 16:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Help out New page patrol for a few weeks and then come back and tell me if you still think unregistered users should be able to create articles ;) By acting as a filter, AFC substantially improves the quality of the encyclopedia, IMO. I agree with you on the misuse of talkspace, hence this proposal. MSGJ 14:46, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Automated tools adding messages to redirected user talk pages
See Bot owners' noticeboard. Graham 87 13:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Per my message there, this is probably caused by bug 7304. Graham 87 08:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Titanium
There is a strange problem with the table of contents included, along with a section, in a WikiProject banner. The section is not on the talk page, but on a "Comments" subpage. There is not much documentation for Chemical Element, but it seems normal that the section should be transcluded; the transclusion of the talk page's table of contents, however, must be due to an error. Waltham, The Duke of 23:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That's how MediaWiki works: by default, the TOC goes just before the first heading whether or not that heading is due to a transclusion. The best fix would be to change the comments subpage to not use headings; alternatively, you could use at the appropriate place on the main talk page to force the TOC to the right location. BTW, in this case is there any real point to that comment being on the comments page instead of on the normal talk page? Anomie⚔ 00:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Section headings from transcluded pages are always included in the TOC. The problem here is the placement of the TOC currently inside a box in . It's caused by the transcluded Chemical Element which contains . Talk:Titanium/Comments exists (unlike at many other transclusions) and this triggers code which apparently fails to close a table or something like that, so the normal TOC for Talk:Titanium is displayed inside a table. I'm not a template coder and don't want to mess with Chemical Element. Algebraist has fixed this talk page with  but somebody should also look at Chemical Element so it works on other talk pages with a /Comments subpage. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the problem is that the transcluded Talk:Titanium/Comments has a section heading which ends up inside a table. Talk:Sulfur/Comments exists but has no section heading and Talk:Sulfur looks correct. Maybe the best solution is to drop the Comments transclusion and replace it with a link if a Comments subpage is really needed. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:47, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I haven't looked into the matter, but I haven't really understood why these "comments" sub-pages exist in the first place. There are to-do lists in template form, and peer reviews have their own pages, so the whole concept looks redundant to me. Waltham, The Duke of 02:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the intention is that it's to be used for a detailed explanation of why the A/B/C classification was assigned to the article. It was probably started by one of the really active wikiprojects and then copied by a number of smaller ones who wouldn't really actually use it, but I really have no idea. Anomie⚔ 12:03, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

NavFrame overlay
I need some help in a template. Wikipedia:Accessibility TT lead section If this template is placed next to a Navbox/Infobox, the NavFrame goes right over the Navbox. I'd like it to auto-adjust its size like the text does. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Morphh   (talk) 2:34, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think I resolved this issue. Morphh   (talk) 23:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Citing the US Census
I've created a new citation template, Cite census, for fomatting citations to the United States Census. I'm not great at templates, so I don't know if there's a better way to make the first to parameters work automatically. Also, I'm concerned that citing to a primary source like that might constitute WP:OR.

If anyone has an opinion or some advice about these things, I hope you'll stop by the template's talk page to discuss. Coemgenus 18:23, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't that be Cite US census, or else generalise it so it can be used to cite any census. This would involve making some of the fields optional. For example, I'm not what the roll field is for, and if it is left blank then a newline appears in the middle of the citation. A field allowing a link to the census results online would be useful too.- gadfium 19:55, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Bots
I dont know if this is the right page to put this query, but, how/where do I get information on how to write a programme for a simple "bot" to run on Wikipedia? I am interested in creating bots, I think my programmes would help wikipedia. I'm not going to run one but I am interested in learning how to write one as an intellectual exercise. Can someone teach me how or at least point out somewhere that I can read up on how to write a bot script? Halli B (talk) 21:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * See WP:BOT and the MediaWiki API page. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Client_Code provides links to a number of ready-made implementations: use at your own risk. Please note that you will need bot approval before you can run a bot on any real Wikipedia project. -- The Anome (talk) 00:55, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Ha ha, Halli B, you shuckster! See Creating a bot — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

deletions
I keep running across legitimate topics which have been delete with no deletion log. I can easily find information about the topic through Google so I am mystified why the deletion log would be erased, unless it is an invitation to created the article again. Please explain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.10.144 (talk) 12:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * How do you know these topics have been deleted? Are you sure you have the exact right title (the logs are much less forgiving than the search box)? Can you give some examples? Algebraist 12:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Without a deletion log, no there is no way I know of to determine whether an article existed or not and it is possible that links to a non-existent article is an invitation to create the article rather than an indication it has been deleted. In other words maybe I am interpreting the red colored inline links in the wrong direction. While I am thinking gone I should be thinking not yet here. Carbonic fertilization, latosol, Rhyolitic tuff breccia, Mount Bandaisan, Modified Burmister. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.10.144 (talk) 13:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Red links like that are a common Wikipedia feature and does not imply that an article has been there (although it sometimes has). See Red link. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Click on a red link and it does not give you that information or even a link to it. The only information you get are links to other projects and to the deletion log. Time for an update maybe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.10.144 (talk) 13:53, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * At present, logged-out users who click a redlink get a message that begins 'Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.' What's unclear about that? Algebraist 15:21, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

No embedded deletion log when "unauthorized", bug?
I was just discussing this with some devs (or were they dev wannabes?) the other day about the deletion log excerpts which when one clicks on a red link to a deleted page. I was referring specifically to a MediaWiki namespace page but the conclusion is this:
 * If a user is "unauthorized" to create the page (either because they are not logged in, or because it is protected/deleted and they are not an admin), they do not see the deletion log info on the &action=edit screen, even if deletion log entries do exist.

Does anybody else consider this a bug, or at least less than desirable? I'm sure the underlying philosophy is that "the deletion log excerpt is part of warning against habitual re-posts of deleted content, and thus only useful to users with the ability to do so". However I think it would be helpful to know this regardless. — CharlotteWebb 16:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, I agree, that seems less than ideal. If we delete a page, and the original author sees a clear reason why it was deleted, he may read the relevant policy and not post it again, or fix the problems while reposting it. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 18:22, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I also agree. Transparency is good; I do not believe we operate, or should operate, on a need-to-know basis here. When information is public, it should be easily accessible. Waltham, The Duke of 22:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

See 15551. — CharlotteWebb 14:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Done, note that they will see it by following a redlink (action=edit&redlink=1), but if they follow a link that includes a direct link to action=edit, they will still see only the permissions error message. Mr.Z-man 03:58, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Z-man, I tried a random example from Special:Protectedtitles and found that this url:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Motherfuckers&action=edit&redlink=1
 * instantly forwards/redirects to this one when "unauthorized":
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Motherfuckers
 * Since the &redlink=1 page cannot be viewed, the deletion log excerpt is still never seen, and so there is no noticeable software change. Please enable this for all urls containing &action=edit. — CharlotteWebb 13:37, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess I could have been more clear, yes &redlink=1 does automatically redirect if you can't edit it, the page it redirects to will be where the deletion log is shown, but the change isn't on Wikimedia yet. It was 40723, we're currently only at . Mr.Z-man 16:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * So now the deletion log info will be visible in "view" mode, but only if you don't have enough privileges to see it in "edit" mode? This is too confusing. — CharlotteWebb 03:29, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * If the page doesn't exist, and a deletion log does exist, anyone viewing the action=view page will see the log, regardless of ability to edit it. If you can edit it, you'll see the log on the edit page too. Mr.Z-man 03:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Old revision thumbs on image pages
I notice that image pages are showing old images in the revision table... or so they should. However, all but the current image show as a broken link. — Edokter  •  Talk  • 14:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Can you provide an exact example? I'm not sure what you're referring to. --brion (talk) 17:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Image:Time Crash.jpg shows the problem quite clearly. Additionally, when opening a thumb's URL directly, I get the following error: "Error generating thumbnail Error creating thumbnail: Image was not scaled, is the requested width bigger than the source?" — Edokter  •  Talk  • 21:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Interesting indeed... This is a new feature I'm not totally familiar with the implementation of yet, but it shouldn't be doing that. :) Make sure this makes it into Bugzilla so we can follow-up on it in detail in a bit... --brion (talk) 17:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * 15570 Done. — Edokter  •  Talk  • 23:40, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * And images are loading very slowly or not at all. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  18:30, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The image server has been busted for the past few days. Only cached images are appearing for me right now. Gary King ( talk ) 18:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * ...Which is more than I'm getting. Other than the Wikipedia Logo, I'm seeing Red X's everywhere. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 18:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Your browser's cache settings probably need adjusting then. Gary King ( talk ) 18:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't even see the Wikipedia logo anymore. Something is definitely wrong (besides our browser cache). Kaldari (talk) 19:01, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, the images seem to be coming back online now. Kaldari (talk) 19:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Doesn't look particularly "busted" to me. There was apparently some packet loss between the Amsterdam caches and the Tampa servers for a little while today. Could this have affected you? --brion (talk) 20:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Sections without headings
Is there a way to create article sections without creating a normal heading? I'd rather not have to open an entire article just to edit a few fields in an infobox. The main problem with infoboxes is that they tend to appear at the top of articles and not in any sub-sections. SharkD (talk) 01:38, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It sounds like you should turn on the 'Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page' gadget in Special:Preferences. Algebraist 01:41, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Still, it would be nice to be able to edit an infobox and nothing else. One solution would be to store the infobox somewhere else and transclude it into the article. The non-transcluded version could then be edited in isolation. SharkD (talk) 01:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, the infobox template call could be put in another template. In that case Template:Ed can be used in that template to provide the link for editing it (not to be confused with editing the infobox template itself, for which another link could be provided).--Patrick (talk) 07:01, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I created a test page, and you can indeed hide headings. However, they still show up in the Table of Contents. SharkD (talk) 01:47, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That's the opposite of what you are looking for - a heading in the TOC but not one with an [edit] link. It seems that we need to make it more obvious how to edit the lead section of an article. I do it by just clicking edit on any section and changing the resulting URL to =0 at the end instead of whatever number I clicked on. Perhaps something about this should be more obvious in whatever line of introduction to editing that User:SharkD has stumbled upon. I think there is also some sort of edit top template that I have seen in a few articles. I would not recommend proliferating infoboxes into templates. Since I am on dial-up I am frequently clicking on any section to edit the lead long before the article finishes loading and in fact I also often use the trick of clicking on any section as a trick to make the page load faster if what I am actually waiting on is only an opportunity to click on the history or discussion tab. 199.125.109.88 (talk) 18:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The gadget that Algebraist mentioned is really the best solution. (though you do need to be registered and logged in to take advantage of it) EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 18:22, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * So is that gadget clear to any new editor, who has been around since, say 2006? Or does it have to be discovered by rummaging through the available preferences? I wouldn't register just to get access to it, because I have found a viable substitute, but is it possible that it should (if it isn't already) be mentioned in the introduction to editing as a plus for registering? 199.125.109.88 (talk) 18:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean when you say "That's the opposite of what you are looking for...". What I am looking for is a heading/link that is hidden *and* does not appear in the TOC. Adding =0 to the URL works well in many cases, but has problems in some cases. The first problem is that not all infoboxes appear in the lead section of articles. The second problem is that *all* the text in the lead section appears when editing the lead, not just the infobox. SharkD (talk) 23:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Edit box and symbols/markup
Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I haven't bothered to look. Sometimes when I'm editing a page, the symbols and markup that I need are available in a table below the editing box but need to be copy-pasted. Sometimes they are sorted by type (Markup, Cyrillic, IPA etc.) in a dropdown menu and are clickable. Why is it inconsistent? I remember it used to be a large table with clickable symbols, which was adequate. Should it be made a gadget so users can choose their preferred interface?  Balkan Fever not a fan? say so! 03:10, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * As far as I know it's supposed to be the dropdown menu all the time, except when there isn't supposed to be one. I think if you see a table, it means something went wrong with the JavaScript used to create that dropdown menu, meaning the menu never got created (which seems to happen a lot). Calvin 1998 (t·c) 03:22, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I often get both, too, fairly regularly, although I don't usually notice it since I have never used the symbols. Gary King ( talk ) 04:11, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well if there's some sort of common glitch shouldn't it be reverted to the previous working version? Right now I'm adding IPA and sound files to a lot of pages, and it's getting annoying having to copy/paste so many things since Firefox doesn't have a clipboard.  Balkan Fever not a fan? say so! 05:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki:Edittools is the page in question, I would suggest asking there. Similar problems were reported in these 2 threads: Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_45 and Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_45. (I don't have time to reread them now, so can't summarize). Hope that helps. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

keywords
Am i able to edit keywords in the source of a page? If so how do i do it? Canracer72 (talk) 05:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canracer72 (talk • contribs) 05:06, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Short answer, you can't here. They are auto-generated in the code (per <tt>/includes/OutputPage.php</tt>: "This function takes the title (first item of mGoodLinks), categories, existing and broken links for the page and uses the first 10 of them for META keywords.". There are however several extensions that can do this, for private installations. --Splarka (rant) 07:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Replacing a deleted page
Hi! I'm trying to create SESAR to redirect to a dab page but it was previously deleted (as being non-notable for something else) a year and a half ago. It does not seem to be protected. Thanks. Saintrain (talk) 14:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there no other way than to contact the deleting admin?
 * Are all deleted titles locked out this way?
 * It isn't locked. If you want to create it, go ahead. Algebraist 14:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ummm I can't.  Can you?  Saintrain (talk) 14:13, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That is, can anybody? Or is it just me?  Saintrain (talk) 14:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I can, and I can't see why you shouldn't be able to. What do you see when you click the redlink? Algebraist 14:15, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The "Notice: You are re-creating a page that was deleted. You should consider whether it is appropriate to continue editing this page." page.  Saintrain (talk) 14:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * There should be an edit box below that notice. Algebraist 14:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Deepest and sincerest apologies and abeyance obeisance. The edit box is white on white and the summary, buttons etc. were pushed past the bottom of the screen.  Just looked like a blank page.  Saintrain (talk) 14:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Issue with moves again
Despite In Search of Sunrise: Summer Tour 2008 not existing and no log showing that it is prevented from being created, I am unable to complete a request at WP:RM to move In Search of Sunrise: North American Summer Tour 2008 to that location. Any help is appreciated. JPG-GR (talk) 22:53, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Dunno what was wrong, but I moved it. --Golbez (talk) 23:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. We had this problem maybe two weeks ago.. IIRC, it had something to do with a wildcard in a title blacklist file somewhere. JPG-GR (talk) 23:07, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Firefox 3 API help needed
I wrote a popular citation tool, WPCITE, that runs as a Firefox add-on. When you visit a web page, you can right click to generate wikicode for an inline citation. It's a huge time saver, and encourages verifiability of our articles. Unfortunately, I don't have the know-how or time to upgrade this tool from FF2 to FF3. Is there somebody out there who would like to help? Jehochman Talk 03:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Broken link: Acro_swizzle.gif
-- lucasbfr  talk 14:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC) There seems to be a problem with Acro_swizzle.gif. The thumbnail appears normally but the main image appears as a broken link and clicking on it returns a 404 error. This used to work and I don't see any history that would cause this problem. Any ideas how to fix this? Lambtron (talk) 16:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It's possible this is related to the recent loss of images (see above), though I don't see it on the list of lost images. The thumb is gone now too apparently. Hopefully you kept a local copy. Franamax (talk) 18:10, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Lambtron! -- lucasbfr  talk 14:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Twinkle error
I've noticed recently that Twinkle seems to be making a mistake on the notices placed on user's talk page. For example, see this speedy deletion notice Twinkle placed here. The link in the title back to the pertinent article has a colon in front of it. The wikilink within the template appears to be correct, however. I'm not sure when this started happening. Any help is appreciated. Cheers!  TN ‑ X - Man  17:40, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed. –Juliancolton <sup style="color:#666660;">Tropical <sup style="color:#666660;">Cyclone  17:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well then, that was easy enough. Thanks for the quick catch and fix. Cheers!  TN ‑ X - Man  17:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I have readded the colon which is needed to produce certain links (link to a category instead of placing the page in it, link to an image instead of displaying it). At the time of the former posts in this section, the link had been removed altogether so the colon had no effect, but the link was readded (for good reason IMO). PrimeHunter (talk) 23:25, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Doh...that was my fault - when I added back the link for the section heading I should have added back the colon too. Thanks for fixing. – ukexpat (talk) 17:07, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Image viewing help
I've realized that as I look at certain images that are too large to fit the window of my browser that no scroll bar appears so that I can view the rest of the image. The only thing I know for certain is that this doesn't happen on JPEG images, though I'm not sure about other images. Any ideas about what is wrong and/or how to fix it? Thanks. Helixer (talk) 00:24, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Is this on image description pages, articles including images, or raw URL viewing of images? If on the description pages, you can set the maximum size in your preferences under "Files" -> Limit images on file description pages to:. --Splarka (rant) 07:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Database error
I've gotten this three times in the last few minutes. "A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

(SQL query hidden)

from within function "ExternalStoreDB::store". MySQL returned error "1290: The MySQL server is running with the --read-only option so it cannot execute this statement (10.0.2.108)"."  Enigma  message 15:31, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Same here. DuncanHill (talk) 15:33, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * This is logged as being fixed around 15:30, so should be fine now... --brion (talk) 16:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

what causes this abnormal categorization?
The article Lillestrøm gets categorized into Category:Articles with unsourced statements since May 2,008. One would suspect a spelling error within one of the maintenance templates, but I am unable to locate any. Anyone? __meco (talk) 16:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The problem is the fact tag in the infobox. Infobox Settlement is formatting the population number to add the comma separator, at the same time it is incorrectly formatting the year of the fact tag with a comma so giving a year of 2,008. Unsure how to fix it apart from removing the tag. Keith D (talk) 16:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * For now I have commented out the Fact template in the ibox. That has fixed the cat problem and leaves the template visible in edit mode, but it's not a long term solution. – ukexpat (talk) 17:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I have presented this problem at Template talk:Infobox Settlement. __meco (talk) 18:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Image problem
This image appears to be simply showing as writing and not the actual image. I can't work out what the problem is with it. D.M.N. (talk) 16:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks like it may have been one of the images lost recently due to a bug. I've reverted it to the previous version. --brion (talk) 17:22, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Image:Sütterlin letter F.png and Image:Sütterlin letter Y.png also seem to be missing. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 22:15, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Ha, fixed! Wayback Machine to the rescue:, .  Should've thought of trying that trick earlier.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Is it just me?
It's gotten to the point where I can hardly do anything on Wikipedia any more. It's so slow, and has been for weeks, that I have to keep hitting a button or a link to get anything to work, if I sit there my edit or my attempt to look something up, or my attempt to go to a page, takes forever. I'm using Firefox 3, since IE stopped working for me completely several months ago. Corvus cornix talk  22:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It may not be just you, but it's not everyone. No such problems here. Algebraist 22:37, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * A couple of weeks ago I tried to log in on dial-up, and found it impossible - or rather, I could log in, but the post log-in page would never load - and then I couldn't log out, so I couldn't read or edit anything. I do think Wikipedia is slower than it was say a year ago. DuncanHill (talk) 22:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * DuncanHill and Corvus: Is it only suffering the slowage when not logged in? If so, 15543 might have something to do with it (now fixed, not yet live). --Splarka (rant) 22:52, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I'm always logged in.  Corvus cornix  talk  23:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't use Wikipedia when logged out if I can help it, it hurts my eyes. DuncanHill (talk) 23:39, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It's especially bad when I click on a "hist" link or try to do a diff, or look at a user's contributions.  Corvus cornix  talk  23:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * "No, I'm always logged in."... well *try* it while logged out. --Splarka (rant) 23:18, 11 September 2008 (UTC) PS: Oops I see the confusing, fixing. --Splarka (rant) 23:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I had a similar issue by setting a setting in the "Recent changes" tab in Special:Preferences too high. Perhaps you've done the same? How many entries do history pages and user contributions pages list by default for you? And, do you have any extra JS loading? --MZMcBride (talk) 23:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Recent changes is set to 500, but it's always been set to 500, and that shouldn't effect the speed of article histories and diffs. And I don't know what a JS is?   Corvus cornix  talk  23:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I just tried it logged out, and although hist seems quicker, diffs and a request to look at user contributions seem, if anything, to be even slower.  Corvus cornix  talk  23:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The default is 50, I believe. So instead every time you click on the history tab or a contributions link, the server has to generate the HTML and your browser has to render ten times the amount of data. That's quite a bit, and it definitely causes page loads to take longer. As for JavaScript (JS), it looks as though you don't have any extra loading from this site. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:31, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * By it's always been set to 500, I meant that that was what I set my preferences to when I first created an account, and only lately have I had a problem.  Corvus cornix  talk  20:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems like the database is locked every half hour or so. It's damn annoying! — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:24, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * To quote the FAQ above: "... either live with it, or buy us a new server." I suppose we'll have to live with it... (oh, and there was a 207 second watchlist lag earlier) Calvin 1998 (t·c) 05:31, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's total nonsense, so I removed that FAQ item. Replication lag is almost entirely due to MediaWiki bugs, not lack of servers. Wikipedia is not "very slow", it's fast for almost everyone. If it's slow for a particular person, and not for anyone else, that means that the person's client or network is at fault. -- Tim Starling (talk) 05:10, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Loading history lists and diffs is reasonably fast for me. (Note the default of 50 rows of history is not in any way a lot of data, and should nearly always run very quickly.) Can you provide exact URLs to particular pages that load slowly for you? Do they load slowly every time you try them, or just sometimes? Is this consistent across different times a day? What about on different computers, or from different locations (home vs work?) --brion (talk) 17:07, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Lately, I'm limited to just this one computer, but when I have bad problems, I'll list some pages here.  Corvus cornix  talk  20:36, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I have had similar problems as the OP. Connections frequently time out. I have to hit the 'Save' and 'Refresh' buttons several times. This seems to occur about half the time. Not to mention all the other weird errors I get. The green/white server error message. Database locked messages with a missing preview pane. Etc. SharkD (talk) 06:08, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: Prompt for note when creating a redirect
Redirects are supposed to have a rationale for creating them in them. I propose that users be reminded of this fact through some sort of prompt. An alternative would be to have a template automatically appear, similarly to when uploading images. SharkD (talk) 00:47, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Redirects are cheap and invisible, I'd rather kill the redirect categorization system than do something annoying like this. Mr.Z-man 01:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The categorisation system has already lost much of its utility now that preview does not display any special messages. It still has its advantages, though; I'd go with revamping it.
 * (Now we are deviating.) Waltham, The Duke of 03:48, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Um, are there any examples of where this is an issue? I don't see much of a problem; ideally, people would explain the rationale behind the redirect in their edit summary. Actually, the rationale behind the redirect should be immediately apparent; a plausible typo of an article, an alternative name for something (Monte Bianco), an extended name for something (Hannah's Gift - Lessons From a Life Fully Lived), etc. If it isn't obvious from the redirect itself or the page's history, you can always send it to WP:RFD. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 19:22, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

ENTROPY
Where are the formulas for this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Catsears (talk • contribs) 01:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. Maybe you could rephrase your question...? ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 05:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The article has plenty of formulas. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 18:04, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Just to rule out one possibility, I logged out and looked at a couple of the entropy articles to see if the formulae displayed incorrectly. I checked in FF, IE, Safari, & Chrome; they all displayed just fine. &mdash;Ashanda (talk) 18:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:AROBAZE.png
What's up with it? Seems like it's gone. Tried purging and null-editing. Image shows up as (a link to itself, instead of the @ sign it's supposed to be). Calvin 1998 (t·c) 05:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Does seem gone, probably in the recent unpleasantness. Uploaded a version found online but it isn't an exact copy (was slightly larger, scaled down to match). --Splarka (rant) 07:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Alert for new messages on the talk page
In some Wikipedias in other languages i receive alerts in the email when someone edits my user talk page.

Is it possible in the English Wikipedia?

Thanks. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No, there are too many people. &mdash; Werdna  &bull;  talk  14:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * ...Too many people, so the emails would load the servers too much? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 14:27, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * To the best of my knowledge, yes. I love the feature, and have it enabled on almost all my accounts; I wish I could have it here, too... EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 16:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Why is it that this is actually a performance problem again? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:52, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

One option is to use the RSS feed for your user talk page (it's linked on the left side when you are viewing the page history). &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:00, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Extra bullet points when viewed in IE
An article I wrote, Worth Hamilton Weller, has superfluous bullet points in the "References" and "Publications" sections when viewed with IE7 but not with Firefox or Chrome. I can't see anything when I edit it that would cause these. Any suggestions? Thanks. Doug Weller (talk) 21:01, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Both FF3 and Chrome look OK to me. IE8 does not have extra bullets, but does have an extra line space between entries. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  <sup style="color:darkblue;">talk  -  21:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It was an unclosed &lt;cite&gt; tag, coupled with a known bug/misfeature in HTML Tidy. See 9737.  I closed the tag, which should fix the problem for that particular page.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, much appreciated. Doug Weller (talk) 06:07, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Advanced search is hard to find
I did not notice right away, but advanced search is at the bottom of the regular sidebar search results. Could a link to "advanced search" be put in the sidebar of all pages?

Or at the very least, at the TOP of the regular sidebar search results too, and not just at the bottom. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:05, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hitting the "Search" button (next to the "Go" button) takes you to that page; a link already is on every page. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 13:29, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, but very few people know that, I believe. I have been editing Wikipedia almost 3 years and have over 14,000 edits and did not know that until now. I have always entered a search term or phrase and then clicked either button. I don't remember clicking either the "go" or the "search" button without entering search terms. Or it was so rare that I did not remember where it sent me too.


 * Most of the time I use the Google toolbar to search the Wikipedia site anyway: the "Search only the current Web site" button. I would have liked to have used the advanced search more since there is more specificity in what it can search for in some cases. But I disliked the extra steps I had to take to hunt up the bookmark. So this is good to know. Many other people would probably like to know this.


 * No offense, but nerds who work a lot in an area (for example the Wikipedia sidebar and interface), tend to lose sight of how others perceive that area. They don't realize how unintuitive some things are. I have my areas I focus on in nerdlike fashion, and fresh perspectives have been very helpful at times. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Just to say I second the suggestion to add a Special:Search link somewhere in the sidebar ("toolbox", I guess). Sardanaphalus (talk) 21:18, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, good idea to put it in the "toolbox" section of the sidebar of wikipedia pages. I hope it is named "Advanced search" since that is a search tool name people are familiar with. So the link could be in this form: Advanced search. That is also the name used on the submit button on that search page. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:45, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I too would like an Advanced search link in the toolbox since I want to be able to right click it and choose "Open link in new tab", and I can't do that with the [Search] button.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 00:42, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * If this doesn't get implemented generally, anyone who wants it can easily do it with personal javascript. Algebraist 01:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * If whatever you search for doesn't exist, the "Advanced search" thing is at the bottom of the search results page. Mr.Z-man 01:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, the OP said that in his first sentence. The issue is whether it should be more visible. Algebraist 01:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Best solution would be to make the word "search" (above the search box) link to Special:Search rather than adding it to the bullet list. — CharlotteWebb 17:54, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm. I was wondering why there were 2 buttons, one labeled "Go" and one labeled "Search". I think one of them could be removed. Then a simple link labeled "Advanced search" could be put in its place. A link, not a button. A link can be right-clicked as David Göthberg suggested, and the advanced search page can be opened up in a new tab. I dislike having to open it over the original existing page. That wastes bandwidth and time if I have to go back to the original page. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

They serve different purposes. "Go" (a.k.a. "I'm feeling lucky") loads a page with a title exactly matching your input, if one exists, and "Search" will give you a list of pages containing text similar to your input. I'm just suggesting that we change the text above the sarch box from: <label for="searchInput">Search to <label for="searchInput"><a href="/wiki/Special:Search" title="Advanced search">Search</a> — CharlotteWebb 18:55, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * OK. That would work. Not sure that everyone will understand that the box below the link is not for advanced search though. But this idea of putting the "Advanced search" link just above the search box is much better than before. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh dear no! The Manual of Style explicitly states that section headings in articles "should not normally contain links", since most editors think that is ugly. So please don't link the box headings in the interface. Also, renaming that box heading to "Advanced search" would be misleading about the box content, and not renaming it would be misleading about what the link means.
 * The advanced search is mostly for us editors who want to search other name spaces. (Well, and for experienced readers who want to right click and open a new tab.) So put the link in the toolbox. There are plenty of vertical space in our sidebar, since most pages are far longer than the boxes in the sidebar. (And I have a very slow computer but loading and rendering some extra text is no problem, so it's not a performance issue either.)
 * And keep both the [Go] and [Search] buttons. They are both useful and I have seen my non-geek friends use them and understand them without problems.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 12:45, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I can only hope your appeal to the MOS is a sarcastic one. — CharlotteWebb 15:26, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * OK. Maybe if the "Advanced search" link was put at the top of the "interaction" section then it would be close enough to the search box to be noticed right away by people who want to do a search. Or better yet, put the link at the bottom of the search box below the "go" and "search" buttons. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * CharlotteWebb: No, I don't use sarcasm. I know the MOS doesn't apply to anything but articles. But it is still a good reference for what many Wikipedians think is good style.
 * Timeshifter: You got a point that it would be nice if the Advanced search link is put somewhere close to the search buttons. I tried it in my image editor and it doesn't look that good in the search box (below the search buttons). So I suggest either at the top of the "interaction" menu, or perhaps more fitting at the bottom of the "navigation" menu. (And adding it to any of those two menus is just a simple edit to MediaWiki:Sidebar, while adding it to the search box is probably more complex.)
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 19:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The sole commonality is the coincidental use of a <tt>&lt;h[number]&gt;</tt> html tag for each, so comparisons are tenuous at best. — CharlotteWebb 16:02, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, the bottom of the navigation menu sounds good. Search is definitely a navigation tool. And the "Advanced search" link would be directly adjacent to the search box. I have another problem. When I enter a search term into the search box the popup suggestion box that drops down covers the "go" and "search" buttons. This makes it almost impossible to actually do a search! So putting the "advanced search" link above the search box is better. This allows people to go some place where they can do a less-encumbered search. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:45, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Timeshifter: When you type in a word and don't want to do an actual search instead of just clicking one of the alternatives that pop up in the drop-down list, then all you have to do is to click anywhere outside the box (on the page) to close the drop-down list, then you can click "Search". The word you typed will still be in the text field.
 * Everyone: It seems most of us want to have a link to Advanced search in the sidebar, and that some of us think the best place is at the bottom in the "navigation" menu. So I will add it there now.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 03:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! SharkD (talk) 03:51, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅ Done - The Advanced search is now in the "navigation" menu in the sidebar. If you don't see it on a page you visit and feel impatient then you can purge the page. About a week from now all pages will have timed out in the cache and will have re-rendered and then everyone (including IP users) will see the Advanced search link on all pages.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 04:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I see it. Is there a way to make the dropdown menu (the one with search suggestions) open up so that it doesn't cover up the "go" and "search" buttons. Maybe make it open up a little to the right? Also, could the search results for regular searches open up in a new tab? --Timeshifter (talk) 07:00, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Is there a way to add hotlinks for some of the more advanced function, like there is on edit pages? Or, at least provide a short key/legend? SharkD (talk) 04:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Which advanced functions? —AlexSm 04:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I have to say I oppose this addition. So far I saw two arguments: By the way, a little tip: if you want to search in one particular namespace, just type it as a prefix, e.g. typing "wp:apple" and clicking "Search" will look for "apple" in "Wikipedia:" namespace. —AlexSm 04:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) some users never find advanced search fieldset. Solution: add a jumping-down shortcut to MediaWiki:Searchresulttext which is displayed above search result
 * 2) some users need a direct link to advanced search. Solution: a bookmark in your browser.


 * SharkD: I don't know what you meant by "hotlinks". But do you mean that on the Special:Search page you want to add some more explanations how it works? I looked around and there is at least the MediaWiki:Searchresulttext which seems to be the message that is placed at the top of Special:Search, so seems we can add more text easily.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 04:32, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe the question was about insertable characters (aka edittools)? Certainly possible as a gadget. —AlexSm 04:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * AlexSm: Your first suggestion above is good. I checked the rendered page code and there is an id at the advanced search box at the bottom of the page, so yes, we can add an anchor link from the message at the top of the page.
 * Your second suggestion does not help people who read or edit from public computers. And does not help people who don't know the link Special:Search in the first place.
 * Your third suggestion does not help the millions of people who don't read this Village pump page.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 04:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I want more of an explanation of how it works on the search page itself (a terse cheat-sheet with examples should suffice). And possibly the insertable characters like can be found on the edit pages. SharkD (talk) 05:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Benefit to readers?
I don't see the benefit to non-editors. The only people who really care about namespaces other than the main namespace are editors. If I was a casual reader and saw "advanced search", I would assume it was actually more advanced than the normal search in a way that actually matters to me. It's not. --- RockMFR 23:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree, the "Advanced search" isn't really useful for non-editors. In fact, calling it "Advanced search" at all is somewhat misleading. All it does is search namespaces that aren't the default one, or what you have set in your preferences, other than that its the same search, it really doesn't give any advanced options like Yahoo's or Bugzilla's. The only real advanced options (Boolean search and category intersections) are available via the normal interface. Mr.Z-man 23:34, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The main benefit is to be able to get to the search page that has some options. I don't really care if the link is labeled "Advanced search". Just labeling it "Search" is fine with me. Maybe the options aren't all that advanced, but they are helpful, and are better than having no options. The search box in the sidebar has no options. The sidebar search form also does not have room to see more than 2 or 3 words without scrolling. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:01, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The most beneficial feature for readers is the ability to search Wikipedia using Google. Algebraist 23:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I dislike the addition too. It doesn't seem special enough for its new shiny home. Ian ¹³  /t  15:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Have you guys noticed that the Special:Search has a drop down box where you can choose to do a Wikipedia site search with Google, Yahoo, Windows Live, Wikiwix and Exalead? And there is much more to Special:Search than most people know, read all about it at Searching. What that page currently lacks is some added explanations of all the advanced options there really is. Anyway, since the advanced search at the moment does not come with a proper explanation then you guys are right that it is mostly useful for our editors.
 * So, how would you guys feel about if we only added the Advanced search link for logged in users? (Disregarding the fact that many of our editors edit as IP users.)
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 12:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Just because some people don't see a use for advanced search is not a reason to remove it for those of us who see a use for it. Many people will use it to search talk pages, or images, or help, or categories. A very big benefit is that it allows people to right-click the link and open a search page in a new tab. Many, many people will use it just for that reason alone. Especially dial-up users who do not have the time and bandwidth to use the regular search. Regular search opens up in the same page, and one has to use the back arrow and reload the page to go back to the page. Over time many more people will use Wikipedia's search tools if there is an advanced search link. If you don't like calling it "advanced" then just use the name "search". The point is to make it easier to use search. Right now it is very difficult for many people for the reasons I discussed earlier. And how can people navigate the site best without search? So the search link belongs in the navigation section of the sidebar. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Timeshifter explains it very well. And using a less strong title for the link is probably a good idea. But to differentiate it from the "search" heading I suggest we call it for instance Extended search. That is not as a strong name as "Advanced search".
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 14:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe, since the WP:Manual of Style does not apply to the sidebar we can go ahead and make "search" clickable. This way we are not adding more text or more length to the sidebar. I read all the relevant guidelines at WP:MOSHEAD and WP:ACCESS and none of it applies to making the search heading clickable in the sidebar. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:21, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Right, if the whole section title is one link then it doesn't interfere with screen readers, thus it isn't an accessibility problem. And technically the Manual of Style only applies to article content, but it reflects what many editors think is good style. So just because the MOS does not technically apply to the rest of the interface doesn't mean we should add bad/ugly style to the interface. And yes, many of us feel very strongly that linking headers is VERY ugly.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 12:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not a header in my opinion. It's a less-indented sidebar link followed by a searchbox. In fact, an asterisk can be added in front of "Search", so that it fits in the same indented format as the rest of the sidebar links above it. I often see sidebar links in nested tree form. I am a webmaster myself, and my sidebars have various lists of links in various indentations depending on the need. As for the name of the link I am happy with any name. Another thing that might help is to put the search box inside the table of the navigation section so that it truly is part of that section, and the search link then becomes truly just another navigation link. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Move search form to top of page. Keep search link in sidebar

 * Another possibility is to move the searchbox to the top of the page to the left of this stuff at the very top of all my Wikipedia pages:


 * Timeshifter - My talk - My preferences - My watchlist - My contributions - Log out


 * I am using the default monobook skin. On my 17-inch monitor screen all the links are on the right half of my monitor screen. This leaves the left side open for the searchbox and search buttons in one line:


 * [Search box] [Go] [Search]


 * This way a search link in the sidebar is totally separate from the searchbox at the top of the page. I like this option best of all since it allows more room in the search form for more search terms. Also, the dropdown menus of suggestions and options would not cover the go and search buttons. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Proper consensus?
I don't really think there is much use for it either, and I'd to get some kind of consensus from a wider audience. Per above, it seems only useful to editors who need to search for something they've lost in the Wikipedia namespace and such, not much use to the majority of our visitors. If we could have some discussion of what the community actually thinks of this, that would be perfect. Byeitical (talk · contribs) 16:02, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I count 12 editors who have commented:
 * AlexSm
 * Algebraist
 * Byeitical
 * CharlotteWebb
 * David Göthberg
 * EVula
 * Ian
 * Mr.Z-man
 * RockMFR
 * Sardanaphalus
 * SharkD
 * Timeshifter

Opinion seems to be split on naming the link "Advanced search". I haven't heard any objections to naming the link "Search". See the reasons for it higher up. --Timeshifter (talk) 05:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Timeshifter: That is not entirely correct. I for one have objected to just call it "Search" since that naming would collide with the existing search box. Since some think "Advanced search" is a too strong name for it I have suggested the name "Extended search".
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 12:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I am happy with any name. I just want a link. :) --Timeshifter (talk) 13:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Bot question; not sure if this is the place to ask?
Hi. I'm not sure if this is the place to ask this or not. :) I know nothin' about bots, to speak of. Zorglbot is continuing to create "image" subpages for WP:CP about a month after images have been removed. It's not malfunctioning in any way, but at some point it needs to be rewired/reprogrammed/convinced somehow to stop. :) I left a message here for Shutz, who operates Zorglbot, on August 29th and then left a message at the French Wikipedia, his primary home, on August 31st. He has edited there since,, and here as well, but only a handful of times and has not responded at either project. This isn't an emergency; I've been adding a note redirecting imagevios and have recently just started deleting the image subpages. But I am curious as to whether anybody else has the keys to this car, as it were, and can stop these image subpages being created or if I should continue adding that note until Schutz reappears. If I should take this elsewhere, please let me know. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:41, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * If it's performing a task without consensus, it should be blocked. &mdash; Werdna  &bull;  talk  02:20, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It used to have consensus. It's just that the needs there have changed. Most of what it's doing, creating new sections and new article pages and automatically bringing the current listing up, continues to be useful. I just can't quite figure out how to have it tweaked to stop doing the one thing that it shouldn't be doing, given my inability to communicate with Schutz. That's why I'm wondering if somebody else has the ability to alter the bot and how one would go about finding that person. I don't know if only the bot's creators have the ability to modify or repair them. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:27, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Normally it would only be the bot's creator who could modify them. If it's running on the toolserver, a toolserver root could do it too, although I don't know when policy permits that, if ever. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * If the bot is doing a task it shouldn't (in this case a task you don't want it to do anymore) and the bot owner is not responding, then you should block the bot. (I see you are an admin so you can block it yourself.) Then you can ask other bot owners over at Bot requests to take over the other tasks that the bot was doing that is still useful to you.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 03:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the feedback. :) I'll let Schutz know my intentions and wait a couple of days in case he chooses to respond before following through. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Page protection mismatch
I'm trying to investigate a mismatch concerning page-protection (not sure if this is the appropriate forum, please move if not). The surface problem is that there are 2 unprotected pages; the underlying query is about missing protection-log entries and incorrect protection-tab-labels appearing for Ancheta Wis. (Note: I am not an admin, so can't see the protection tab at all.) Prior discussion at User talk:Ancheta Wis and at User talk:Quiddity/Archive 8.

Detailed summary:


 * According to the page history - Admin User:Ancheta Wis tried (unsuccessfully) to semi-protect Portal:Contents/Categorical index on 2 May 2008 diff and again on 9 August 2008 diff, and tried to semi-protect Portal:Contents/Quick index on 9 August 2008 diff. (Anons can currently edit these two pages, and should not be able to. This is the surface problem.)
 * Each time, the  was reverted, because the protection was unsuccessful [at some database level?].
 * The logs for these two pages are both empty: (Special:Log-Portal:Contents/Categorical index and Special:Log-Portal:Contents/Quick index)
 * I asked Ancheta, who replied: "the page tab says [unprotect]. To me that means the page is protected. How is it not protected?". (Ancheta does not appear to be using any monobook.js scripts that could be causing problems).

Supplementary info, found whilst trying to investigate the problem:
 * According to the page history - Portal:Contents was successfully semi-protected back in March 2007 (either on March 22 diff or on March 21 diff) but, the logs are also empty here (Special:Log-Portal:Contents). However, it Does appear in Special:ProtectedPages
 * Community portal - it is correctly semi-protected, but the logs are empty (Special:Log-Wikipedia:Community portal). However, it does NOT appear in Special:ProtectedPages.

Anyone know what is going on? -- Quiddity (talk) 01:07, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh dear. Ancheta Wis has been an admin since 2005 but it seems he/she doesn't know how page protection works. (I hope this was just a bad day for Ancheta Wis.) Just adding the  template does not make the page protected.
 * I checked and Portal:Contents/Categorical index and Portal:Contents/Quick index were only move protected, not semi protected. Then admins do see the "unprotect" tab instead of the "protect" tab. Since those pages have had some vandalism I semi-protected them. As far as I can see it worked fine and I could not edit them when I took a look at them as an IP user. And my protection action is visible in their page history.
 * I did not check all the log stuff since I have to go to bed. But either move protection only does not show up in the logs, or that move protection was done so long ago it is not anymore visible in the logs. (How the database work has been changed over the years so it is fairly common that some really old actions do not show up in the logs.)
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 03:10, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * When a page is moved, the protection comes with it, but the logs do not. "Wikipedia:Community portal" used to be at the title "Wikipedia:Community Portal" and the logs for the old title are here. Similarly, "Portal:Contents" used to be at the title "Wikipedia:Contents" and its logs at the old title are here. It would be nice if it was easier to track moves when you know the new title but not the old one. I had to track down the page moves by using whatlinkshere and hiding the links and transclusions. It would also be nice if logs moved with a page, or there was at least some indication like "the old logs for this page title are at this URL".


 * The protection log started to be logged on a special page on 23 December 2004 - the older protection log is still at Protection log. Protection of page moves only became possible around the same time, and was always displayed in the logs. Graham 87 07:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Ahh, pagemoves! I thought I might be missing something simple there. That accounts for the empty logs. Thanks.
 * What about Community portal not showing up in Special:ProtectedPages? (No related problems here, I'm just curious) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Quiddity and David Göthberg, thank you for the page protect on the Categories portal, and for following up on the puzzle. It has been a good day, hasn't it. I appreciate the time you all have spent, and I have learned more. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it's because Community Portal was protected before Special:Protectedpages was developed. Graham 87  03:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Expansion depth limit exceeded
Currently, this template can accept no more than 36 parameters before it starts complaining about exceeding the expansion depth limit. This can be seen in the example, here. I was wondering if the template could be optimized further to accept additional parameters. Thanks. SharkD (talk) 11:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Nevermind. I found a compromise that works. SharkD (talk) 13:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Léon M'ba
Does anyone know how to fix ref no. 83 at said page? Your friend Eddy of the wiki[citation needed] 21:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with it now? Algebraist 21:19, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Gimmetrow fixed it. Your friend Eddy of the wiki[citation needed] 21:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Can parser functions recognize some UNICODE characters?
HI! MOS requires that negative numbers and minus signs be represented by an "en dash" or a "minus" not a "hyphen", but only a hyphen can be evaluated in a template. Can expr.php even see/recognize these characters? Thanks. Saintrain (talk) 00:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Doing math with n-dashes and whatnot would only be possible if you use <tt>#replace:</tt> first, see (most of these are not enabled here). — CharlotteWebb 01:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Doesn't the MOS actually demand a U+2212 minus and not an en dash? Anyway, if output is all that is cared about someone could write a template containing something like  to wrap the calculation that was done using the normal ASCII hyphen-minus character. Using the U+2212 minus in input to an expression seems to be impossible without either the mentioned string functions extension or someone changing ParserFunctions to recognize the character. Anomie⚔ 02:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Why would we want to use a unicode minus instead of a simple <tt>-</tt> to do subtraction? You can type one with your keyboard, and you can't type the other with your keyboard... &mdash; Werdna &bull; talk 11:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * CharlotteWebb, thanks! That's a great approach, but if I may, how to represent "from" so it's still a text file?
 * Anomie: now it does; until this edit there was at least onc "endash". I think there needs to be a few "#iferror"s in the template text, too?
 * Werdna: I for one don't; all three are practically indistinguishable on my displays. But I'm trying to work with some legacy templates that used to just display negative numbers to now also calculate with them (and maintain backward-compatibility).  Saintrain (talk) 17:57, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't understand what you're asking. — CharlotteWebb 13:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * How to code the "from" param in #replace or str_replace to recognize a U+2212 but keep the php file non-UTF-8. But it looks like that can't happen.  Thanks anyway.  Saintrain (talk) 18:40, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * As long as the string being processed is UTF-8, you could construct the U+2212 literal for  in various ways. The easiest is probably   (at least until php6, anyway). If by "#replace" you mean the StringFunctions extension that is unavailable here, you shouldn't need to worry about it. Anomie⚔ 23:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Just a hunch (I haven't asked and don't plan to pursue it) but I don't think ParserFunctions.php or Expr.php are going to go UTF-8 anytime soon. (If that's a possibility, I'm all ears.)  But thanks.  Saintrain (talk) 00:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Why would you want to avoid making MediaWiki source files UTF-8? They're always supposed to be UTF-8.  Look at the localization files, for instance.  There are also various comments signed by Avar, and probably other things.  Most of the actual code doesn't have any use for the non-ASCII part of UTF-8, but there's nothing wrong it.  It's present in some places. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 16:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I hadn't noticed that and, ahem, assumed that the php files were text (they do look texty and my test-only editor didn't choke on them) and that they were going to stay that way.  I had given up but you have given me new hope!  CharlotteWebb has shown there is a simple (1 line?) fix for this.  Thanks again.  Saintrain (talk) 14:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Um, UTF-8 files are text. Text is not the same thing as ASCII.  UTF-8 is a text encoding, just like ASCII is.  It's a much fuller and more useful one, and should typically be used instead of ASCII and other encodings in most cases ― so MediaWiki does. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 16:04, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks again! I didn't realize what UTF-8 was before (and there's an article!).  Expr.php is a UTF-8 encoded file with nothing but ASCII characters in it.  Backward compatibility rox!  Very clever these committees!  Saintrain (talk) 19:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * A Unicode minus is the width of a plus sign, while a hyphen is in most fonts considerably narrower. (Compare: -5, −5.)  Traditional typography mandates that the symbols be different.  As with a lot of former typographical conventions, this is under siege by the limited number of keys you can fit on a keyboard, but any serious published work is going to use proper minus signs for negation and subtraction, not hyphens. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Maybe everybody could type "-" and it would get rendered "—"?  Nah, too easy.
 * Is it possible to get a U+2212 into a php file (for the #replace) and keep it text? I've looked and can't find it.  Thanks.   - – — Saintrain (talk) 04:06, 7 September 2008 (UTC) — – -
 * PHP is not Unicode-aware. If you put a literal UTF-8 U+2212 character in a PHP file, it will interpret it as a sequence of three bytes.  So str_replace( '−', '-', $str ) will do what you want, as long as both the string and the PHP file are UTF-8-encoded. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:47, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, nuts! Don't think that's gonna happen.  Thanks to all.  Saintrain (talk) 19:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Boy, when I'm rong ...! Bugzilla's just committed the fix as revision 40762.  Saintrain (talk) 01:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Bugzilla's a bug tracker, it doesn't commit fixes. :P —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, of course it is. I was using bugzilla as a metaphor for the process; I assumed that readers of this VP would be familiar with it.  The actual commit should be credited to Aryeh Gregor, and his comments and hints were much appreciated.  Saintrain (talk) 15:07, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That's me, by the way. :P —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 15:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

rotate uploaded image
hello! i have recently uploaded an image of a castor plant fruit, but noticed that while it displays correctly on my file system, it is rotated incorrectly on wikipedia. please, how do i rotate an image on wikipedia? i found that you can use a template on wikimedia, but apparently that doesn't work here. thank you for your help! Computersnob (talk) 17:20, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You could rotate the image on your computer, 90° counter-clockwise, and re-upload it. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 18:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅. The problem was that your camera or whatever program you used to rotate it didn't actually rotate the image, it just changed the Exif "orientation" tag.  Wikipedia's image scaling software (which uses ImageMagick) doesn't understand that tag, so it rendered the image in its "real" orientation.  I just ran   on the image and reuploaded it.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:09, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I made a mistake like this one time, was embarrassed and quickly tried to fix it. But the servers were loopy that day and the second upload kept timing out. I'd suggest adding some kind of buttons to do this automatically on the server side rather than needing to re-upload, except I'm pretty sure it would be used more for vandalism [[Image:Frowny.svg|15px|]]. — CharlotteWebb 21:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Template help
The white gaps inbetween the purple cells are a bit too wide in Video RPG for my tastes, but I can't seem to be able to lessen them no matter what I do. How do I fix it? Thanks. SharkD (talk) 17:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Turn it into a standard footer navbox; then you won't have to have three show/hide sections anymore either, and it won't interfere with page layout (like it is in Chronology of tactical role-playing video games). -- Quiddity (talk) 20:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I like the current format. I just want the spacing between cells to be less. Also, the template doesn't interfere with the layout&mdash;the lead is just too short. SharkD (talk) 08:09, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Nevermind. I figured it out. SharkD (talk) 08:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Can I have two accounts here in Wikipedia?
Hello all. I have asked this in my usertalk page, but I was suggested to go ask it in here. I have an older account here for making articles in Wikipedia, named User:Theencyclofreak. Although the userpage of this account still exists to date, I can't log-in to it. If I misspelled my password, it would have said so, right? Instead, the message displayed was similar to "User Theenyclofreak does not exist. Check your spelling and try again" (this is NOT the exact notice displayed)

Could it be that this account has been deleted? I don't need it back though, but I was just wondering about what happened to it. Thank you all, and good day. User:UndefinedFractal 18:52, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Theencyclofreak still exists. When I try to log into the account I get the message 'Login error: Incorrect password or confirmation code entered. Please try again.' Are you sure you typed the username correctly? Algebraist 18:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, never mind. It's working now. I guess it was my connection. It happens a lot to me in other websites. But, can I have two accounts here in Wikipedia, this one for minor edits (such as misspellings) and the other for broken links and adding relevant refernces/information? Theencyclofreak (talk) 19:19, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The relevant policy is WP:SOCK. The big question I would have is "Why do you have any need to do those types edits on separate accounts?" Anomie⚔ 19:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * As long as you don't pretend to be two (or several) people it's acceptable. Since you have already declared that you operate both accounts, there is little chance of intentional or unintentional deception, and that's the important part. — CharlotteWebb 20:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Theencyclofreak/UndefinedFractal: I think you should link those two userpages to each other, with an explanation that you have another account. Something like on the User:Theencyclofreak page put this: "I also have the account User:UndefinedFractal, I use it for bla bla."
 * If you do not link them to each other then I don't think it is okay. (But I haven't read up on the relevant policies for a while. But I think you should link since that will annoy people less.)
 * A good thing can be to redirect the talk page of one of those accounts to the other. Then state at the top of the talk page that you have two accounts and what you use them for and that the other account's talk page redirects there. That means you can keep all your discussions on one talk page. (If you also should redirect the user page or not is a matter of taste. It can be clear to not redirect the user page since then it can contain a visible explanation and a link to the main account.)
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 12:09, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Usage of 3G for consumer in mobile & computer & other usages.
My name is John, I wanted to know the usages of 3G in telecommunications as well as in Internet/Computers and any other future advantages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.83.232.8 (talk) 14:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This desk is for discussing the technical aspects of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Have a look at 3G and if your questions aren't fully addressed, you can ask at the Computing section of the Reference desk. Hope this helps. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Languages sidebar for WP:ANI
Resolved.

Can anyone point me at the right place to fix this, I can't find a template or suchlike? Thanks. -- Rodhull andemu  15:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I took a look. The link he wants is already there and is working, and it has been there since 28 February. So there was nothing that needed fixing. I left a message at that page with more explanation how it works.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 18:15, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Tiny text on Chrome
Does anyone know why text using <tt> (<tt>like this</tt>) or ) appears really small (like half the size) when using Chrome but the same size as normal text when using IE7 or Firefox? It would be nice if this could be fixed, if possible. -- Imperator3733 (talk) 20:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Try setting your fixed-width font to a larger size in "options". &minus;Woodstone (talk) 20:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah. Thank you.  Much better. -- Imperator3733 (talk) 21:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Unlinking in template
I'm working in updateing the COinS data in and I've encounted a little problem. With citation like note how the publisher is an internal link. When generating the coins data, ideally the publisher would be encoded without the brackets.

So is there any trickery to remove markup from a template parameter. (I'm working in a sandbox User:Salix alba/sandbox also sandbox2 and 3 before going live). --Salix alba (talk) 21:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * One could use create a general-purpose "de-link" template containing:


 * and then use it like this <tt> </tt> to remove the links. Unfortunately this won't work because (most of) mw:Extension:StringFunctions is disabled here. A specialized function just for de-linking template parameters would have a much higher benefit-to-abuse ratio and could easily be enabled instead. One would also expect it to intelligently handle piped links. — CharlotteWebb 22:40, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Not really sure what happened
Hey, i created a dab page, and shortly thereafter, the page was marked for speedy deletion by a user. I asked folk for assistance and suddenly there is no record of the speedy delete at all. I asked the user what had happened, and they siad they didn't know what I was talking about. I am positive I didn't imagine the speedy delete posting (located nominated it for deletion here). Can someone poin t out what is going on? I get that the matter is fixed, but I would like to understand what happened, and why the user would now be disavowing the speedy delete post. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  22:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The talk page was speedily deleted, but Can't Happen Here (disambiguation) is now a redirect to Can't Happen Here DuncanHill (talk) 22:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki could use an update
I've been having to edit-war ClueBot III over an API bug, and I happen to know that a lot of API bugs have been fixed in the 100 or so revisions since Wikipedia's version of MediaWiki has last been updated (or "scapped", as it apparently is called). Could someone get Brion or Tim to scap the servers or at least do it sometime soon? Calvin 1998 (t·c) 05:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I know Brion was on vacation, then he was sick after he got back. He might not have finished reviewing all the commits since then. <b style="color:#c22">^</b><b style="color:#000">demon</b><sup style="color:#c22">[omg plz] <em style="font-size:10px;">03:00, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed, we try not to dump updates to the server that we haven't at least looked at. :) --brion (talk) 18:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You have quite a few revisions to look at :) Calvin 1998 (t·c) 01:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Reducing default history page size to lessen workload for servers
Has anyone suggested reducing the default article history from 50 to 25 or 20 to reduce the server workload? How much of an effect might this have on such a popular website? &mdash; <b style="color:black;">BRIAN</b> 0918 &bull; 2008-09-11 17:06Z


 * Not a lot. Listing out some metadata from the revision history isn't really an expensive operation. --brion (talk) 17:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Reducing the default watchlist size would probably make a greater difference. — CharlotteWebb 03:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * People with big watchlists are probably going to manually set it higher anyway, so I expect not. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 16:07, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Watchlist data comes out of recent changes, not article histories. --Random832 (contribs) 15:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, and? This thread was an alternative suggestion.  Neither one is probably going to help at all.` —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 16:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Re Brian: unless there is evidence that serving page histories is significantly increasing the server load, speeding up that part of the software won't make much difference overall. I don't know what percent of requests are for page histories (the server admins probably do). But as an abstract example: if something is taking 5% of the total server time, and you make that thing much faster in a way that doesn't affect the changing the remaining 95% of the server time, you won't see much overall speedup. For this reason, optimization is usually done in response to a demonstrated bottleneck. There is a lot of profiling code in mediawiki that the server admins already use to detect these bottlenecks. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Redirect Fixer
Just an FYI:

Someone had comited page move vandalism on the 2008 Chatsworth train collision page, and the User:Redirect fixer bot retargeted the following pages to the vandal page.

Chatsworth train crash

2008 Chatsworth, California train collision

Chatsworth Metrolink Train Crash

2008 Chatsworth train accident

2008 Chatsworth Metrolink collision

These pages sat this way for several hous before I found them and reverted them. Not sure what can be done about this, perhaps the bot should go back and double check for red links?

Just thought I would bring this to your attention. -Brougham96 (talk) 20:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * See bug 15622. MER-C 03:55, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Three dimensional tables
I was wondering if we might brainstorm how we might extend the sorting behavior to three-dimensional tables (i.e., tables where each cell contains a linear list). What I'd like to be able to do is be able to determine which item in the list appears at the top. In this way, one could sort a column and be able to determine which item in each cell is considered when doing the sorting. Are there ways of achieving this? SharkD (talk) 06:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

What's with all those A's in the dropdown menu?
I've asked this before and so have other people, but nothing has happened to fix it.

Right below the Do not copy text ... material is a box with a menu (Insert, Wiki markup, Symbols, etc). Next to it, where there used to be a whole collection of clickable items is a long collection of A's and a's plus some boxes. This, of course, is completely and utterly useless.

I am using a Mac iBook, running on Mac OS 10.3.9, and I'm using Safari.

Now, when I switch to Firefox, I get the expected items in the menu, but not with Safari. Safari is my preferred browser, though if I get annoyed enough, I'll switch to Firefox to get the symbols I want from the menu. Having to switch browsers just because the code is cockeyed seems counterproductive, don't you agree?

Can someone actually do something about this, or will the issue get swept under the rug?

Timothy Perper (talk) 17:24, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I use Safari (under both 10.4 and 10.5), and I've got the usual symbol selection table. What version of Safari are you running? EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 17:48, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a font problem at your end. See Help:Special characters or Help:Multilingual support for help.
 * Check MediaWiki:Edittools to see the full set in raw. (Even with some of the unicode fonts installed, you might still get a few "unknown character" placeholder symbols (question marks, squares, etc). The warning template SpecialChars is often used in articles. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:43, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * There seems to be at least one other user with this problem. Can some Mac-head do an FAQ on how to fix it? I use Microscrap Internet Exploder myself and don't have the problem - but I might tip off that PC guy in the commercials that he should challenge "Mac" to a WP-editing contest. ;) Franamax (talk) 22:28, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That's me Julia. I went to the Help links but being totally untechie, can;t figure it out. I hope it gets fixed somewhere... Julia Rossi (talk) 22:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Timothy and Julia, click on this: MediaWiki:Edittools - do you see the full set of symbols? That may give people a clue as to where the problem lies. Franamax (talk) 23:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yup, I get the full text when I click on MediaWiki:Edittools. No A's nor a's. But I do not get the full text from the drop down menu. I'm using Safari 1.3.2 (v312.6). In brief, it doesn't work. Timothy Perper (talk) 01:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Me too because that's what it used to be like. There is good news: I reported to Apple about Safari, then I downloaded an update for my computer (max os x 10.4.6) and all this time later, when I open to edit, the drop down now has the proper fonts. *big sigh* -- hope this helps you too. Thanks for your support Franamax and others. (now little red underscores appear when the word is not dictionary -- gah!) Julia Rossi (talk) 02:22, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Now I have a new problem: Save doesn't work
I have to click "Save" about three or four times before it "takes". It just keeps returning the edit box back to me as if I had clicked on "Show preview". Corvus cornix talk  21:06, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Does it actually show you a preview, or just return you to the edit screen? Algebraist 21:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I quit after running into problems yesterday, so I don't know if it's still going to give me problems. It was just returning me to the edit screen.   Corvus cornix  talk  19:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Similar problems, unanswered questions
This reminds me of a peculiar incident back in May; it's both relevant and irrelevant, so I've branched it off into its own sub-section. It was during that long debate on moving the search box to the top, over at the Proposals section of the Pump. When posting in the main section of the discussion, I often could not save until clicking on "preview" (I normally use wikEd's previewing function). If I remember correctly, it blanked out and I had to go back from my browser. I'm not sure what caused it, but I've always suspected a custom-made search bar in the section in question. There simply wasn't anything else that looked like a probable cause to me.

Does anyone know what could cause an effect like this, namely not being able to save unless hitting "preview"? Waltham, The Duke of 23:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Coord not working
I have added a coord tag to the Queensbury, West Yorkshire article with the following contents

coord|53|46|06|N|1|50|43|W|​display=title|region:GB_type:city

However it appears inline rather than as a title. I posted this on the Help desk where Twas Now suggested that it could be an interraction between this and the, and that this would be a good place to post the problem. -- Q Chris (talk) 09:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Fixed.  doesn't work, but   does. Thanks for adding coordinates, and using coord! Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:25, 17 September 2008 (UTC)​

Excuse me...
Can someone please tell me now how to use twinkle now that it is installed, please and thank you. HairyPerry (talk) 15:23, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Did you read the documentation at: WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Twinkle/doc? – ukexpat (talk) 19:57, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

New templates for user page "trophy cases"
Hi all, I just created two new templates, which make it easier to make the sort of "trophy cases" editors often put at the top of their user pages (i.e., the string of icons, Good article icons, etc., linking to articles the editor has worked to improve.

The templates are: FAstar-userpage and GA-userpage. To see how they're used, look at the top section of my user page.

I haven't made many templates with input parameters, so please feel free to fix 'em up in any way you see fit! Hope this is helpful, and thanks to for suggesting that I post here. -Pete (talk) 18:58, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks nice. Needs some documentation though, and maybe put the table in a parent template. — Edokter  •  Talk  • 22:00, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking, and sorry to be late in replying! I'm happy to write up some documentation -- is it possible to point me at a template which does that well, that I could use as an example? I'm not sure what a parent template is. Are you saying I should make more templates to complement it, like trophybox-start and trophybox-end or something like that? -Pete (talk) 07:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Exactly. It is better to hide all the table coding from the user. It can be done with one encapsulating template though, passing the actual templates as parameter (ie. like babel). Documentation isn't hard either; just write up the page on the /doc subpage of the template, then put Documentation on the template's page. — Edokter  •  Talk  • 13:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks for the tips. I think I'd rather use start and end, for aesthetic reasons..I find nested templates pretty tough to read and interpret. Also, I'm guessing the coding is a little easier -- I don't know how to use an indefinite number of parameters in a template. Finally..do you have any idea what's up with the error message you see when viewing these templates? I may contact you directly when I've done some of this work if that's OK. Thanks again for your help. -Pete (talk) 19:20, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, in case it isn't blatantly obvious, this is a total hack job. I just subst'ed a template, and messed around with what I got..I really don't know how a lot of this stuff works, as well as I probably should =) -Pete (talk)

Namespace de-indexing
Please see the proposal at Village_pump_(proposals) to de-index some of the less used talk namespaces from Google.  MBisanz  talk 21:54, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Unwatchedpages rights?
I can understand why Special:Unwatchedpages is currently restricted to admins only - making it public would give vandals a roadmap to easy pickings. But how about giving access to trusted users who are not or do not want to be admins. Either make it a part of rollback rights (given that somone who has rollback rights is likely to be doing some sort of patrolling and Unwachedpages is yet another patrolling tool) or establish its own rights in a similar fashion. Of course anyone with access to it who vandalises an unwatched page should lose those rights. dramatic (talk) 22:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This was proposed recently. You may be interested in that discussion. Mr.Z-man 04:09, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Links provided on edit pages
Why were the links provided at the bottom of edit pages (such as those for redirect, reference listing, etc.) removed? Their removal makes it more difficult to edit. At one point, even the citation link was removed, but quickly put back in its lonesome. How do we get all of them back?  DRosenbach  ( Talk 23:23, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * They're all still available if you select "Wiki markup" from the dropdown box that replaced it. And Redirect and ref tags are in the edit toolbar as well. Mr.Z-man 04:11, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Template help (2)
I created -• which generates a line break followed by a bullet character and non-breaking space. I was wondering if anyone could think of a means of removing the line break when the bulletted item happens to be the first item in a container (such as a table cell). Currently, I switch back and forth between -• and ••. The only other solutions I can think of require that parameters be passed to the template, but I hope to avoid this as it tends to ratchet up the parser node count. Thanks. SharkD (talk) 23:35, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

login page oddness
in case no one has commented on this before: I've noticed that when I get logged out of wikipedia (which happens sporadically), if I happen to get a User Talk message while I'm offline, the 'you have new messages' banner appears on the login page, before I actually click the button to log in. not a huge problem, but it is odd that somehow wikipedia is recognizing my identity and fetching notifications even though I haven't 'officially' told it who I am, and it might be problematic if other information is available before login as well.

this may be browser specific - I'm using Safari on a Mac, which automatically enters my username and pass into the login fields via keychain (though it does not automatically log me in). could someone with more knowledge of the system I have figure out why this is happening, and whether it represents a deeper problem? -- Ludwigs 2 16:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Someone has probably left a message for your IP address, not your username. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 17:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There is a recurring fault, in which you appear to be logged out, but when you go to the login page you are actually logged in - your watchlist, contributions etc tags appear at the top and if you click on them you are logged in. DuncanHill (talk) 17:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * ah, ok. as long as it's a known problem.   -- Ludwigs 2  20:38, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Maybe you're somehow getting a Squid-cached page despite having cookies?  Is this reproducible? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 16:44, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Text rotation
This article uses an interesting technique of achieving vertical-orientation of column headers by replacing text with SVG images. I was wondering if there were a means of achieving this using only CSS? Creating SVG images for each and every heading isn't viable in every circumstance. SharkD (talk) 18:49, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You can use the <tt>writing-mode: tb-lr</tt> CSS argument to render the text like the article in the link. Not too sure if this will work on all browsers though. Thanks AreJay (talk) 19:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see it listed here, so it must be a CSS3 property. I'll test later how broad the support is for it using browsershots.org. SharkD (talk) 20:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Hehehe I read that as "<tt>writing-mode: tl-dr</tt>". Seriously if we have a good reason to use vertical text, and if we must use images for it instead of rarely-supported css, it would be better to generate them in wiki-text than by upload. There are LaTeX extensions/packages which can do exactly this but the <tt>&lt;math&gt;</tt> tag does have them enabled. Talk to the devs. — CharlotteWebb 14:39, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, there is no generally-supported method of rotating content right now except rasterized images. There is a proposal to allow it, but it's still in formative stages. Firefox 3.1 should have at least partial support, but with various limitations, such as performance issues. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 16:49, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * There may be Accessibility issues for users wearing a neck brace (shrug). — CharlotteWebb 17:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Rendering of LaTeX
Hello, I use a lot wikipedia to read math and science related articles and I am a bit disappointed by the poor representation of the mathematical symbols. When there is an article with some equations one reads the text and all of a sudden one finds these HUGE equations, that looks like they have been written by a kid using a giant font... The same is for matrices. On the other hand when the symbols are inserted in the middle of a sentence the symbols are for some stupid reason slightly smaller than the rest of the text, making the whole thing quite ridicolous. The result is that the articles are really difficult to follow because of the way they look. LaTeX is a powerful tool, and I use it a lot for my papers, but with a poor render is of no use! Does somebody think the same? Bye --Squalho (talk) 22:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It could be made smaller but then other people might voice the opposite concern. Part of the problem is that it is impossible to guess the font-size at which regular text appears every person's browser. — CharlotteWebb 14:44, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Important technical question
Does anyone know the link for the image of a PC with a cat in the empty drive bay, caption along the lines of "Everytime someone creates a redirect, Brion kills a server kitten"? I need it to lighten up my otherwise drab and unbearable existence. Since it involves a computer and a dev, I thought this might be the best place to ask, it's probably too tough of an issue for regular users to understand. :) Franamax (talk) 22:38, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Could you be thinking of Image:Server-kitty.jpg? PrimeHunter (talk) 23:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the one, thank you. :) Next donation drive, we should all round up stray cats and courier them to WMF. We need to get this problem with server lag solved!
 * Honest-to-god, I searched for that image for at least an hour. Here's another technical question: the Wikipedia search box sucks!! Franamax (talk) 23:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Would a Commons image be listed in Wikipedia search results? Mr.Z-man 00:09, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * See two sections down. :( --brion (talk) 01:22, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I wonder what he thinks of the picture...? 70.187.176.126 (talk) 03:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm considering getting a poster made for my office. ;) Oh wait, we have an open space plan, I don't *have* an office. :( --brion (talk) 18:13, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * So put it on the ceiling. 70.187.176.126 (talk) 05:25, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey, don't be using colour toner to print that image! Do you know how much that costs? Where's the board members? Let's get some discipline at this org. Anyway Brion, open plan means you already know about all the conspiracies against you. :) And everyone else's medical problems and disobedient children too! :( Franamax (talk) 10:18, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The caption would be much more sensible if it actually looked like a server. I mean, floppy drives, people?  On the other hand, it might be harder to fit a kitten in a 1U server . . . —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 16:52, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Special:Search does not tell people how to correctly search for images
Please see the main search page at Special:Search. A previous talk section asked whether Commons images are found with the search engine. I decided to test this and found that the search engine does not find Commons images even though those Commons images show up on Wikipedia.

There is a box to check off for "images," but there is nothing about the fact that this search does not search most images. Most images come from the Commons nowadays, I believe.

Where is the talk page for Special:Search? Can an admin put a link to the talk page from Special:Search? --Timeshifter (talk) 00:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The base issue you refer to is 5101; I've added a comment on the current state of the issue there. Special pages do not really have talk pages as such, but Wikipedia talk:Searching may or may not be an appropriate place for some non-technical-specific discussion. --brion (talk) 01:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I read 5101 and all the comments. As a test I searched with the Commons sidebar search and found an image right away. Maybe a link to commons:Special:Search could be added to Wikipedia's Special:Search? Along with a sentence explaining that many of the images found in Wikipedia pages can only be searched for via the Commons search engine. Can any admin do this? This may be an interim solution until the Wikipedia search engine is adjusted to search Commons images also. Maybe with a checkbox for "Commons images." --Timeshifter (talk) 04:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Such text could be added to MediaWiki:Searchresulttext. --brion (talk) 18:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks again. I copied this thread to the talk page for it, MediaWiki talk:Searchresulttext. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I very much like the idea of adding a "Commons Image" tick box to advanced search. This would entail a search in a cross-wiki db, which evidently can be done, since commons:Image is natively included here. The complication seems to be double results when there is a local image (or talk) page - and this could be either lived with if you ticked both boxes or done internally with "delete from <commons_result> where <img_name> in (select <lang:img_name> from <lang:img_results>)" (or some such, that may be a little Sybase-y). In any case, if people are clicking on the Image tick-box in advanced search, they pretty much wish to search the entire image namespace, which for en:wiki is (en U commons). Franamax (talk) 10:56, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * David Göthberg is an admin, and replied at MediaWiki talk:Searchresulttext. He is willing to include some how-to info at Special:Search if someone can write it up. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:01, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Help!
I would like to know how to make the following template Wikipedia:WikiProject Software/Announcement-u always appear on the bottom of the talk page? --<em style="font-family:Monotype Corsiva;font-size:12pt;color:#E49B0F"> Tyw7, Leading Innovations ‍ ‍‍ (Talk  ●  Contributions) 10:54, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You wanted the whole template as well as the templates that it's calling to appear at the bottom of the talk page? You could use the <tt>position: absolute; bottom: 1.2em;</tt> (might have to play around with the actual positioning value) CSS argument, but there should be a good reason why the template needs to be located at the bottom of a talk page.  Thanks AreJay (talk) 17:06, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Something weird in diffs
I made this revert -. It clearly shows that I was removing "example.com". The editor who made the edit undid my revert with this -. It clearly shows that what he's undoing is a link to www.bwvh.org. That's not the link I removed. Unless the undo was just a typed in edit summary and not really an "undo" how could he have "undone" an edit I didn't make? Corvus cornix talk  20:44, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You can click "undo" and then change the contents of the edit box before saving, while keeping the automatic edit summary. I guess that happened here. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:25, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, of course, I didn't think of that.  Corvus cornix  talk  21:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That would be the point where Goldsmith285 finally remembered to change the placeholder url that appears when you click the 4th toolbar button (the one which inserts <tt>&#91;http&#58;//www.example.com link title&#93;</tt>). I don't use the toolbar but maybe those who do would find a prompt box more helpful? — CharlotteWebb 15:01, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism to some of the Greek Gods & Goddesses
I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this. Several of the articles on Greek Gods & Goddesses have been vandalised with "YOU ARE A ZEUS!!!!" added to the top. Some examples are Hera, Hestia and Demeter. There may be others. I've tried to correct this but I've failed, so it must be in a template somewhere which I can't find. Can somebody please help? Thanks! --TrogWoolley (talk) 10:37, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry! My browser went funny and I've posted my topic twice. --TrogWoolley (talk) 10:38, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

✅ Vandalism removed by various users. - X201 (talk) 10:48, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ a bit pre-emptive on previous edit. There was other vandalism but the Zues vandalism was on the actual Diety template. Now cleared. - X201 (talk) 10:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

E-mail user broken
I have enabled e-mail, and have used Special:E-mailuser twice. However, everone tells me that they cannot e-mail me for some reason. Help? Your friend Eddy of the wiki [citation needed] 19:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't send you emails either: "This user has not specified a valid e-mail address, or has chosen not to receive e-mail from other users." Are you sure you've set an email address? Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 19:59, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Absolutely positively. In fact, this is a copy of my Preferences up to the e- mail field:

Username: Editorofthewiki User ID: 6,114,512 Member of groups: Autoconfirmed users, Rollbackers, Users (User group rights) Number of edits: 11,694 Global account status: All in order! Your account is active on 35 project sites. (Manage your global account) E-mail (optional)* editorofthewiki@yahoo.com Your friend Eddy of the wiki [citation needed] 20:04, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Check at the bottom of the page, under the E-mail heading. If you don't have the "Enable e-mail from other users" box checked, it doesn't matter what address you have in there. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 20:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay. Thanks. Your friend Eddy of the wiki [citation needed] 20:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Resolved now? If it's resolved then consider marking it as such with resolved :) Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 21:28, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Is there a way to search the archives of a talk page?
The archived talk pages for Wikipedia policies are extremely long and split in many sub-pages. Is there a way to search just the archives sub-pages of a given talk page? Thanks, VasileGaburici (talk) 23:51, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Google custom, examples in the documentation. Preview it in your sandbox for easy use. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:30, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Half image
Is anyone other than me getting only half of Image:Fdr-memorial.jpg? Does anyone know why? I've tried purging both the commons cache and my browser cache, to no avail. Chick Bowen 04:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems that that is all of the image there is, it is probably an error in the file. An administrator might want to check the deleted history of the image before it was moved to commons to see if that copy is free of errors. - Icewedge (talk) 04:54, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, I should have thought of that. Yes, the deleted version was fine, and I've reuploaded it over the commons version--seems to be fixed.  Thanks for your help. Chick Bowen 04:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Logging out after 30 days feature
Hello, this post is about the Wikipedia feature that logs out registered users after 30 days. I apologize if this question has been asked before. I checked the main FAQ and the technical FAQ, but did not find anything about it. Also, the archives are simply too large to check more than a few archives back. Anyway, I was wondering if it would be possible to change this feature so that it only logs users out after 30 days of either not visiting or editing Wikipedia (I say "either" because it might be easier to implement one versus the other). If there is a concern that someone could take over an account permanently as long as he or she visits or edits every 30 days, then perhaps the site could log you out no matter what after somewhere between 90 to 150 days.

If this is not feasible, then perhaps the time before being logged out could be increased to 60 or 90 days. While having to enter a single password once a month is a very small burden, with all of the other passwords I have to enter on other websites, it adds up. Also, while I have not written down when Wikipedia logs me out and cannot be certain, I think that it may be logging me out every two weeks or so rather than every 30 days. I made a note that it logged me out today and I'll see when it happens next.

Finally, if no one can tell that the account has been taken over, then the impersonator is probably doing a decent job (if a takeover is suspected, then the account can be blocked until the person's identity is confirmed, or whatever the current policy on such things is). I do not see much of a problem, other than the possibility of misplaced blame, as long as the account does not have bureaucrat status or higher (perhaps special requirements could be made of those accounts, although I think that the danger is small because they make up so small of a percentage of accounts). Admins can do significant damage, but almost all of it is easily and quickly fixed by other admins. Also, once the impostor has revealed him or herself by causing damage, then he or she can be quickly blocked. For these reasons, I see little danger in either increasing the amount of time before being logged out to 60 or 90 days or only logging out if the account has been inactive for 30 days, with the option of forced logout after 90 to 150 days regardless of activity.

I edit sporadically these days, so it may take a while for me to reply to any responses. Thanks, Kjkolb (talk) 06:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It really shouldn't be a horrible pain for you to have to log in once a month. You could try manually changing your cookie settings to make the cookie last longer, if you like. --brion (talk) 18:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Kjkolb: I think 30 days is about right. With 90 days you would only need to use your password four times a year, I think many users will forget their password if they only get to use it that seldom.
 * And if you forget to log out of a computer, say at your friends house, and the cookie is invalidated after 30 days, then there is a decent chance that your friend will not even discover that his browser is logged in to Wikipedia before the cookie is too old.
 * Of course, for a public computer like at a school then 30 days is way too much. But you should not click the "Remember me" option when at a public computer. Well, you shouldn't even use that option at a friends house. And it can be wise to use a secondary account when not at home. It is allowed and even recommended to create "sockpuppet" accounts for this reason. (Choose a similar name and link between then so people know it is the same person.)
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 18:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally, I view forced timeouts of cookies as saying "Screw you, occasional visitor!" I happen to visit Wikipedia every day, but there are other sites with forced timeouts that I don't.  What inevitably happens is that when I happen to visit the site, I've been logged out, and have to try to figure out what my password was, often using the password reset process (since I use a different password for unrelated sites).  More than once I've decided that it wasn't worth the effort to remember or reset my password, for the little post I was going to make.  This isn't logging in once a month, so much as logging in every time I use the site. I would like to be logged in until I decide to log out.  If someone compromises my account, this can probably be detected and rectified quickly.  At worst I'll lose some unprivileged account on a website I (in most cases) don't really care much about, in the extremely marginally likely event that anyone cares enough to steal it.  More likely, I'll be able to prove my identity and recover it, to no one's loss at all. This isn't a banking site here, it's just some website, where moreover even the privileged accounts can't do anything that's not easily reversible.  When convenience and security are at odds, the balance should tilt heavily toward convenience for us.  Even if it's technically possible to fiddle around with your cookies, and I'm sure I could figure it out given twenty minutes, it's kind of silly to say that it's okay to inconvenience users because they can work around it by . . . hmm, inconveniencing themselves to figure out how to manually adjust cookies.  If anything, it's the security nuts who should be told to adjust their cookies manually. Are there any justifications other than security for this behavior? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 16:59, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That's pretty much it. If we were a bank we'd be logging you out after 10 minutes like assholes, though, not after a month. :) --brion (talk) 20:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * A month is still every visit for me to some of the smaller domains. I have to log back in on mediawiki.org like every third time I want to make an edit.  If I weren't so entrenched in the community here and didn't remember my password very clearly, I could easily see myself just not bothering.  As I said, I have chosen not to bother on other sites that do this, because it's too much of a pain to log back in all the time.  The risk to the project here is really very marginal. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 16:37, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, logging out after 30 days is even more lame as a security measure these days as most browsers have features that save entered forms data. And that data isn't going to expire even in one year's time. I personally disabled these feature on my PC, but whenever you use an internet cafe, or edit from work, or from friends, you can't be sure that their browser won't save your password, even if everyone's logged out after 3 minutes. Max S em(Han shot first!) 16:52, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that auto-logouts are highly annoying. A more user-friendly alternative would be an option to invalidate cookies stored on other computers (just encrypt a date into the cookie). Cacycle (talk) 03:53, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * 30 days is wrong for all purposes: anything longer than "session cookie" is too long for a public computer, and anything shorter than "indefinite" is too short for a private computer. --Carnildo (talk) 03:57, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Deleting an undead "image"
This is odd. I came across this: Image:Us county list.txt. A media file with a .txt extension? And orphaned, to boot? I was going to speedy delete tag it under Images and Media SD criterion #10: "Useless media files. Files uploaded that are neither image, sound, nor video files (e.g. .doc, .pdf, or .xls files) which are not used in any article and have no foreseeable encyclopedic use." So far, so good. But the page isn't really there. I see a "create this page" tab on the image page, like for Commons images. Poking in the database (I have the July 28 dump), I see there is a row for Us_county_list.txt in the "image" table, but nothing for that title in the "page" table. So how to I get this purged?


 * It's a perfectly ordinary file (a text file, in this case) with no description page. If you think it's useless, add a suitable deletion tag. --Carnildo (talk) 04:18, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It was mentioned that it'd been listed for deletion here, so it looks like it was deleted but the entry in the "image" table stayed behind. Now it acts like a Commons file even though there's no file on Commons by this name. So I created the WP page and tagged it for deletion again; maybe it will work this time. -- Ja Ga  talk  04:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There are no upload log entries for such a file. It was probably just an arbitrary page created in the Image: namespace. --Splarka (rant) 08:03, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Oop, or maybe it is so old, that it predates the restriction against .txt uploads and the upload log. --Splarka (rant) 08:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is (was) an old file: the only entry in the (deleted) file history is from 2003 by Conversion script, with the summary "(recovered file, missing upload log entry)". —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:03, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Friendly / Twinkle
Hello. I recently translated friendly and twinkle into Romanian, but when the script wants to post the edit (for the both scripts), FireBug says:

form is null if( !tagRe.exec( form.wpTextbox1.value ) ) {

The scripts are here: ro:User:Firilacroco/friendly.js and ro:User:Firilacroco/twinkle.js, but I think that the problem isn't here ... it's somewhere else. I installed this script on Wikia and it work fine.

Thank you in advance.  Daniel  Message 11:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

County template help
County templates throughout the USA are based on US county navigation box, which contains coding to wikilink the county seat: for example, for Logan County, Ohio, you simply type Ohio in the "state" line and Bellefontaine in the "county" line, and the finished result is a wikilink to Bellefontaine, Ohio. Seattle, Washington was just moved to Seattle after discussion on the talk page, but I don't know any way to cause the template to stop linking to Seattle, Washington; the same problem happens with Chicago on Cook County, Illinois. Could someone write code to get around this, perhaps an optional feature to make it avoid adding the state name to the link? The template is protected, so if you write the code, tell me and I'll add it. Nyttend (talk) 20:34, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with the current situation? The link goes via a redirect, but that's one of the things redirects are for. Algebraist 20:38, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Problem adding merge template
Try as I might, I can't figure how to put merge templates on (protected) Infobox Single and Infobox Song. Please do so, so I can see how you managed it. I'll follow up on their talk pages, confirming that it was done at my request. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:51, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Warn when blank lines in ref tag to help with unclosed refs?
Is a blank line (two consecutive newlines with only optional whitespace between them) uncommon enough inside <tt> </tt> tags? That is a very confusing situation for our less experienced editors. Would someone who has some experience checking bugzilla see if this request is already in there? Thank you. Orange Knight of Passion (talk) 23:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not just less experienced editors who find the unclosed ref situation confusing at times! I have no technical knowledge, but I do think anything which helps editors avoid making this very easy (and disruptive) mistake is to be encouraged. DuncanHill (talk) 23:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * How about a, or , or even doesn't work, of course; it just makes one reference with the text " ... ". If you really need something like this, for example when you have a footnote that needs a ref, you can work around it using the {{#tag magic word: {{#tag:ref|This is a footnote with a ref. |group=n}} Anomie⚔ 11:45, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

This should finally be more or less fixed in {{rev|40998}} and {{rev|40999}}, if those don't get reverted. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 17:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Won't that fail if the article contains ? Anomie⚔ 22:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Fail in what fashion? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 15:55, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * In the fashion of "give a 'Closing &lt;/ref&gt; missing for &lt;ref&gt; tag' error whenever an article contains one of those". Consider for example a page containing the following valid wikitext:  Your inner regex will get the first ref tag but not the second, and then your outer regex will spot the   and give the error.
 * Also, I'm not sure it'll work right for  either. In that case, the inner regex might eat the whole   and make it not give the error when it should. Anomie⚔ 17:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, crap. I didn't look at the wider context, it's only scanning for a "<ref" inside the body of another ref. Sorry. The second (false negative) issue does exist, though. Anomie⚔ 16:20, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I know that there are plenty of possible false negatives. As long as there are no false positives, as far as I'm concerned, it's okay for now.  Patches are appreciated and will be reviewed (eventually . . .) if you point me to them. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:26, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

History preferences
Is there a reason that my preferences to the number of edit lines displayed in a page history doesn't also apply to my contributions list (or to whatlinkshere)? - jc37 11:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Probably just a software thing; if you submit a patch then it could be addressed, perhaps. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 19:34, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it merely be a case of calling the same preferences classes that page history does? (In other words, to copy a section of code to another section? : ) - jc37 08:27, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki message based on editor, rather than page being edited
I have little to no experience in the MediaWiki namespace, but I just noticed that this: MediaWiki:Editnotice-0-Sarah Palin causes the edit window to look like this: .

It got me to thinking; is there a way to put a custom notice on the edit window of any page being edited, based on the editor, rather than the page? I'm just starting to think about this, so don't take the following example as a proposal, or even as a good idea (it probably isn't), just as a technical example so you know what I mean. Suppose I was under a civility parole; would it be technically possible to have MediaWiki post a message like "Remember, Barneca, be civil!" every time I edited a page? Or, more realistically, if IP 12.34.56.78 has been schoolblocked many times, would it be possible for MediaWiki to post a message similar to repeatvandal at the top of any page the IP tries to edit? --barneca (talk) 16:06, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * This is related to a perennial proposal, see Village pump (technical)/Archive 22. It probably will not be enabled due to the abuse potential (especially in the MediaWiki namespace where, as I understand it, certain pages are not limited to what is on the html tag whitelist in sanitizer.php—of course there's always javascript pages where the possibilities are limitless but unscrupulous edits there at least have a chance of being reverted before everybody's browser cache expires). — CharlotteWebb 17:16, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not really related to CURRENTUSER, because the proposed text is in the edit window, not the rendered article. We can put up custom messages just fine for logged-in users as long as they aren't parsed as part of the article text.  We do it for the new messages thing, for instance.  Whether this would be useful is dubious, but it could certainly be done. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 15:52, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The trouble with me asking questions at VPT is that usually the answers go over my head. Charlotte, thanks for the reply and the link to an older discussion, I sort of understand. Now that I know it's perennial, maybe I'll hunt through the archives.
 * Simetrical, the new messages bar is what I was thinking about; I always thought the new messages bar came from some black box "deeper down in the code" than the MediaWiki stuff you and I can change, but after seeing the page-specific edit notice at Sarah Palin, I started wondering if that kind of thing could be effected in MediaWiki space too. The idea being, that an admin with access to MediaWiki space could decide to put a message at the top of a specific account or IP's edit window. --barneca (talk) 21:43, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * As I say, it could be done, if it were deemed useful enough and someone were willing to write the code. I'm skeptical about the likelihood of that happening, though. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:27, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Getting monobook script to avoid image links
I have a monobook script that several people use. It provides one-click functions like auditing dates on a page so that they are all in dmy format or all in mdy format. A known false positive is that can encounters things like a [date in an image title. I asked the good people at [[Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive_19#Highlight_image_links|the AWB talk page]] and found that there is a method of getting AWB script to avoid image links. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know of a method for monobook script other than to suggest it might be possible. This issue is not, of course, unique to my script. Can anybody here provide any help? Lightmouse (talk) 10:53, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * A very simple way would be to use something like this: (untested, but should work)


 * It simply replaces every instance of "Image:..." with a unique token, and then replaces that token with the original text at the end. Just make sure not to save the page if the final line was never reached, or you'll end up with �s all over the place. Anomie⚔ 12:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Just an idea, what I've done before for something like this, is have the javascript corrupt the edit token &lt;input&gt; value temporarily, and then fix it when done, like by appending a tilde. This prevents the page being accidentally saved while in a transitory state. Note also this works if you leave the page (browser navigation) and come back, as form inputs remember changes, even from javascript. --Splarka (rant) 07:45, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That's a good idea. I mainly use this technique in my bot, and there the automatic change from U+0002/U+0003 to U+FFFD makes the  check in the edit API fail. Anomie⚔ 15:16, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the rapid and detailed response. I am in meetings today but will try it on the script and let you know. Lightmouse (talk) 12:30, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I tried it but it did not work. I tested it on the image in User:Lightmouse/sandbox. You can see my attempt and revert in the history of User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/script.js. What am I doing wrong? Lightmouse (talk) 19:22, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Could be my bug, I forgot a "wikitext=" (corrected above now). If that doesn't do it, I'll take a closer look later on this evening. Anomie⚔ 20:52, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Some of both, actually. Try making this change . Anomie⚔ 00:40, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I have only done one test so far but it seems to work! You have been very helpful. I see that it tests for 'image'. Can it be extended to references by testing for 'title=' and 'url=' and also for weblinks by testing for http?. Lightmouse (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Quality control
What are Wikipedia's main quality control measures/procedures/systems?

The Transhumanist 21:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Other people.  Corvus cornix  talk  22:41, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * ...and not doing people's homework for them. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Excluding userpages from category through template
Template underconstruction puts pages in Category:Articles actively undergoing construction. Is there a way to automatically exclude userpages from that category? True, userpages shouldn't have that template in the first place, but that seems to be a lost battle. Garion96 (talk) 22:19, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * done. You could probably also do a different category for each namespace, or just remove it from all but the main namespace. --Splarka (rant) 08:01, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that worked great! Garion96 (talk) 18:46, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Multi-paragraph quotations
I am all for replacing cquote with tags in articles, but the case of 1928 Thames flood puzzles me. I cannot replicate the effect of multiple paragraphs inside the tags; using  results in an unnatural appearance, with either no lines or entire empty lines between the paragraphs. Is there any work-around for this? Waltham, The Duke of 00:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Remarkable scenes were witnessed all along the Embankment. At the Houses of Parliament the water "cataracted" over the parapet into the open space at the foot of Big Ben. The floods penetrated into Old Palace Yard, which shortly after one o'clock was about a foot under water in parts. Flooding was worst at Charing Cross and Waterloo bridges, where the river sweeps round. Water poured over the Embankment, and the road was covered in a depth of several inches. At intervals along the Embankment stood tramcars derelict and deserted. Later attempts were made to tow them through the floods by means of motor-lorries. Taxicabs and motor-cars splashed along the far side of the road. The public subway, Westminster Bridge, was flooded to a depth of four feet. There were miniature waterfalls at Cleopatra's Needle and the Royal Air Force Memorial, and the training ship President floated at street level.

Have you tried simply inserting multiple paragraphs inside the tag as per above? You can use &lt;p&gt; in wikicode. --Splarka (rant) 08:05, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I wasn't aware of this tag. Thanks a lot; it's just what I needed.
 * I think there should be some kind of documentation on blockquote; all I have found so far is some notes on the quotation templates' pages, which shouldn't be used in articles but, as it happens, are very common in the mainspace. It seems to me that editors don't see blockquote as an attractive choice compared with the familiar style and more impressive visual output of templates. Waltham, The Duke of 10:28, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps the solution is to rewrite the templates, so that they use a suitably-styled blockquote, instead of a layout table? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:45, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

enlarging the font of gileki wikipedia
hi, i am Amin Sanaei, gileki wikipedia adminstorator. in gileki wikipedia, font of pages is very small and people can not read it!. if anbody can change it, please do that. the largest of font of farsi wikipedia is good for our gileki wikipedia. i try to do that but can not do that!.AminSanaei (talk) 06:30, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * They're doing it via the site-wide CSS. If you copy that to your Monobook.css it should work (although you don't need all of it). You can test it in your personal CSS first, too. --Splarka (rant) 08:16, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * hi agane, i copy farsi wikipedia monobook.css to gileki wikipedia monobook.css  but that dont work!!! what can i do?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by AminSanaei (talk • contribs) 04:35, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * oh sorry, thank you--AminSanaei (talk) 04:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

please help me. i horied--AminSanaei (talk) 05:27, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Problem while using Firefox on Wiki
Every so often, while looking on Wikipedia using Firefox, I get this message:

"A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete.

Script: chrome://global/content/bindings/browser.xml:0"

What does this mean? D.M.N. (talk) 09:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It means a script is breaking. I've made a change to your monobook.js. Drop me a line if it doesn't work - the next step is to start disabling scripts and extensions to see what's breaking. -- zzuuzz (talk) 14:05, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Not breaking (if it was breaking it would stop executing and add a message to the error console), just taking "too long" to run. You can adjust the time limit in the Firefox config, to make these warnings appear less often or not at all. On the other hand if you get caught in an infinite loop or something you would have to wait longer to regain control of the browser. — CharlotteWebb 17:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

"Internal error"
I keep receiving messages entitled "Internal Error" when I try to edit; it often takes several times of clicking "Save page" for the edit to be saved. Here's the message that I received when trying to edit Cedar Rapids, Nebraska:

Internal error [this is the page header, similar in size to the name of the page]

Unable to store text to external storage

Backtrace:


 * 1) 0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Revision.php(724): ExternalStore::randomInsert('}X?n?F?????????...')


 * 1) 1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Article.php(1501): Revision->insertOn(Object(DatabaseMysql))


 * 1) 2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Article.php(1355): Article->doEdit('{{Infobox Settl...', '[[2000 United S...', 98)


 * 1) 3 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/EditPage.php(1013): Article->updateArticle('{{Infobox Settl...', '[[2000 United S...', false, true, false, '')


 * 1) 4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/EditPage.php(2366): EditPage->internalAttemptSave(false, false)


 * 1) 5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/EditPage.php(454): EditPage->attemptSave


 * 1) 6 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/EditPage.php(339): EditPage->edit


 * 1) 7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Wiki.php(494): EditPage->submit


 * 1) 8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Wiki.php(59): MediaWiki->performAction(Object(OutputPage), Object(Article), Object(Title), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))


 * 1) 9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/index.php(93): MediaWiki->initialize(Object(Title), Object(Article), Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))


 * 1) 10 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')


 * 1) 11 {main}

Nyttend (talk) 13:59, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm having this problem too, here, on my talk, and elsewhere. Stifle (talk) 14:04, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I am getting this too, on William Tubman. DuncanHill (talk) 14:05, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm getting that too. First time I've seen it (on Wikipedia)! Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 14:08, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * +1.--Kozuch (talk) 14:14, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Me too =Nichalp   «Talk»=  14:18, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

See above. MER-C 14:16, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

The report looks like this: Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)&action=submit, from 85.207.244.160 via knsq7.knams.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE21) to 91.198.174.14 (91.198.174.14) Error: ERR_READ_TIMEOUT, errno [No Error] at Sat, 20 Sep 2008 14:15:41 GMT --Kozuch (talk) 14:22, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Everything is back to normal for me again. It's faster, too; I'm guessing it's because most people were getting the errors and became frustrated so they haven't edited in the past few minutes :) Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 14:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The errors were due to the slowness. The core master server was bogged down with Special:Export queries, causing it to become slow, and then the connection limit was hit on the external storage servers, due to PHP threads holding a connection open while waiting for the core master. I fixed the master, and the site went back to normal within a few minutes. -- Tim Starling (talk) 16:13, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Logs in XML format
Hi all! Is there any way of getting the logs at Special:Log in XML format? Yours, Fernetic (talk) 15:35, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=logevents&format=xml - See mw:API:Query - Lists for more information. Mr.Z-man 16:56, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Template oddity
Is Template:Abkhazia-stub meant to include the stuff about TfD when it displays on an article page? DuncanHill (talk) 20:18, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * While it is up for deletion, yes. This one is unusual in that the discussion (perm) has gone on long past the 7 day minimum. --Splarka (rant) 20:51, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I just hadn't seen that happening before. DuncanHill (talk) 20:53, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I have shortened the transcluded text so it now takes up one line instead of four ugly lines on my screen, and reminds more of Tfd. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:02, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Oops. My intention was to shorten the displayed text on articles but it also shortened the displayed text on the nominated template. I selfreverted for now but I still think the article display should be shorter. I'm not much of a template coder. Can somebody fix this by checking for namespace or something? PrimeHunter (talk) 01:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Unexpected < operator
Can someone look at Sticker, Cornwall and see what is wrong with it please? DuncanHill (talk) 20:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks ok to me...what seems to be the problem? AreJay (talk) 21:42, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It got fixed. Calvin 1998 (t·c) 21:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Also look at Boumba Bek National Park and Nki National Park. What is the problem? Your friend Eddy of the wiki [citation needed] 21:45, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * In the template you need to set long_seconds & lat_seconds to some valid numeric value to avoid the error. I have set them to zero and that fixes the problem. Keith D (talk) 22:33, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

template with a mind of its own
Hello - this Wikiproject user template could use some help:

User WikiProject Alternative Views

It seems to have a mind of its own - I've viewed it in several different browsers and it's different in each one. No matter where it's placed on a page, it moves to the far right, out of sequence with the other userboxes nearby, or sometimes creates a new column for itself.

I tried comparing it to other WikiProject templates but I wasn't able to figure out why that's happening. If anyone here could help with this, that would be much appreciated - thanks! --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 07:22, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, you wanted "Alternative Views"; that's what you're getting! ;-) Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Good one, you cracked me up!


 * I didn't make the template, I just noticed the problem with it and since it's used in various places it would be good if we could fix it. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 16:50, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Works just fine for me in Safari 3 and Firefox 2, both on a Mac. Nothing in the code suggests it would be floating on its own. Your userpage looks odd in Firefox (compared to Safari), but I'd wager it's more User WPMed's fault than the Alt View userbox. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 16:56, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Most userboxen actually are floated left. That one wasn't for some reason; I've fixed that, does it work for you now? Anomie⚔ 17:02, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Works fine for me in FF3 and Konqueror (under Ubuntu Hardy); however, it does still seem to be floating right in IE6 under XP. I'm looking at this userpage where both this userbox and another look to be drifting right. AmiDaniel (talk) 17:50, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Would you mind posting a screenshot? They look fine in IE6 under Wine here, although some of the other formatting there is screwed up. Also fine for me in FF3 Linux and Safari 3.1.2 in Wine, FWIW. Anomie⚔ 20:15, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Update: This now seems to be working OK in Safari 3 and Firefox 3. But to get it to work in Firefox, I had to add the following between each three-wide row of wikiproject userboxes:      -- I don't understand why this was needed but it seems to have made the difference.

Thank you all for your help with this. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 07:37, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Strange error
What does all this mean? Carcharoth (talk) 07:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Unable to store text to external storage

Backtrace:


 * 1) 0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Revision.php(724): ExternalStore::randomInsert('mUMo?6?????????...')
 * 2) 1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Article.php(1501): Revision->insertOn(Object(DatabaseMysql))
 * 3) 2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Article.php(1355): Article->doEdit('Civil is someth...', 'add [[:Category...', 98)
 * 4) 3 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/EditPage.php(1013): Article->updateArticle('Civil is someth...', 'add [[:Category...', false, true, false, '')
 * 5) 4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/EditPage.php(2366): EditPage->internalAttemptSave(false, false)
 * 6) 5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/EditPage.php(454): EditPage->attemptSave
 * 7) 6 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/EditPage.php(339): EditPage->edit
 * 8) 7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Wiki.php(494): EditPage->submit
 * 9) 8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Wiki.php(59): MediaWiki->performAction(Object(OutputPage), Object(Article), Object(Title), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
 * 10) 9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/index.php(93): MediaWiki->initialize(Object(Title), Object(Article), Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
 * 11) 10 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')
 * 12) 11 {main}

[END QUOTE]


 * I've just got the same while trying to first rollback, then undo this edit. D.M.N. (talk) 13:33, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yep, just had the same error when trying to create a new article too.  Lugnuts  (talk) 13:43, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I also had several errors of the same kind when deleting, editing or moving, I saved one message here. And two trying to edit this page.... Cenarium  Talk  13:45, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I strongly suspect this is related to bug 15656, in which duplicates are spammed over page histories. Most of the diffs are to do with II MusLiM HyBRiD II, who just complained about the above problem. MER-C 13:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There's been a whole bunch of random RC feed dropouts too. MER-C 13:53, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * (6th try at posting this). Another pile of duplicate spam:   . My guess for the cause is the mechanism for the storage of the actual revision text is broken. Sometimes the front end tries multiple times resulting in the duplicate revisions and other times it spews the "Unable to store text to external storage" error. MER-C 14:12, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

It's a global error - if you refresh recent changes when it happens, nothing else has gotten through. --NE2 13:54, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

See bug 15657. MER-C 14:19, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I was getting this on the English, French, and Chinese Wikisources this morning. Definitely not a local issue.. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 16:58, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * All Wikimedia wikis run the exact same version of the software. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 17:00, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

So Yeah, thanks for Answering my question on my talk page. I just got on, after 5 hours of football practice. So, erm, is the bug fixed? O.o and, are you saying that most of these changes that we made, had to do with me too? O.o II MusLiM HyBRiD II  18:31, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Another Bug?? O.O
Well, this never ever happened to me before. If i clicked rollback more than 1 time, it would show on the history part of the article, thats its been reverted by me, once. But earlier today and no, i found this strange thing. Click the Link Below. :)

Click Me Click Me Too

So, Yeah, Thanks II MusLiM HyBRiD II  19:15, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There is a triple by RyRy in the history of John Legend: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Legend&diff=239831003&oldid=239830976, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Legend&diff=next&oldid=239831003, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Legend&diff=next&oldid=239831004. Any higher? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:33, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Answering my own question, the second image by II MusLiM HyBRiD II shows the same edit by 76.90.190.119 on Neptune registered a total of 4 times. The 3 diffs between the 4 revisions are empty. If the IP actually clicked save 4 times then the last 3 should have been discarded as null edits. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Two reported from it.wikipedia: . I was also able to replicate this by clicking rollback a lot simultaneously (3 tries) on test.wikipedia: . --Splarka (rant) 00:23, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Reverts are happening at the same time, but by different users
I was patrolling the RC, and I noticed that on a couple reverts, for instance on the United States Army history, ClueBot reverted a vandal, but very shortly after, at approximately 21:47 UTC, Iridescent reverted the same edit restoring the same amount of characters deleted (62,664). It is sort of related to the post by User:II MusLiM HyBRiD II three comments above, but I wonder how this can be fixed. Schfifty Three  21:53, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm getting something related: four rollbacks for one vandalism revert.  All are null except one. A bug or a feature?  Antandrus  (talk) 02:27, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Happening all over: ]. Kww (talk) 02:56, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * bug 15656. MER-C 03:39, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Two of the null reverts were at 02:24:40 and the other two were at 02:24:41 which almost eliminates the possibility of oversighted edits in-between. Just curious, how many times did you actually click the revert button? — CharlotteWebb 08:53, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, my post that are 3 comments above, i clicked the articles i was reverting, atleast 3 times, since my internet connection either lost connection or lagged heavily. So yeah. Then it showed my edit 3 times on the history page. This never happened before. and i checked the bug report, and its fixed. :] So Thanks everyone II MusLiM HyBRiD II  12:12, 21 September 2008 (UTC)