Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 80

Template /doc differs when the /doc-page is transcluded into main template-page
unichar. I created a quite elaborate template (using sub-templates and calculations). Workings are OK. Then I documented it with examples on the regular /doc subpage. Now the examples on the regular Template:unichar/doc page itself look OK, but when that same /doc page is transcluded into the main Template-page unichar (having the green Document background, etc., all regular), then the examples don't show up well. Diff: the first example reads OK: On the main Template page, it says: The 0000 indicates that a hex2dec calculation variable did not end up well in a subtemplate. I tried purging every page I touched, waiting one whole hour (wow), and re-sandboxed the whole thing. The new sandbox ended up correct after a while, but I cannot reproduce it for real. This good sandbox is on my User:DePiep page, I'll put it on top. Anyone an idea? Need more sandboxes? -DePiep (talk) 19:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * U+00A9 &#xa9; . (OK)
 * U+00A9  . (Wrrong)

Template /doc does not transclude correct (reprhrase)
unichar. The regular /doc page shows examples OK, but when transcluded onto main Template-page, the examples are broken. See /doc header with good/bad example. I did purge, sandbox (went ok, see my Userpage), checked newPP limits (serious, but under 50%). -DePiep (talk) 07:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It looks like it is due to the expansion depth limit.--Patrick (talk) 08:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Good hint. Then shouldn't there be the red error message "Expansion depth limit exceeded", or some message in the page source HTML-code? -DePiep (talk) 08:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That explained it. Still missed the error message. I moved the deep hex2decimal calculation hex2dec into the higher template, and that did it. Thanx, Patrick. -DePiep (talk) 09:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You are welcome. Unfortunately the count or error message is not in the "NewPP limit report" or elsewhere in the html source. On expansion of a template etc. or substitution of a template parameter, if the limit has been exceeded, the name of the template etc. or template parameter is replaced by, for example   is replaced by  . Often that shows up, but not if that wikitext is just used in a condition, or in the case of a template parameter with a default.--Patrick (talk) 10:01, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I get it. I added the m:-link to my own helps list, and it now is part of my intuition (rational suspicion), which is OK for now. -DePiep (talk) 10:08, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Edits
Need someone to move the user edits from User:Shannon1/usurped3 to User:Shannon1. Still facing a lot of problems with that. Brought it up a few times but never got any help as I am not an admin. Shannon talk   contribs  05:23, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing you mean, that account has only three edits and those are only to your user/talk pages. Does this really need doing?--Salix (talk): 07:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Contributions histories cannot be merged. – xeno talk 18:23, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Job queue length and template transclusions
That old problem again. I created the category Category:Thai film stubs some days ago, after adding the relevant stub tag to 60+ film articles. However, the category only has two articles at the moment while the system refreshes. And there are some massive lags in some page moves I've done, where I've updated the navigation templates on the article with the new article title. Can anything be done about this?  Lugnuts  (talk) 08:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Next time create and add the category prior to tagging! =] – xeno talk 18:22, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Can't find desysopping dates
Several different times, I've tried to find logs for individuals being desysopped, but I don't remember ever being able to find any. For example, let's look at Herostratus — his log shows him creating the account, becoming an admin, having offensive revisions being deleted, being blocked and unblocking himself, and having user rights added, but I can't find anything about him being desysopped. FYI, it happened after a successful request for de-adminship last June, but the log doesn't show anything. Any ideas how to find the exact date and time? Please note that I'm not in any conflict or anything like that with Herostratus; I'm using him strictly as an example. Nyttend (talk) 21:23, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=rights&user=&page=User%3AHerostratus%40enwiki&year=&month=-1&tagfilter= Wknight94 talk 21:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * And in general, desysops have to be done by a steward at Meta, so that's where the logs will always be. It is unfortunate that there's no entry in the local log for such actions. — Gavia immer (talk) 21:32, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, I didn't realise that such actions were logged at Meta; I assumed that a steward would log in here and perform the action here. Thanks for the pointer.  Nyttend (talk) 00:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It won't however pick up those who got desysopped by devs although thats a fairly small number.©Geni 01:12, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Technical side of being an IP address
Let me tell a short story: it will illuminate my question. Earlier today, I found a user talk page in CAT:CSD that had been tagged with db-band. If it had been in mainspace, I would have deleted it, because the page had only ever been used as userspace hosting for what looks to be a nonnotable band; I declined, but only because db-band isn't applicable in userspace. Just a minute ago, I got a note from the IP address that had tagged it, saying basically "I can't just blank the page, or it will be prevented by a filter or be reverted as vandalism, so I just tag it to get the attention of admins so that they'll blank it with nobody thinking that they're vandalising". Now to my question — is there some filter that would actively prevent IPs from blanking user talk pages in contexts such as this? Nyttend (talk) 02:40, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, Special:AbuseFilter/33. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That abuse filter doesn't actually prevent them from doing the edit, it just warns the user first and then lets them do the edit. Also, it doesn't apply to User talkpages at all. But when I tried to blank my talk page as an anon, I wasn't allowed to by Special:AbuseFilter/34, which isn't public. Svick (talk) 06:03, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Asking for help with Edits to the Template:infobox school district
I looking for help in editing Template:infobox school district. I want to add GeoLocation (coord) (for example the coord for the main office, in the case of where I added it in Buffalo Public Schools) and to move the country box on the Same Line direct line for location because it looks tacty when rendering. I would normally try to edit this myself, but it is beyond my knowledge.Thank you for your help, and your opinions on the matter. (Also posted @ WP:SCH's WT:WPSPCH for xref) -- Wolfnix •  Talk  • 01:15, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * well, looking at the problem, I'm actually going to go ahead and convert the entire template to infobox format. after that changes should be easy - and maybe we can make the template look a bit less dull, too. -- Ludwigs 2  05:38, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * mostly done. I'll have to update the docs and fix any errors tomorrow.  -- Ludwigs 2  06:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks alot! Looks much better!! :D I went about updating Buffalo Public Schools after updating my old highschool's page Hutchinson Central Technical High School I used Template:infobox school instead of Template:infobox secondary_school because of looks and they just don't conform and is suggested for US schools. Thanks again! -- Wolfnix •  Talk  • 16:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Problem with one external link
Hello, I'm Toliño from Galician Wikipedia. Right there, I'm the user which controls and solves technical issues. But I haven't got any idea about solving the following. Another user asked me if I could fix somehow the code for this external link used as reference:

which gives:
 * ;9915[12:15:27:32:36]&C=1[all]&F=&S=0:0 Datos do IGE de poboación maior de 16 segundo o nivel de estudos] (2001).

The problem is due to the URL syntax, which uses "[" and especially "]" so that MediaWiki understands that this is the end of the link - but it isn't. Do you know any solution to this? Thanks in advance! --Toliño (talk) 13:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * URL-encode it: .—Emil J. 13:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

wikipedia vs. commons images - how to specify?
Ran into an odd problem - I was trying to change the lead image on the article UFO, found a nice image over at commons, but when I tried to add it in using the normal syntax, I got the wrong image. apparently there's an image on wikipedia that has the same name. how can I bypass the Wikipedia image and get the commons image to load? sorry, I've never run itno this problem before, and I can't find any documentation on it. -- Ludwigs 2 19:12, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know, but I moved the local image to File:Ufo barnstar.gif and updated the three uses. – xeno talk 19:20, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * lol - well, ok - that works. thanks.    If you figure it out, though, let me know and I'll add it to Help:File.  That seems like a problem that's bound to crop up every once in a while.  -- Ludwigs 2  19:25, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A simple repository conflict. When two images share a name, the local repository is preferred over the shared repository. Easiest is usually to move the local image to another name. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 19:30, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * P.s. - interesting. apparently animated gifs work fine for Wikipedia images but not when transferred from commons.  is that a known problem/feature, or should I drop a note about that over at bugzilla?  -- Ludwigs 2  19:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * See Village pump (technical)/Archive 76. – xeno talk 19:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Documented here: IMAGES. Including them fullsize will work though (because then the thumbscaling isn't required and the limits are on the thumb scaler. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 19:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Got it. you guys are stars. I'll see what I can do to fix it.  -- Ludwigs 2  19:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Image shows up in Internet Explorer, but not Firefox
This image showed up fine when I looked at it in school using Internet Explorer, but is not visible at home in Firefox. Is there a way to fix this? SharkD  Talk  04:57, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The originally uploaded version (from July 21, 2005) is busted; I just get a MediaWiki error trying to view it. The current version (from July 22, 2005; not a recent change) shows up fine for me on Firefox 3.6.8. I've purged the image; is it still not showing up? — Gavia immer (talk) 05:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Nope. All I see is the file name on top of a checkered background. It's not visible in either of the articles it's used in either. SharkD   Talk  08:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah ha! Do you have an ad blocker that is noticing the URL of the image is http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ ad /FinalFantasyVII-Combat.jpg/250px-FinalFantasyVII-Combat.jpg? Anomie⚔ 11:41, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes! That's exactly the problem! Thanks for figuring that out! This really should be fixed as it's highly undesirable behavior. SharkD   Talk  23:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed - you should complain to whomever produces your adblocking software, as it is defective. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 23:23, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say the ad blocking software is defective, just misconfigured. It needs a whitelist entry for upload.wikimedia.org. Anomie⚔ 00:08, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Login help
I need help logging in, I enter in my username and password and get this:

Login successful From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search

"You have successfully signed in to Wikipedia as "Knowledgekid87".

For help using Wikipedia, please see the help page.

Logging you in to Wikimedia's other projects: (what's this?)"

However as soon as I click on another link it shows me logged out again and says I need to log in, now I cleared my cookies and temps but still have trouble. Is there any way you can help me? None of the other websites I use are giving me this issue. My browser is Internet Explorer 7 ver. 7.0.5730.11 and OS is Windows XP. - 24.91.121.72 (talk) 23:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Is something at Help:Logging in of help? PrimeHunter (talk) 00:02, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I tried a secure log in and that did not work, I tried allowing third-party cookies (Which I had allowed anyways) and that was of no use. The date and time are all ok here, looking at the User rename log my account had also not been renamed. - 24.91.121.72 (talk) 00:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Try disabling javascript. Also try logging in at a different project (simple:Special:UserLogin, for example) and see if you can hop back to en. from there. Have you considered switching to an alternate browser? Perhaps Firefox? – xeno talk  00:19, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I have tried to disable Java, and logging into Wiki Japan with the same issue problem, I do not want firefox though is there any fix for this? - 24.91.121.72 (talk) 00:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hopefully someone familiar with IE can help. At least test it with Firefox, Google Chrome, or another browser to see if it's a browser issue. – xeno talk 01:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Well I tried Firefox and it works under version 3.6.9. I do not know why IE7 is acting up. Thanks for your help, do you think a fix can be made? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know. Upgrade IE maybe? Though Firefox has a number of advantages over IE in regards to editing Wikipedia. – xeno talk 03:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Not really I tried firefox and the pages load much slower as well as it not having as good of graphics, anyways though the problem has been fixed and Wiki under IE7 works again for me thanks again for all your and PrimeHunter's help =) - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Glad to hear it. What was the problem? What fixed it? – xeno talk 12:54, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I dont really know myself what happened. After I downloaded and ran firefox I noticed that abode reader needed updating so I did that but then noticed that my computer date had been altered (By the update I guess I checked before whe nthe problem started and it was fine) I also updated Java but I do not think that had an impact - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC).
 * If there was something screwy going on with your system clock, that might explain it. For example, if you log in, and then advance your system clock more than 30 days, you will be logged out (as your cookie expires). – xeno talk 14:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I did read that, when the problem with wiki started though I checked the time and date and it was fine. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:21, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

TOC suppressed somehow
Can anyone see where the code to suppress the table of content is at Talk:Muhammad? __meco (talk) 13:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It wasn't suppressed, but the transcluded FAQ page on the top of the talk page included headers, forcing the TOC inside the FAQ template. Fixed with a &lt;noinclude> on the FAQ page. — Edokter • Talk  • 13:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Appreciated. __meco (talk) 14:00, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Announcement of Pending Changes poll result
Announcement about Pending Changes --Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

User:DerHexer/revisionjumper
Dear fellows!

I have added a request to Gadget/proposals to announce a possible new gadget (already one on German wikipedia) which generates an interface to skip over and to individually requested revisions by one single click using a drop down menu. To avoid splitting up discussion, I'd recommend to discuss it there. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 23:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC) P.S.: Script, howto.
 * Nobody? :-( —DerHexer (Talk) 18:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It sounds good to me. What url can I use to import from dewiki to try it out? My monobook fiddling was unsuccessful. :\ —DoRD (talk) 18:12, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It sounds cool but I failed to import it as well . – xeno talk 18:21, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a relief! I don't feel quite so stupid now. :P —DoRD (talk) 18:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Xeno gets a JS error because of unmasked ; importScript works in another way. Why don't you try the code cited in User:DerHexer/testrevisionjumper.js or simply use ? ;o) Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 19:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm...Not sure how my current thingy with same code (VOA scripts) is working but ok!
 * Has the en.wiki version been fully tested for secure server? Because it is directing me to bad url: https://secure.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Thelmadatter&oldid=190936748&diff=cur . – xeno talk 19:46, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * WONTFIX; WORKSFORME xD Well, it really works for me. I correctly got that one. Did you clear your cache (best is Ctrl+F5 in Firefox)? Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 20:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It only happens on the "Next to last editor" button. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 20:08, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, fixed. —DerHexer (Talk) 20:31, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Suggestion: Allow jumping to revisions but not relative to the current diff - just jumping 10 old revisions backward for example. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 20:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you mean directly jumping to revisions instead of generating differences? That would currently only work in permanent links with personal setting, see here. Of course both ways are useful but it's imho easier to go from a diff to a permanent revision instead of the other way round. So I decided to generate diffs instead or permanent links to keep the interface simple (it would of course be possible to add a button which allows you to decide whether you want to generate a diff or a permanent link; but the interface is already slow enough, imho). Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 20:31, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well ... I kindof meant jumping to a single diff screen 10 revisions back. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 20:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * But you are right in that the relevant links are available from the consolidated diff, so don't worry about this request too much. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 20:47, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If nobody opposes that request, I consider adding that script to gadgets' list and “advertising” it on useful places. —DerHexer (Talk) 17:22, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Vector AJAX preview not working
At least, not for me. I assumed this was a transient problem, but for the last several edits I've made, clicking the "Show Preview" button does nothing but move focus to the "Show Preview" button. Anyone know what's going on? For the record: I'm on the Vector skin on Firefox 3.6.8 on Windows Vista, and I use a ton of custom Javascript but I haven't changed any of it recently. — Gavia immer (talk) 04:38, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Preview is still not working for me. Am I the only one for who this issue has come up? — Gavia immer (talk) 15:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

hex2dec is wrongly case sensitive
-- Ludwigs 2 16:37, 11 September 2010 (UTC) See Template talk:Hex2dec In regular cases the template hexadecimal-to-decimal (say 0xA1==>161) is done by hex2dec correctly. But when "0x" is omitted, and the input value is in lowercose like "0f6a79" (correct a hexadecimal it is), the template might give the wrong result. It is a template bug. -DePiep (talk) 21:45, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Complex template that needs fixed
infobox road small needs fixed so that it only displays files if they exist. If you take a look at List of county routes in Erie County, New York (129–160) the template in question is spewing redlinked images. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 15:59, 11 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I suggest that you take the time to convert the template to infobox format. I've already done one of those this week - it's tawdry work, but the tempalte will look batter afterwards and be much easier to edit.  -- Ludwigs 2  16:39, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Templates give me nightmares (as I am a programmer) template syntax is such a bastard language I cannot understand it, However I am attempting to cleanup redlinked images and this is a major source, which is why I brought it here. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 16:42, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Svick (talk) 16:52, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot, :) now if your up for a challenge infobox football club also spews redlinked images. They are a little harder to see most of the time because the links are hidden behind other images a lot, but see FC Dornbirn 1913 and Swindon Spitfires Women's and Girls' Football Club for examples. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 16:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I have fixed the two articles and a fix for the template is on its way. Svick (talk) 18:37, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Cologne blue
Hi. I wondered if there was something you could do to the Cologne blue setting to keep that format/colouring but to have the categories /interwiki links at the foot of the page, not the top. Any idea?<em style="font-family:Calisto MT;color:black"> Dr.  <em style="font-family:Calisto MT;color:black">Blofeld  17:56, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Try viewing Greta Garbo in cologne blue. What I want is the name Greta Garbo to appear directly underneath where it says "free encyclopedia" (about 3 inches higher up the screen) .<em style="font-family:Calisto MT;color:black"> Dr.  <em style="font-family:Calisto MT;color:black">Blofeld  17:58, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Add the code in to your cologneblue.js. Svick (talk) 19:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Robina Muqimyar/ Robina Jalali confusion
Excuse me if this is not a tech issue; I don't know where else to post. I started an article on Robina Jalali a few hours ago, not knowing she was also known or formerly known as Robina Muqimyar. So after erroneously creating a Robina Jalali page, I patched the new information on her run for political office into the Robina Mugimyar page and changed the name in the text, mentioning Jalali first...it's easier just to look at my work, than to explain it. Can someone check over the two articles, and correct the name or remove the redirect or whatever in the proper way? Thanks! KeptSouth (talk) 00:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

POTD image template broken?
The "POTD image" template started rendering differently within the last day. Pages that transclude it are generally broken at the moment... what changed? –SJ + 02:33, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't seem to have been a technical problem, rather the template was replaced with a different template format... hopefully fixed. –SJ +  02:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

VP's title box: Proposed view change
✅ from sandbox into live In the Template:Village pump pages/sandbox is a proposed new view for this page's header box. There are demos before/after in Template:Village pump pages/testcases, and notes. Any support? -DePiep (talk) 17:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Seems like a good idea to me. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 23:31, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Done-DePiep (talk) 09:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Usage of the table tag in message boxes
Currently, all message boxes like Ambox, Ombox and the like use tables for their formatting. However, per the W3C HTML 5 specification, it's not allowed to use tables for formatting and rather should CSS be used. Could this be switched to a div then? --The Evil IP address (talk) 10:38, 11 September 2010 (UTC)


 * This is not a law, but rather a specification. Wikipedia often uses deprecated forms because wikipedia readers come from all roads of life, and many may not have computers that are fully up to the most current specifications.  There's no sense trying to be on the cutting edge if that means that pages render badly (or not at all) for viewers using outdated technology.  -- Ludwigs 2  16:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC)


 * If you will dive into the discussion pages of ambox and friends, then you will see that we experimented for a few months with several formats, but unfortunately divs proved to be incredibly unreliable especially in the older browsers. This stemmed mostly out of float and clear issues, which with all the images and infoboxes we use is pretty common. It's not that we didn't WANT to use divs, but tables were the only solution producing correct and more importantly consistent results. Basically for this to be switched to divs, we need all browsers to support "display:table" (and friends). Because the table box flow is actually the page layout that we desire for these templates. This feature however is only just now supported in IE with IE8 for instance. So it's gonna be a while. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. The two problematic browsers were IE and Opera mostly. Safari 2 and Firefox 2 were also problematic, but those are not in use anymore. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:05, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Top-aligning with an infobox
Hi, the page Caron has an infobox and a local table next to each other. How can I top-align them? Of course, I expect the infobox to be leading. Just edit there and I'll see it. (When the infobox has class="infobox", am I still supposed to do a deeper RTFM?). -DePiep (talk) 07:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want to align with an infobox, you should use the same style –  for the second table too. I did that and also moved the table to a template, so that it doesn't clutter the article code. Svick (talk) 15:32, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, quite clear. So there is no bad-practice note when mixing non-infobox with class="infobox"? And while we're here, is there a special reason you created a box-in-box? Looked like a single box could do. -DePiep (talk) 17:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Generally, you're right that using the infobox class for something that isn't an infobox is bad, but I think that in this case it was the best solution (copying the style from infobox would be another, but then there would be the issue of keeping them in sync, if the style of infoboxes changed).
 * I used a table inside a table, because the infobox class has set its margins in em, which means that when you change the size of the font, the size of the margins changes too. So the outer table has the same margins as an infobox and the inner table has bigger font. (Now that you mentioned it, I realized that the outer table doesn't have to be table at all, and that using is a cleaner solution.) Svick (talk) 18:15, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm with you. And I'll put the green R above. -DePiep (talk) 20:45, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Small thinking error here; changing the font-size will not effect the margin, as the margin is based ion the parent-elements font-size. So there should be no need for nested tables. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 21:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I'll take it to a sandbox some day. Another effect: I saw earlier that the background color changed when table-in-table. Which I would prefer not to do, because the more knowing editors (they are into typography there!) will have a reason for keeping the transparent background. Don't wait for me. -DePiep (talk) 21:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * 9pt 20pt Both the CSS2.1 and CSS3 specifications state that ems are computed based on the font-size of the element itself, only using the parent's font-size when ems are used for font-size itself, and I see nothing to the contrary in the sections about margins. And at least on Firefox 3.5.12 here, they don't actually line up with different font sizes. Anomie⚔ 23:26, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

CSS help needed.
Can someone with CSS skills help at Template talk:Unbulleted list, please? Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:58, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Replied there. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 22:23, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Tool to edit only the refs?
Is there a tool that I can use to view and edit only an article's references? I want to completely fill out an article's cite template parameters, but don't want to fish around the article for all the individual refs. Thanks! SharkD  Talk  04:34, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know of such a tool, but you could just use the "Find" feature in your browser (generally accessed by pressing "CTRL-F") and search for the phrase "<ref", clicking "Next" after you fix each one. If you are using Firefox, there is also a "Highlight all" button that will highlight each of these for you, so you can find them easily. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 20:01, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I need to be able to quickly compare refs side by side, so no the Find feature of my browser is not going to work. SharkD   Talk  01:00, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I recommend User:PleaseStand/References segregator. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 20:43, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow! The only problem I've noticed so far is that you can't change the name parameter of references using this tool. Otherwise it's basically exactly what I was looking for, or at least a big step in the right direction. SharkD   Talk  00:26, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * WP:REFLINKS parses out and lists references, and allows changes...I think.  Chzz  ► 13:44, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Viewing Main page for a certain day
Is there a way to see what the main page looked like for a certain day?Smallman12q (talk) 00:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The Main Page transcludes different pages, such as Today's featured article/[monthname] [day], [year], Did you know, In the News, Template:POTD protected/[monthname] [day], [year], and Selected anniversaries/[monthname] [day]. You can view each element as it appeared on a particular day by inserting the correct values for [monthname], [day], and [year], except for Did you know, In the News, whose archives are located at WP:DYKA and WP:ITN archives, respectively. You can create your sandbox with the same syntax of the main page and the desired values for the date. There might be an external tool that will do this more efficiently, for example the Wayback Machine. Intelligent  sium  01:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This has been asked for before. Could we not take snapshots of the appearance of the main page daily using a bot, so that this will be possible from now on? Fences  &amp;  Windows  00:29, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A more correct solution is to render the page as it appeared at that time with old templates. It would be beneficial to viewing all the older revisions.  However, consider we don't have a proper blame tool yet...  — Dispenser 01:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Getting Wikisource of an article
I'm starting to work on a script to validate usages of singlechart, and I've encountered a pretty basic obstacle: I can't figure out how to download the raw wikisource of an article. The basic PHP statement

gets a HTTP 403 error, even though the exact same URL works fine in my browser. I've looked at Special:Export, and it seems dead-set on doing the process in XML. All I want is the raw wikisource of individual articles.&mdash;Kww(talk) 22:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=California_Gurls&action=raw . But you can also read the parsed template arguments directly using rvgeneratexml on api.php. Merlissimo 22:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Still get a 403 error on http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=California_Gurls&action=raw . Is it because the script hasn't logged in? I can get that to work, but I'll have to rebuild my PHP installation because it doesn't support HTTP POST methods natively, and that's required to log in.&mdash;Kww(talk) 23:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You're most likely forgetting to set a User-Agent, and so falling afoul of the User-Agent policy. For PHP's file_get_contents, you would use . Anomie⚔ 23:38, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed, that did the trick. Thanks. That's about as obscure of a policy as we've got.&mdash;Kww(talk) 00:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Then again, writing bots is somewhat of an obscure task, so better not to fling it in the face of normal readers. :D It is documented at Creating_a_bot btw. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 13:50, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

AfD close script acting weird
User:Mr.Z-man/closeAFD.js seems to have been acting weird today; it adds extra sigs when someone is trying to close an AfD. I personally use User:Tim Song/closeAFD.js, which had been slightly customized (at least in the past, not sure if both are the same now), but it seems to have the same issue, so I'm not sure why this is happening now, as I was doing fine last week. Can anyone who knows more js than I do (AKA anything) figure out why this is happening (and fix it)?  — fetch ·  comms   03:56, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like someone screwed around with at. Anomie⚔ 10:43, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep, s'been fixed now. Thanks for finding it for me.  — fetch ·  comms   15:00, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

No registration date
Has anyone encountered a user with no registration date? See here for an example with user:Ockron. Found this user while patrolling BLPs and can't figure out how the account was registered. It doesn't appear in any logs that I can see. I have blocked the user, mostly for the vandalism but also concerned about whether the interface was hacked to create the acct. If anyone feels the block is not needed feel free to override me without discussion.  7  09:37, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've got a couple in my own ununified account; I always assumedthose were just accounts created before accurate registration, but I don't know where I got that idea either. sonia ♫  09:51, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I would have thought so too, but I am having trouble believing that this user created an account that many years ago (before registration tracking on en.wp) and remembers the password and came back in 2010 to vandalize.  7  09:54, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This might be a red herring, but was there a disc crash and a loss of some data, some number of years ago? I think someone mentioned that once on the ref desk. I don't know the specifics, though. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:01, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Now that's what I call a sleeper! – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 13:16, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The registration date of a user was not logged until 2005 (see Special:Log/newusers, which starts in september 2005). Any account registered before 2005, does not have a registration date. For users that made an edit between the time of registration and 2005, the earliest edit was later used to "fabricate" a registration date. But if you only registered and never made an edit until after 2005 (or whenever they last ran the script to fill in registration dates based on first edit), then you will not have a registration date. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 13:47, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * So this user created an account prior to 2005, and made zero edits until today when they came here to vandalize?  7  13:49, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Occam's razor would say so =] The effort required to hack the database and create a user with no registration date would likely outweigh the (non-existent) benefit. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 13:51, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Star Trek flashbacks... must sleep now.   7  13:53, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm suprised nobody else thinks this is wierd.  7  22:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Not really. Worst case, the account was compromised due to using a super easy password. Or a close friend or past girlfriend knew the password. something like that. It happens. I've seen plenty of accounts that have slept for a LONG time and then started editing. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 23:30, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I did once come across a recently-created account that did not show up in the logs due to a server glitch. That was three years ago, but I suppose something similar could have happened again. — jwillbur 01:21, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The account in question has a user ID indicating that it was registered in July 2005. -- Tim Starling (talk) 01:39, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for looking into it. I'm going with TheDJ's hypothesis that this was an easily guessable PW.   7  01:57, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Needs categories to update fast
and a large number of similar categories have been nominated for speedy deletion because someone had made inappropriate edits to NorwayByYear to remove that and other categories from articles like 1896 in Norway which employ this template. I have now reverted the template changes so that the articles get categorized appropriately, but still the categories remain unpopulated. I made a post here at WP:VPT quite recently about another problem where the categories didn't update after very many hours. How can the updating be forced so that the categories do not get deleted in the meantime? __meco (talk) 18:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You could go and perform a null edit on every page that should be in the category, but in general it's better to wait for the job queue to get it. Why not remove the speedy templates with an edit summary pointing out that the template changes have been reverted and the categories will be repopulated once the job queue catches up? Anomie⚔ 20:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, there are more than 80 categories. __meco (talk) 21:04, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Use AWB maybe?  — fetch ·  comms   05:25, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't on the computer I'm on at present, but luckily the categories have updated now. __meco (talk) 07:10, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You have no such luck. The only ones that have updated were the ones that I failingly tried to get with null edits.  A large number of the Norway categories are still empty, as well as all of those for Denmark.  The full list is at Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion. --After Midnight 0001 02:55, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Writing articles off-line
My apologies in advance for naive question. Is there (where) a simple editor which allows previewing wikipedia-coded articles off-line? Simply put, I am coding a wiki article off-line and want roughly see how it will look (I mean basic formatting features, surely the wikimedia software is constantly updating). Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 07:11, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=offline+editor+wikipedia+preview seems to bring up some likely sounding tools. sonia ♫  10:08, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I did Google it before posting. The solution is not that straightforward. Materialscientist (talk) 10:22, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That's an interesting question. I couldn't find a good answer to a related question: A lightweight local wiki that is easy to set up and uses MediaWiki code. One problem in both cases is templates, but even without them there don't seem to be good solutions. Hans Adler 13:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Open a red-linked subpage under your user page, and do work there, but never save the page. Hit Preview to see what you are getting. Overnight, copy all the source into a local file on your computer. This doesn't give you any versioning (unless you have a system for that on your own machine). This method lets you use all the real Wikipedia templates. EdJohnston (talk) 23:55, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Preview requires internet connection. I meant off-line. Materialscientist (talk) 00:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * User:Pilaf/InstaView can do just that - but do not expect too much as it cannot support templates and such and has not been updated for several years. It comes bundled with wikEd (in the form of User:Pilaf/include/instaview.js). However, I have just checked the wikEd preview and it did not work there. I will try to fix it as soon as I find the time. Cacycle (talk) 07:08, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Great, but wait. It needs my clicking "edit" before "preview", which I can't, because I am offline. Materialscientist (talk) 07:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I suppose this means you have to open an edit window before going off-line.--Patrick (talk) 13:25, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * No, it means that you would have to save a random edit page to you computer and use that as you editor :-) Cacycle (talk) 19:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I tried the ordinary edit toolbar on a saved edit page, but it does not work.--Patrick (talk) 01:51, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Sort table by currency amount?
See here. Are there any helper scripts/templates to make it possible to sort by currency value? I know this is possible for dates. SharkD  Talk  02:43, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That table shows numbers of copies, not values, but anyway, see Template:Ntss.--Patrick (talk) 06:40, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Oops, you're right! And, thanks for the link! SharkD   Talk  21:06, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Bad citation template usage
What have I done wrong at Cppcheck? One of the references shows up incorrectly User A1 (talk) 19:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Fixed. There was a carriage return in the title. —Ost (talk) 20:30, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, righto, thanks -- would never have spotted that. I copied the title from the PDF - my bad. User A1 (talk) 20:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

ANI notices
I wonder if the devs can change the WP:ANI page to require a manual checking of a box that says "Yes, I understand I must alert any involved editors immediately after creating this thread" whenever "new section" is clicked? Basket of Puppies 20:19, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Defer: Start a new section using the editprotected on Template talk:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. An admin will come and fulfill or deny your request.  — Dispenser 23:29, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I am wondering if this is technically possible, not to decide the issue here. Trying to get my ducks in a row before pitching it formally for ANI. Basket of Puppies  04:16, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, I misread your question. With the Abuse filter it would be possible to require some text (say  ) to be present, but it's more hassle than it's worth.  — Dispenser 04:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

CSS troubles in IE
re. Recently I changed the table into CSS using . Now an IP reverted all that, because of "Formatting trashed (in IE at least). Reverting to last good version" (es). Could someone (using IE) take a look & tell what went wrong? (I use Firefox 3.6.8) -DePiep (talk) 15:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC) + section title-DePiep (talk) 15:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * When a floated span is in the middle of some other text, the top edge of the float should line up with the top edge of the line box the span is in (unless, of course, there isn't room). IE7 does not do this, instead it aligns the top of the float with the bottom of the line box. Reportedly, Firefox before 3.0 also has this bug, and IE8 supposedly fixes it (but probably not in "compatability" mode).
 * IE_float_bug_example.png In your example, the left-floated bit is fine because it is at the start of the line. Then comes a &amp;nbsp; before the right float, so in IE the right float lines up against the bottom of the &amp;nbsp;. The image to the right shows IE7's rendering of some HTML quite similar to yours; the main difference is that I have added borders to the three elements so they can be better seen. Anomie⚔ 18:56, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * IE6 rendering is also similar to Anomie's description for your version, while the current version aligns horizontally.LeadSongDog come howl!  18:59, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Right. Is that triggered by the nbsp then? In the I put up the css version, and removed all nbsps between the spans, which should do (they were a bit superfluous anyway). Or, should I read Anomie's explanation that it happens in every linebox? -DePiep (talk) 20:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe this one dies, but still Anomie thanx for clarifying. I got it. -DePiep (talk) 21:53, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

White space created by photo
The problem (for me, at least) is Butterball. I have run into the problem many times, and others surely have too. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 20:01, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The problem is that the multicol template forces a clear so that it won't start next to an image. I've gone ahead and placed the image inside the columns, which is better, but you light consider alternate ways of structuring the text.  -- Ludwigs 2  22:46, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I wasn't working on that section, so I don't know what was done or how to fix that. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 13:39, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Move gadget-modernskin-thunks to modern.js
I believe skin compatibility fixes shouldn't have to be enabled by the users as gadgets. Does anyone have any objection to moving MediaWiki:Gadget-modernskin-thunks.js into MediaWiki:modern.js? --Waldir talk 15:35, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Might be a good idea. Support. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 01:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅. --Waldir talk 09:12, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Cite book url problem
I'm trying to use Template:cite book. I'm using the url parameter to point to the Google books website, but I'm having problems. The url doesn't show up properly in the reference list. I thought it might be the many equals signs in the url itself, so looking at Help:Template, and not fully understanding it, I tried adding braces before and after each equals sign - didn't help. Anyway, I've put the latest usage in my sandbox for someone to tell me what I'm doing wrong.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Try encoding the URL instead. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 19:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Another editor went in and fixed it. Apparently, there was nothing wrong with the url. I had forgotten the title= parameter, which is required, and it screwed up everything else. I actually had the title= parameter in originally, but in some cut-and-paste operation it got cut. I wasn't even aware there was a required parameter.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:35, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Flagged revisions and high-risk templates
Is pending-changes level two protection effective with respect to high-risk templates, so that transclusions of templates protected in this manner would only display revisions accepted by a reviewer? If so, then it might provide a useful alternative to full protection, to increase the ease with which certain templates can be edited (obviously, some things, such as template:!, are so sensitive that allowing reviewers to change them isn't advisable.) Peter Karlsen (talk) 16:56, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It appears that transclusion takes the most recent revision, reviewed or not. Anomie⚔ 19:32, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Flag icon linking to the wrong article
See Talk:British Mandate for Palestine. JohnCD (talk) 17:41, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, template:flagicon/core does not provide for variant country links at all. One would have to replace with  there, and add "| alias-Mandate = British Mandate for Palestine" to template:country data Palestine, or something like that.—Emil J. 18:13, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Er, no. See solution at Template talk:Flagicon, but in general, requests like this ought to go to WT:WikiProject Flag Template. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:17, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Javascript broken?
Hi, is anyone elses javascript causing problems? I can't properly revert with Twinkle. Aiken (talk) 22:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Tampa API servers having issues. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 22:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't log onto Huggle or WikiCleaner, either. This must be related. --Funandtrvl (talk) 23:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * All better now? Mine seems to be working. These graphs may shed light on the issue (for those smarter than me).   7  01:05, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep, working now! --Funandtrvl (talk) 01:17, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

New gadget: MediaWiki:Gadget-revisionjumper.js
Hi folks! I now installed the new gadget “revisionjumper” which allows you to easily navigate diffs, articles' histories and articles themselves. A feature-rich drop down menu offers various functions to jump to a certain revision which is situated before or after the selected revision. Besides default parameters, configurable requests can be done. Further, the default setting can be personalized. It was announced some days ago on this village pump where its functions were discribed. All features are explained on User:DerHexer/revisionjumper. Have fun using it! Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 22:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC) P. S.: Please note that scripts like that one atm do not work because of a slow connection to the database (API).

Unable to Access Wikipedia
About 11-12 hours ago I was unable to 'connect' to Wikipedia. Other sites such as Google were still accessible. I also note the earlier post about the 'Tampa API servers', Though this was hours earlier, about 15.00 UTC. Was the site down at that time? n.b. Internet Explorer Ver:7.0.5730.13. (Didn't know about the Wikipedia Status Dashboard !) - 220.101 talk\Contribs 03:25, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Question for techie admin
I just found a strange edit in my deleted contribs. Admin only - check here - I recall reviewing this CSD tag earlier so I definitely went to the page, but I didn't think it was promotional enough to delete it myself as spam, but similarly didn't want to decline the CSD because it was close. I recall leaving the page without touching anything at all. I definitely did not manually do any of what the diff shows (including the accurate edit summary) - so I am wondering if there is a link that I may have clicked that added this section including the edit summary. Any thoughts? Thanks  7  05:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Movepagetext
The above message is tailored for page moves but is also the message provided when one moves files, to which its contents are variously nonsensical, inapplicable or provide bad advice. Is there a way, if I create, say, MediaWiki:Movefiletext, for us to switch all such file moves to that new mediawiki message?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No, but you can use parser function like in templates to show different content depending on namespace. Merlissimo 01:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Aha, so it would be a parser function scheme in MediaWiki:Movepagetext that would propagate depending on namespace. Can you give me an example of an existing message where this has been done as an example to draw from (and if not, an explanation of the coding)?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:15, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Or maybe use something like Namespace detect?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:34, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * See MediaWiki:Newarticletext.--Patrick (talk) 06:44, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll try to figure out how to do this from that, though I may need some help. My initial look at it tells me it may be a difficult wheat from chaff separation coding exercise for me (that's probably child's play for many of those on this page).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:41, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Alternatively, you could post here roughly what you'd like it to say and kindly ask for somebody to code it in. :-) Killiondude (talk) 17:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Isn't moving article that are currently under afd discouraged, for technical reasons?
Adam C. Winfield was nominated for deletion. Another contributor moved the article to Adam Winfield. My recollection was that articles that are currently under afd shouldn't be moved, for technical reasons, and I moved it back. The other contributor moved it to Adam Winfield a second time. One of the side-effects of this move is that some links that are important, during the course of the afd, no longer work. Links, like the history link at the top of the afd no longer work.

I applied a rescue tag to the article, and, when instantiated, its link to the actual afd discussion was a redlink, until I created a redirect.

Am I correct that articles that are currently under afd shouldn't be renamed because of all the important administrative links this breaks?

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 14:55, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Articles may be moved during AFDs if there is a good reason to move them. You can add a little byline "since moved to" right under the nom line to provide the links for the new location. See how this was done at Articles for deletion/List of spoilers. Supplying the "page=" parameter to the rescue template will ensure the deletion discussion is linked properly. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 17:41, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

An IP that managed to edit while blocked
Earlier was blocked, at 17:22 GMT, but then went on to vandalize Tommy2010's talk page one minute later. I know that sometimes a queue can cause edits to be delayed, but can a queue problem cause an edit to be delayed by almost a full minute? (The vandalism was at 17:23:35, so it wasn't just on the cusp of the previous minute.)  —  Soap  —  17:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think if they had an edit token from before the block it will still go through. Or something. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 17:41, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I may have something to do with Abuse Filter. Ruslik_ Zero 17:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What xeno said, I believe. I've seen it occasionally as well. --Izno (talk) 20:24, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Erroneous information coming from a filter
See this edit. The speedy deletion tag wasn't removed, it was the hangon tag, which had been put there by the user who removed it. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 23:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That filter is designed to catch removals of hangon, so the tag is correct. There's probably a way to have it ignore removal if the same editor added it, but you'd have to talk to someone that has more clue in that department than I. But I went ahead and deleted that article, though, because WP is definitely not a warez hosting site. —DoRD (talk) 00:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Should the warning message be changed? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 00:57, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Automatic tool to copy articles/histories to Wikia?
In the Video Games WikiProject, a lot of articles tend to get deleted due to cruftyness and useful but non-notable gameguide content. My question is, is there a tool that can be used to move/copy articles to Wikia? As Wikia is usually the proper place for these sorts of articles. SharkD  Talk  21:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Special:Export. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 21:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, though the 1000 revisions limit on edit histories kind of sucks. SharkD   Talk  02:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want more, you'll have to download a database dump, which isn't a fun thing to do. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 19:02, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Special:Export can export the full history of a page, even if it has more than 1000 revisions, it just requires more than one go (see mw:Manual:Parameters to Special:Export, parameter offset). Application that retrieves and combines them into one file would be fairly trivial to write, although I have no idea whether Special:Import has the same limit of 1000 revisions (or some other). wikia:Help:Exporting pages mentions a limit of 1.8 MB when importing, which could be a problem for long pages with lots of revisions. mw:Help:Import also mentions direct transwiki import, but that's probably not enabled on wikia. Svick (talk) 12:27, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Smaller Signature
The Robert Pattinson article has an infobox in which an editor inserted Pattinson's signature. I don't think the signature is even necessary for the article, but putting that aside, I'd like to make it smaller. How do I do that?--Bbb23 (talk) 23:58, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, Template:Infobox person doesn't support a <tt>signature size</tt> paramater, but you can hack it in the following way: . — Dispenser 00:27, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That works, thanks. Once I've made it smaller, is there a way to move the word Signature to the left and then have the picture next to it rather than have everything centered with the signature below the word?--Bbb23 (talk) 00:34, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * , <tt>!</tt> is the same as <tt>|</tt> except is skips the template parsing part. — Dispenser 00:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I'm having trouble figuring out precisely what I should insert. I tried several ways, and none worked. I tried this:




 * and it put the signature to the left, but it left the word Signature centered. What am I doing wrong? Sorry for all the trouble.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:08, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The header 'Signature' is a feature of the template; it will always be centred and in fact goes all the way back to the Infobox meta-template and perhaps further back to its sub-templates. It cannot be uncentred unless you decide to transclude infobox directly so that you can specify a  value (which obviously is inadvisable).  Intelligent  sium  02:03, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, well, if it can't be done, it can't be done. I guess I'll just make it smaller for the moment and question the propriety of having it in the infobox in the first place.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Signature is a standard parameter in Template:Infobox person. Cresix (talk) 02:26, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

A question about the signature parameter that is not on (my) topic. Is there a way to search Wikipedia articles to see which ones use the parameter?--Bbb23 (talk) 14:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * m:Help:Template is about this, but works best when the template has been prepared in advance for this.--Patrick (talk) 14:41, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid I need a little more help understanding what to do. It looks like I need to use the Template:Voidd, but I don't get how to make the "call," nor what I specify as a parameter of the Voidd template to find out which articles using the template infobox person use the signature parameter.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:03, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * In Template:Infobox person we could put, with a non-existing Template:Infobox person/signature, then Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Infobox person/signature shows the pages that call the infobox with a non-empty signature parameter.--Patrick (talk) 00:30, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * If we actually change the template infobox person, don't we affect every article that uses it? Or would we make the change, collect the information (quickly), and then put it back the way it was? And, in any event, I can't edit infobox person. I assume, as an admin, you can?? I'd rather you did it anyway (a) because you know what you're doing and (b) because if Wikipedia collapses, it's all your fault. :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 00:48, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Would it not be preferable to simply add a tracking category for usage of the parameter? Either way, what is to be the purpose of such a listing? PC78 (talk) 01:51, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, a tracking category is also possible, see also m:Help:Category. m:Help:Template mentions some applications, they apply for both methods. The article is not visibly affected: not with Template:Voidd because it expands to the empty string, and not with a tracking category if it is a hidden category. Either way it is not very common, so to gain more experience it would be wise to start applying it to a template used in less pages.--Patrick (talk) 08:30, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I see now that you (PC78) already use the tracking category method for Template:Infobox aviator, with Category:Aviator articles using full name parameter, and there are some more like this in Category:Tracking categories, so, at least for uniformity, this seems the preferred method.--Patrick (talk) 09:07, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Uh, so are we going to do something for the signature parameter? You both seem to know what you're doing, but I'm lost. However, answering PC78's question, the purpose is to find out how common it is for the signature parameter to be used and when. Ultimately, the issue is whether it belongs in the Pattinson article. If I'm going to argue it doesn't, then I'd like to back it up with what the practice is, given that there don't seem to be any guidelines on its usage.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:15, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It depends what you want to do about the parameter. :) Infobox person is used for a wide variety of biography articles, so I suspect there is no convention other than to include a signature where one is available to use. If your concern is specific to the Robert Pattinson article, then you're best raising the issue on the talk page. If you're concerned about actor articles in general, then WT:ACTOR would be the best place for discussion. I've only skimmed over the discussion on your own talk page, but perhaps the copyright issue is worth pursuing for this signature. Personally I don't see a problem including it in the Pattinson article; he's a well known celebrity who no doubt signs many autographs, so I don't think it's irrelevant (just my 2¢, I have no real interest in pursuing this line of discussion). As for Infobox person, I think it would be wise to add a signature_size parameter, as a single default is unlikely to be suitable in all cases. PC78 (talk) 00:43, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I intend to raise it on the Pattinson Talk page, but finding out more about its inclusion was in preparation for that. I'd already thought about the issue of autographs and their availability, but I still think it's kind of silly to include it. If you decide to add a size parameter (an idea I endorse regardless of Pattinson), please add an alignment parameter, so it can be placed flush left instead of centered.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't object to having a tracking category for the parameter if that's what you want, but I'm not convinced that you'll be able to draw any conclusions from it. Regarding alignment, I presume you mean to display the signature as it is at Oscar Wilde? A parameter to control this wouldn't really be feasible; what you'd want is to make a fixed change to the infobox (which you are welcome to suggest at Template talk:Infobox person). I don't really see the benefit in such a change, though it's probably just a matter of personal preference either way. PC78 (talk) 01:13, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, the Wilde page is what I mean. Don't know enough about the programming to know why it wouldn't be feasible. I'm not going to suggest a change to the infobox if that's the only way to achieve the possibility of left alignment. Anyway, assuming it doesn't hurt anything, I'd like to collect the data on the use of the signature parameter. After I collect the data, I personally don't need changes that were made to remain. As you can probably tell, I still don't really understand what you propose. In any event, please let me know what happens next.--Bbb23 (talk) 07:04, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, a change has been made to Infobox person. signature_size is now supported, and pages with signatures will be added to (it will take a while for the category to fill, though). PC78 (talk) 12:05, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Great, I will watch the category, thanks!--Bbb23 (talk) 16:11, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Test wiki admin access
Can somebody point me to the right place to ask for admin access at the test wiki (I am an en-admin). I have a weird bug - the upcoming version of wikEd does not load only if loaded as a gadget. I need to do some on-site gadget debugging but I do not want to do this on Wikipedia. Thanks for your help, Cacycle (talk) 19:15, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * These are the bureaucrats there. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 01:00, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I have emailed Tim. Cacycle (talk) 06:25, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Cheers, Tiptoety  talk 06:38, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Finally, it turned out that the right place to ask for admin access at the test wiki is at http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests. Cacycle (talk) 13:12, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

wrap with indent
Is there a way to get text to wrap and
 * indent when it does but without inserting
 * breaks into it? (So that it only wraps if
 * it wont fit on a given users screen)
 * Just granpa (talk) 21:13, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You mean you just want a whole line-wrapped paragraph indented (shifted margin), and rely on normal screen layout size to control the wrapping? So the text would break automatically as necessary but maintain the same indent on each line? Isn't that what the leading colon does?
 * DMacks (talk) 21:18, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * No I dont want the first line to be indented. I often find myself wanting some line of text to behave this way.
 * Just granpa (talk) 21:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * <p style="text-indent:-.5in">Ahh, a "hanging indent"? That's the kind often used in bibliographies, where the first line is not indented, but all the rest (in the wrapped paragraph) are. I don't think there is a wiki-markup for it, but it's doable in plain html. Just wrap the paragraph in <p style="text-indent:-.5in"> ... . It's completely non-standard for any use in Wikipedia so you might want to get second opinion about whether it's a good idea to do...whatever you're trying to do.
 * DMacks (talk) 21:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much
 * Just granpa (talk) 21:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

<p style="text-indent:-.5in"> Just granpa (talk) 21:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * To avoid what you (may) see above where the first line goes off the left margin, do something like this:
 * <p style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">
 * Anomie⚔ 00:02, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Anomie⚔ 00:02, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I love it. :-) Thank you.
 * Just granpa (talk) 04:10, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * If you really have to have it in a bibliography, you can use refbegin. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 18:27, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Email address
Hello guys! Okay, so I want to send a message to the email of an IP, because I tracked their email. I don't really want to use my personal email, and I was wondering, how would I get an email at Wikipedia.org? Thanks! Endofskull (talk) 23:19, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think only staff and 'official' volunteers get @wikimedia.org email addresses. Would it not be a simple matter to create an email account exclusively for Wikipedia use (for example, mine at intelligentsiumwp-AT-googlemail-DOT-org)? Intelligent  sium  23:24, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Quite. There are lots of free email services out there (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! etc). By the way, IP addresses don't have email accounts on here. Aiken (talk) 23:27, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I guess so, but my only problem with that is it just doesn't really look "real". If I can't get a Wikipedia one, I will make one at gmail, or Yahoo. So what do you think? Oh yeah, and Aiken, I tracked their email for WHOIS. Endofskull (talk) 23:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Unless you know otherwise, the address in the whois database is in all likelihood not the person that edited here. —DoRD (talk) 23:32, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think we should consider that Wikipedia is primarily an encyclopedia, and setting up email addresses for every person who wants one seems a bit excessive, when there are so many other options. If you're going to choose one, go for Gmail. Aiken (talk) 23:32, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Alright. I think I'll go to Conflict of Interest if someone doubts that I'm from Wikipedia. Thanks for all the help! Endofskull (talk) 23:36, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Why exactly are you wanting someone to think you are "from" Wikipedia? Anomie⚔ 03:29, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, that probably sounds "fishy". Like I said, I'm contacting IPs, that vandalize, email addresses from WHOIS, and then I contact them. Endofskull (talk) 15:04, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If you're trying to contact the vandal, do be aware (as DoRD mentioned already) that the email address you find in whois is not the address of the person using the address except in the most unusual of circumstances. If you're trying to contact the vandal's ISP, you should go check out Abuse response. Anomie⚔ 20:21, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

"150 intermediate versions"
As can be seen in, it says that "150 intermediate versions are not shown". Is this true, or is it simply a bug in the MediaWiki software, due to the lost page history? Also, why isn't it possible to use diff=prev in the very oldest edits? For me, it directs to the latest edit. Hey Mid  (contributions) 15:18, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think this is a known bug that occurs when importing revisions from another wiki - since they receive a sequentially "new" revision number. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 15:23, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, Graham claims that the edit he imported was the only missing edit, so all revisions at that page are now visible. Hey  Mid  (contributions) 15:28, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The function that finds out the number of intermediate revisions between two edits uses the revision ID's, not the dates, to determine that number. The previous/next edit feature and the "diff=prev"/"diff=next" parameters work the same way. Out-of-order revision ID numbers can occur with page imports (like the above example) and a few other cases that I've described here. Graham 87 06:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

"Possible self promotion in userspace" tag
Hi, my latest edit to my own talk page got tagged like this - would anybody please tell me what triggered this? I'm aware that there are filters in place to catch such behavior, but since there's nothing promoting me or my employer on that page (and I wouldn't want that, anyway, I prefer to remain anonymous), nor any external web link, I wonder why it triggered that filter? Is there anyone who can remove this tag after verifying that there's no self-promotion on that page? -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 16:22, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Edit filter tags are not removed. The edit is . It tripped Special:AbuseFilter/354 which is hidden from public view but let me just say the problem here was "We offer your solution". This is something a company would typically say to promote itself which was ironically the point of your post. An automated filter cannot be expected to distinguish this from real promotion. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * In that case, I guess I can only shrug, LOL, and go about my business. ;-) -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 19:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Search for special character
Hi. Apparently, in July, the browser I was using would convert the Miscrosoft smart backquote character into this: "�?". Here's an example. Hoping to find and fix any remaining instances of this character, I've tried to search for the character using mediawiki search and google, but had no luck. Any suggestions? Thanks. Haus Talk 18:22, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've played around with MW-search for a couple of hours, and the most promising search I tried doesn't seem to work. Haus Talk 20:12, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You'll probably have to use a tool like AWB's database scanner to search for instances of that character. Graham 87 06:30, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

mid speed internet conn.
how can i store video information to view at one time,when incoming picture stops to catch up? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chanse209 (talk • contribs) 21:45, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The Village Pump is for asking questions/reporting bugs about Wikipedia. I recommend you go to the Computing Reference Desk for answers. A p 3 rson  ‽   00:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Editing Anomaly Vandalised Page
A few days ago I added a comment to the bottom of a talk page (it was Talk:Proof (truth)), and apparently when I saved the page it wiped everything except the section the comment was in. There may have been an additional anomaly in displaying the page afterward, since I failed to notice the problem at the time. I suspect, but am not certain, that I had used the link for that section rather than the one for the whole page, and I think there was a browser crash during that edit. I am using Firefox 3.6.9 under Ubuntu, with the Session Manager add-on (as well as numerous others, but I'm guessing that one might be relevant; it retained the text I had typed and restored it after the crash, so perhaps it mangled the page somehow). False vacuum (talk) 22:31, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * When I edit a section (also under Ubuntu/FF), there's a section= variable in the URL. As long as that value remains intact, the contents should be taken as the new text for that section only.  If it was somehow mangled (to secion= for example), the section variable would then be undefined and your bad result would be expected.  That's one possibility, not meant to exclude others.  Thundermaker (talk) 18:01, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this. It looks as though the 'section' variable disappeared altogether:  I found what appears to be the session, and the URL is just
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Proof_%28truth%29&action=submit
 * Perhaps I should file a bug report with Session Manager.
 * False vacuum (talk) 12:35, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think you started editing a section, then clicked Show preview (which removes the  parameter from the URL, but it stays on the page in a hidden field). After that, your browser crashed and then the page was restored with the correct URL and text, but the hidden field wasn't restored, so at that point, you were editing the whole page. Svick (talk) 12:40, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Checking browser dependent effects
Do we have a page or procedure to have a check on browser dependent presentations? Tried: WP:BROWSER (no) HELP:BROWSER (red): don't work for this. I can not (or my sysadmin won't allow me to -- that's the same) do a check on IE. So I am restrained by IE's effects. The restrain is not too rational. How to? -DePiep (talk) 21:13, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand you correctly, but if you want to check how a particular page looks in IE, try http://browsershots.org/. Svick (talk) 14:49, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's it. I'll save the link. I meant to say that being insecure on untestable browser effects is biting me as an editor. -DePiep (talk) 15:07, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Special:NewPages CSS
Is there any reason that the "yellow highlight" in the top template at Special:NewPages is a different shade of yellow to the actual highlight colour used in the body of the page? matt (talk) 10:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It was added in this edit, my guess is the user who added it didn't notice the color was different. I don't see any indication the color has changed at any point. Fix it at MediaWiki:Newpages-summary—the correct color is #ffa, or you could just use directly like this . Anomie⚔ 13:52, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. matt (talk) 19:09, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ by User:Edokter. matt (talk) 19:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I forgot to mention it here, sorry. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 20:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Combinate?
Is there a tool who can combinate 'what links here' and categories. For example the topics who links to The Netherlands and which topics also are have a place in the category Education I hope so! Dutchf (talk) 13:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The list builder in WP:AWB would do it, certainly. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 13:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Is this a mediawiki bug?
You'll notice when viewing this old version of a page, it's displaying an old version of File:Te.jpg from Wikimedia Commons near the top. It does not display this error on the current version of the page. I checked on another browser without signing in and I'm having the same issue. Why is this not updating? I'm reluctant to purge the commons page because I want an expert (on here) to see it. Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing the problem. Could it just be one of those things that takes a while for the server to update? If so, I don't think there's much we can do. &mdash; Capt'n Earwig  ( arr! &bull;  talk ) 00:14, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * More likely an issue with caching of images in the browser. I move that file btw. such 2 letter names is asking for trouble. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 21:14, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Re: Earwig: it's gone now. Re: TheDJ, again, I tried it in a different browser, and I'd never seen that page before anyway. I think it was mediawiki taking too long to properly cache an image. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

New York Times pdfs not opening properly
I'm having a problem with pdf files from the New York Times news archives. Basically, the files are opening in a tiny window at the top of the screen that shows only a few lines and cannot be resized. Anyone know what the problem might be? Gatoclass (talk) 09:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know the cause, but I did experience the same problem myself a few days ago. If you save the PDF locally and re-open it in Acrobat Reader, it works just fine. So the problem seems to be with their website, not the PDFs themselves. --RL0919 (talk) 10:20, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, that does work, but I can go through hundreds of archive stories at times looking for relevant info, and it's just not practical to save every one. I guess if it's a problem with the NYT, I can email them, but the problem has been there at least a week and I would have thought they would have fixed it by now. Gatoclass (talk) 10:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

square brackets in an external link
At Bo Burnham, I have a citation to Boston's Weekly Dig that requires a URL of <tt> http://www.weeklydig.com/[catpath]/200903/bo-burnham </tt>. It's currently used in a cite news with nowiki brackets, and I recently tried to surround it in a URL wrapper, but none of them seem to be able to get over the square brackets in the URL. Can anybody suggest a fix? —  pd_THOR  undefined | 17:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The URL will need to be percent encoded, i.e. <tt> http://www.weeklydig.com/%5bcatpath%5d/200903/bo-burnham </tt>. —DoRD (talk) 18:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Excellent, thanks so much for that! —   pd_THOR  undefined | 18:14, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

broken image?
The first image used at Airman Basic (File:DCS04980.jpg) has been broken for quite some time. I've used a wide variety of browsers and computers since I first noticed it, and haven't seen any change. Can anybody else see this problem? —  pd_THOR  undefined | 17:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Odd. I added a size parameter to try to make it display. 200px was too small. 220px is the right size, but like the image with no size, it does not display, so I've left it at 221px. Maybe someone with more knowledge can explain this. —DoRD (talk) 18:30, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I purged the image page at Commons. That usually does the trick. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 18:43, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Awesome, that seems to have done it. Thanks!  —   pd_THOR  undefined | 20:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ahh, thanks for the tip! —DoRD (talk) 20:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Category intersections
What's the easiest way to find articles in two or more categories? PL290 (talk) 10:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * By using CatScan. Graham 87 14:23, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Nice, but CatScan will only work with two categories. There must be something that lets us use all this lovely data to construct richer queries than that? PL290 (talk) 08:37, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * WP:AWB allows richer queries. Cheers. Haus Talk 08:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * AWB can easily list articles in three categories? Couldn't see it when I looked; pointers would be appreciated. PL290 (talk) 10:04, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Go to "Tools"->"List Comparer" which can intersect two categories at a time. Take the result and intersect it with the third category &mdash; several approaches exist, but copy/paste and clearing the other lists out is probably easiest.  There are 30+ other ways to generate lists in list comparer: transclusion, what links here, links on page, etc....  Lots of flexibility.  One problem is there's a limit on list size &mdash; I think its 20K items.  There's a workaround for this problem by using catscan to intersect huge lists down to <20K lists, and using text files or "links on page."  Cheers.  Haus Talk 10:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that will be useful when I'm using AWB. PL290 (talk) 17:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * CatScan 2 does almost any type of intersection that you could want. I've even replaced a few reports with it.  — Dispenser 13:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that looks to have a lot of potential. PL290 (talk) 17:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Userbox + participant category
If this is not the correct venue for asking this question, I sincerely apologize. I cannot figure out for the life of me why this category doesn't include all of the project participants displaying this template/userbox even though several people display the box. If anyone else able to help, it would be much appreciated. -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 04:07, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Line 15, try removing the "| " from the link. See if that works. A p 3 rson  ‽   04:11, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * EDIT: Could it also be the noinclude tags? A p 3 rson  ‽   04:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The template is correct. It's just that updating the category may take a while. If you want to speed this up, you can null edit the user pages in question (I have done so for some of them). Svick (talk) 05:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! If the template is correct, perhaps I will just wait a while and see if the category begins to fill in. I am not familiar with null editing, so I will look into how it works. Much appreciated. -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 15:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

"Take me back" and "New features"
Hey dudes. How can I get rid of the "Take me back" and "New features" links at the top of the screen? Peace ;-)  Anna Lincoln  16:42, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Add the following to your Special:Mypage/skin.css... – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 16:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks!  Anna Lincoln  16:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Funny, I had to use:
 * Wonder what's going on there. PL290 (talk) 17:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Wonder what's going on there. PL290 (talk) 17:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It's possible that your code is the appropriate one for the OP (my code is perhaps for those still on monobook). – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 17:17, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * These "new features" were deployed months ago. They are not new anymore. Let's get rid of those links. Dodoïste (talk) 01:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, they should be removed very soon. I think we'll ideally want the equivalent of "Take me back" to remain easily accessible within the user prefs (without having to toggle all the options that restore the classic experience).--Eloquence* 04:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Error in link to toolserver template transclusion counter
Where do I file a bug report for an error in the link to the toolserver template transclusion counter? For example, if do a "what links here" for any template with a space in the name (e.g., Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Hang on), you will see links to "external tools". The first link is fine, but the second one appears to be missing the needed "urlencode" and is tripped up by the space in the title. 68.35.13.81 (talk) 23:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is as good a place as any. Fixed - thank you very much for the report. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 23:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

AVI to OGG
We're trying to start a new project, with tutorials using screencasts. There are a number of proprietary ways to do whatever we want, but I'd like an open source solution. There's an open source screencast program (CamStudio), but it outputs AVIs for some darn reason. Does anyone know of a dead simple way to covert those to .ogg or .ogv using another open source program? We've found a proprietary screencast program that will do absolutely everthing, so if the minimum is one proprietary program, then a converter is not needed. CamStudio is crazy easy to use, so I'm hoping I can combine it with one more easy program and have it still be easier than some pay program. Thanks a million. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:56, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, and I'd like to avoid teaching newbies command line, if I can. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:59, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps Commons:Help:Converting video might be of assistance? Killiondude (talk) 05:30, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

"API action parse has been been disabled [wikitech], this mean Dab solver does not work."
The above message appears on Dab solver. The only bit of it I understand is "Dab solver does not work". Could someone explain please what has been done, why it has been done, and when will it be undone so that Dab solver will work again? Thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 11:03, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * And before anyone asks, no I haven't asked at Wikitech, this is because it is impossible to ask anything at Wikitech and there is no help page at Wikitech. DuncanHill (talk) 11:19, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Part of the API was disabled yesterday because it was causing performance problems. They seems to have tracked the cause to a program on commons. The errant API feature has been turned back on. Dispenser needs to update his tool. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * What's an API? DuncanHill (talk) 11:33, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Application programming interface - Basically, they allow scripts and external programs (e.g. toolserver tools) to access Wikipedia without having to go through the HTML/human readable interfaces. —DoRD (talk) 11:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 12:02, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm removed the site notice. Next time I'll try adding more links to better help explain.  — Dispenser 15:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

RSS & Atom watchlist feeds reuse id/guid
I'm trying to look at my watchlist in Google Reader, and keep finding that some edits don't appear in the feed. I suspect this is due to the feeds on Wikipedia using the article URL for the id (Atom) or guid (RSS) field, with no other qualifier, so these fields aren't unique.

The W3C validation service says this is categorically wrong for RSS, although it appears to be permitted if not recommended for Atom, so I'll blame Google for GReader failing to cope with the Atom feed properly.

I'm planning on raising this as a bug for the RSS case on Bugzilla, and a feature request for Atom. Before I do that, though, I thought I'd check here in case anyone's found a work-around or can tell me I'm Doing It Wrong.

--me_and 17:09, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I have already reported a very similar bug. Svick (talk) 18:27, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I have this same problem when viewing my watchlist from Thunderbird 3.14, any known fixes? A p 3 rson  ‽   23:00, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Search bar
The search bar on this search bar is too narrow and is displaying g letters as qs. I recall that a few days after the vector switch the main search bar was widened but this change was apparently never applied to the others. Marcus  Qwertyus   19:53, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems fine to me (vector, Windows XP, Google Chrome 5.something). / ƒETCH COMMS  /  19:59, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Windows 7, Firefox 4 Beta 6. Could be that it is just a Firefox 4 problem in which case it is good to plan ahead. Marcus  Qwertyus   20:08, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm running the same and can't reproduce, at any zoom level, unfortunately. Maybe you have an odd default sans-serif font set? Just a suggestion. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 20:29, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I restored all the defaults and am getting the same. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 20:50, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

RSS Feed yields 403 error?
I just got a new RSS manager, and for some reason, every time I try to sync my watchlist RSS feed, it gives me a 403 error. I exported the links from my other RSS reader, and it worked there, but here it doesn't. Any ideas? A p 3 rson ‽   23:26, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Did you remember to put your watchlist token into your new RSS reader? — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 23:33, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I triple-checked. I copied the old link from my old RSS reader (.OPML file), where it worked there. A p 3 rson  ‽   23:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Then I don't know... does an RSS reader need to be logged in as well perhaps? — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 01:17, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Try regenerating/changing your token and using that? Peachey88 (T · &#32; C) 04:56, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What RSS reader are you now using? Such error could by caused because it doesn't send the  header. Svick (talk) 06:00, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I am using a reader called pRSSReader, for PocketPC (WM2003). Not sure if it has the User Agent feature. I do know that it can use a username and password for an RSS feed, could that help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by A p3rson (talk • contribs) 22:56, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * According to their FAQ, it can set the User-Agent. If you set it to anything non-empty, it should start working, if that was the problem. If that doesn't help, I think setting username and password is worth trying, although I doubt it's going to fix it. Also, what URL are you using? I suppose it's, correct? Svick (talk) 05:48, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the URL I have. Keep in mind it works in TB3.14, but not this. A p 3 rson  ‽   22:48, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Tried setting the user-agent (the option wasn't in the menu, had to create a key) to both the Pocket IE and the Opera Mini 5 on my device, but neither worked. The key is supposed to be  right?  A p 3 rson  ‽   23:02, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's what the FAQ says. I have no other ideas what could be the problem. Svick (talk) 05:29, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

renaming articles with edit notices
I noticed today that if you rename an article with edit notices attached, the edit notices get stranded under the old name: they trigger if you edit the redirect that was left behind, but not if you edit the new article name. Can anyone confirm that there isn't an existing Bugzilla report? I can't find one, but I'm pretty amateurish when it comes to Bugzilla.&mdash;Kww(talk) 14:51, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Could not find a bugzilla either, file away. Some parserFunction could be probably written and installed into the interface to warn on move that an edit notice exists. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 14:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Current edit notice logic is purely home-grown (editnotice load), without support from MediaWiki, so a bugzilla issue won't be worked on I'm afraid. Would adding a notice to the page move dialog or the page moved success page be enough, like xeno suggested? Amalthea  16:24, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * As long as it's a warning that shows only when edit notices actually exist, I think that would be fine. If it shows all the time regardless of whether an edit notice actually exists, people will quickly learn to ignore it.&mdash;Kww(talk) 17:59, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I imagine it could be made to resemble the deletion success page which tells you there's a talk page that could also be darleted (only #ifexist). – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 20:05, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If there is consensus for it, User:AnomieBOT II ( which already has accountcreator ) could easily move editnotices on redirect pages to the new page's name. Anomie⚔ 20:38, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It would need to check to ensure the editnotice was created before the page became a redirect. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 20:40, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Or we could just tag the editnotice with a category or something, which would also handle the case where someone wants to create a new editnotice for a redirect. The bot would also not be moving editnotices where the target page already has one. Anomie⚔ 02:58, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Even if we change the rename page, the bot is still needed to fix any cases that already exist.&mdash;Kww(talk) 21:44, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Not really, there are not that many. But it would help people not have to remember something so easily forgettable. Anomie⚔ 02:58, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've moved/deleted them as appropriate. Amalthea  09:37, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit conflicts not occuring
I've noticed that edit conflicts notices aren't appearing AFAICT at the moment. For example, I didn't get an EC making this edit to my sandbox even though I made that edit and the previous edit to the same original version of the page. Earlier today when I made this edit to Stuxnet I also didn't get an EC even though the text that was removed in the previous edit was still in the text when I saved it. I'm fairly sure that I should also have had an EC with this edit as I took more than 4 minutes to look at the sources and make my comment. Has something changed in the software recently? Smartse (talk) 14:18, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Your first example, was that an ec or should that be old-version-warning? And, am I supposed to get an ec when doing two edits against myself (double login)? -DePiep (talk) 15:36, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A single test between Smartse and me resulted in an ec notice, as expected. No more tests planned. -DePiep (talk) 15:50, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Template help
Templates give me nightmares but WPBannerMeta/collapsed has over 200,000 links to it. and the template is deleted. Could someone figure out what happened and fix it? ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 22:47, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The template is a message from Meta about something, and was auto-added to many pages (think like one of the donation ads that appear on pages). The template was discarded, however, the server didn't refresh the pages that it was placed on. The next time someone edits one of those pages, the page will be removed from the list. A p 3 rson  ‽   23:10, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * WAIT: It is actually a old template that was used for generic WikiProject templates. Whether or not this should have been fixed, I don't know. I will ask the editor who removed the template. A p 3 rson  ‽  23:12, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

New editbox CSS issues
The new editbox/toolbar has some CSS issues; I cannot set the line-height (which I find to large) from my own CSS, not even with <tt>!important</tt>. It seems that any CSS applied to <tt>#wpTextbox1</tt> seems to be overridden by <tt>http://bits.wikimedia.org/w/extensions/UsabilityInitiative/css/combined.min.css</tt> (not editable). Anyone has a solution? — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 14:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You need to use the same level of specificity as the definition that you want to override. So if you want to override ".wikiEditor-ui textarea#wpTextbox1 { css.... }" from the combined.min.css file, then you will have to use .wikiEditor-ui textarea#wpTextbox1 instead of #wpTextbox1. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 14:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Not quite... But I do need to specify the element with IDs. It seems that <tt>textarea#wpTextbox1</tt> does the trick. Thanks for the lead. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 14:48, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Deleted file infomration
The file: has been deleted recently. Where can i find the information who deleted it and why it was deleted? Thank you. IQinn (talk) 02:24, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This file has not been deleted; a user changed the file name in the template, breaking the display, which I have now reverted. You can find the file here. Intelligent  sium  02:33, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks you. Great work. IQinn (talk) 02:36, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Though it's a moot point for this, you can use Special:WhatLinksHere to find any on-wiki deletion discussion of a page (or image). EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 04:47, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Script issues
I seem to be having issues with scripts. WP:WikiEd has vanished, and on history pages the Twinkle links for rollback are gone. I'm using Monobook, Firefox 3.6.10, Windows 7. I did just install the WikiTrust add-on, could that be causing it? Fences &amp;  Windows  22:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Try disabling the WikiTrust Firefox extension (Tools -> Add-ons -> select WikiTrust and click the "Disable" button), restart Firefox, then see if you still have this problem. Gary King  ( talk  ·  scripts )  04:12, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Still broken, so it's not WikiTrust. Fences  &amp;  Windows  23:58, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Song title disambiguation template
I was wondering if there was a template one could use in disambiguation pages to properly pipe song titles, like so:


 * "Hotel California" (song)

I didn't see any mention of such a template on WP:PIPING. Thanks, 28bytes (talk) 17:38, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The quotation marks should not be in the link, so we cannot have both the title in quotes and the (song) qualifier in the same link. I suppose one could do something like

"|"
 * which would strip away the qualifier. I say 'suppose' because I do not recommend it, I'm just stating what could be done from a technical perspective Intelligent  sium  18:00, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I was thinking of something a little simpler, like this: "" So that Hotel California would generate "Hotel California" (song) when the page is saved. 28bytes (talk) 18:34, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, the Manual of Style recommends that "[i]f a title is enclosed in quotation marks, [one should] not include the quotation marks in any additional formatting markup" If you were to somehow rework your template to exclude the quote marks, there would not be much point in keeping the (song) qualifier. Intelligent  sium  19:53, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Moreover, both my example and yours depend on the article title containing qualifier (song), which I'd assume that not all song articles do. To make the template detect whether the parameter contains (song) would use too many expensive templates for such a simple task, in my opinion. Intelligent  sium  20:01, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought the (song) qualifier was supposed to be kept, per WP:PIPING? Or am I misunderstanding? It's only disambiguation pages I'm referring to, not articles. The list of songs in Hold On, for example: it seems like typing Hold On would be easier and less error-prone than typing "Hold On" (Michael Bublé song).
 * If not, no problem, I can keep typing them the current way... just thought there might be a template shortcut I hadn't run across yet. 28bytes (talk) 20:12, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... interestingly, WP:PIPE states that we can "[u]se piping to add ... quotation marks to part of an article name", probably a compromise that allows both proper title formatting without giving up the qualifier. In response to your original question, I don't think such a template exists yet. You could create one - the code you've cited would work, though I suggest changing simply  to  . If it is apparent from the context of the disambiguation entry that it is a song,, however, then we might ignore that particular rule and simply pipe it.  Intelligent  sium  23:18, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Your suggested change makes sense. I'll create a template and some documentation for it. 28bytes (talk) 23:58, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Superfluous hyphen
The correct place for reporting such issues might not be here, but I still don't know where it is. Please see this thread. In the "Watchlist" section of My preferences there is a misplaced hyphen, and as such it should be removed. Shall this be done? --Theurgist (talk) 01:57, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Fixed (in MediaWiki:Prefs-help-watchlist-token). Though idealy, this should be fixed in the software. Perhaps we can still report it as a bug? — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 02:36, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Clicking on the tildes puts sig in wrong place
For the past few days, only with Chrome and erratically, clicking on the tildes after 'Sign your posts on talk pages' puts my sig in the section heading box when I've started a section. It's doing it now, for instance. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 05:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

How to sort a table that contains "N/A" numerically
I'm trying to get the table below to sort in numeric order. It needs to include a cell that says "N/A". I tried adding a couple of hidden rows so that no matter whether the table was sorted low-to-high or high-to-low, the first row could cause the sort order to be numeric. It doesn't seem to work like I hoped. I also tried adding hidden text in the N/A cell, but I can't get it to work that way, either. It goes through 4 separate sorts rather than 2 like it should.

-- Greenbreen (talk) 19:11, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You may get better assistance on Help talk:Table but maybe someone here can assist. Marcus   Qwertyus   19:48, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I sent him here after he posted a Helpme tag on his talk page. :) I have made a post on Help talk:Table asking for interested editors to comment here if they have an idea. Protonk (talk) 20:29, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


 * This appears to work:
 * {| class="sortable wikitable"

!Number
 * N/A
 * }
 * If you want "N/A" to sort numerically before the other numbers rather than after (or in fact, at any given position), you can do
 * {| class="sortable wikitable"
 * N/A
 * }
 * If you want "N/A" to sort numerically before the other numbers rather than after (or in fact, at any given position), you can do
 * {| class="sortable wikitable"
 * }
 * If you want "N/A" to sort numerically before the other numbers rather than after (or in fact, at any given position), you can do
 * {| class="sortable wikitable"

!Number
 * N/A
 * }
 * —Emil J. 15:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * N/A
 * }
 * —Emil J. 15:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * N/A
 * }
 * —Emil J. 15:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * —Emil J. 15:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much! That's what I needed.  —Greenbreen (talk) 10:15, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Small request from Bengali Wikipedia
Dear All technical expert,this is a small Small request from Bengali Wikipedia. I want to know that how do you do the Main page tab as Main page? I submit that regarding this issue.If you see the main page of this Wikipedia you can see the respective tab shown as "Main page". But if you see our main page of Bengali Wikipedia, you can see "নিবন্ধ"(Article).Not shown "প্রধান পাতা"(main page) it mean that in our Wikipedia the main page assign as article/main namespane. Mediawiki:Mainpage ‎ and Mediawiki:Mainpage‎-description‎ both are assign "প্রধান পাতা"(main page). And Mediawiki:Nstab-main assign to "নিবন্ধ"(Article).Thank you all in advance. - Jayanta Nath (Talk 19:09, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This bit of code in in MediaWiki:Common.js does it. It also adds a link to List of Wikipedias to the bottom of the language links box.


 * Anomie⚔ 22:38, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you Anomie . it working perfect.- Jayanta Nath (Talk 06:37, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Animated GIF fails at specific size
thumb|right|299px|Sized at 299px thumb|right|300px|Sized at 300px thumb|right|301px|Sized at 301px File:Franks expansion.gif

Does not seem to animate at 300px. Works at any other size. Some kind of broken thumbnail or something?

This was reported with a on Talk:Francia, and I 'fixed' it by changing the size from 300 to 299.

Is there some broken thumbnail? Will it sort itself out?  Chzz  ► 04:23, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Even more oddly, it works again at 301px. something seems to be peculiar about 300px precisely.  -- Ludwigs 2  05:30, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * P.s. with a little more playing around, it seems to happen at many pixel sizes that end with 0 (I tested 200px, 400px, 250px, 240px, and 230px.  also 100px, but that one worked correctly).  This is starting to look like bugzilla territory.  -- Ludwigs 2  05:36, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You two should learn how to use the search function..., but to keep it short:
 * If an animation is more than 12.5MP total (width x height x number of frames), you get a single frame
 * If an animation is more than 12.5MP per frame, you get the thumberror.
 * As described in the link it was done for performance reason. You can fix it by rewriting ImageMagick to stream images instead of loading all into memory.  — Dispenser 06:47, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I did use the search function, and this gif calculates out to something like six million pixels: 790*505*17 = 6782150 - well under the 12.5 million limit. plus, the 12.5 mp limit would affect all display sizes, not just ones that ended in zero.  This would have been easy to verify if you had checked the image page itself, so please don't jump to the conclusion that other people aren't doing their homework.  thanks.  -- Ludwigs 2  07:12, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that. The issue was the thumbnail cache was probably generated at sometime when we were simply freezing all large GIFs (it took a while to get the implementation right).  To fix it, simply go to commons and click on the Purge tab/link which clears the image cache.  — Dispenser 08:34, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Tried that, no joy. There was no explicit purge tab or link, but twinkle has a menu item that sends the 'action=purge' GET.  yet doing that a couple of times made no change in the behavior here.  Unless  wikipedia has a separate cache for commons items? if so, I see no obvious way to purge that.  -- Ludwigs 2  15:16, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It animates for me at 300px, have you tried bypassing your cache? Svick (talk) 15:25, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That was it. sorry, I'm on a Mac and we don't normally need to do that, so it didn't occur to me.    -- Ludwigs 2  16:09, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Extension:HasCategory
The HasCategory parser function doesn't seem to be enabled on enwiki. Does anyone know if it is possible to get it, and how to go about doing so? Would it just involve filing a bugzilla request? <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 13:54, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It would be, yes, except that the devs won't be happy with it. Not in active development for a year; never tested on a large scale wiki; still in self-admitted "beta" state - it still needs work before it could be enabled on enwiki, with its many visitors every day. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 15:06, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * First you'd need to get consensus for it on enwiki, and then you can file the request in Bugzilla with a link to the discussion. Reach Out to the Truth 15:13, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Hm, I guess it's probably not ready, in that case. Do you guys know if there's any other way to do the following: if a template (in this case, ) is used over and over again on a single page, instead of having to call a certain display parameter every time, is there a way to set sort of a default setting for that entire page? My idea was to have a parameter with a value like. <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 20:56, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This would be a very useful extension to have, but if it's not ready, then it's probably best to leave it be. I don't think there is any way to mimic this functionality currently, though. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  03:15, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Strange bug only when viewing saved page
I spent over an hour trying to debug a template, when I noticed that, oddly enough, it worked as expected when previewing the page while refusing to work when viewing it normally. To see what I mean, look at the template to the right and see how it only shows a bold apostrophe above the box. Now click [edit] for this section and go straight to the edit preview. You should then suddenly see Village pump (technical) in place of where the bold apostrophe was without making any changes! (Unless of course this was fixed by the time you did that.) It's frustrated me to no end trying to make it display the name of the box when the "title" parameter is left blank for Template:Infobox game... Isn't it strange how it's broken when viewing normally but works fine in edit preview? — Code Hydro  16:54, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, weird, it works on this page, however, take a look at Milton (game) and do the procedure that I describe above except by comparing the title above the infobox on the Milton page versus how it looks in the edit preview... now I'm more confused.. why does it work fine here but not at Milton (game)? — Code Hydro  16:55, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I fixed it by removing the title parameter entirely. This is something new I've noticed recently - blank named and unnamed parameters seem to be overriding default values.  in other words, using parameter behaves differently than omitting the parameter entirely.  This isn't the way it used to work, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  did someone make a code change somewhere that mucked things up?


 * This could (potentially) be breaking templates all across the project, so someone might want to jump on it. -- Ludwigs 2  17:13, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I know it can be fixed by removing the parameter entirely, but I coded it specifically to handle cases when it is left blank and did not remove it myself so people could see it... hmm, I just noticed that it's fixed now even with the blank title parameter there. Wikipedia must be caching templates somehow, so updates to the template aren't shown on the page until new edits are made. In effect, even though I fixed the template, it still showed the broken template... arg... — Code Hydro  17:20, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * As far as I know undefined and empty have always been two different things: the default does not apply if a parameter is defined as being the empty string.--Patrick (talk) 20:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Blockquote rendering
Could a dev comment at ? It's been a few weeks now...Smallman12q (talk) 21:22, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I won't comment there, but I want to just point out that the issue is not just for blockquotes, but indenting in general; if you try putting a left-aligned image next to indented discussion on any talk page you'll notice the indenting goes away. <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 21:26, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I commented there; it's a CSS float bug which effets all indented elements. It cannot be fixed in Mediawiki. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 21:44, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Italic title
I'm experiencing a few issues with this template, and bearing in mind the recent policy change at WP:ITALICTITLE it would be ideal to get it working as well as possible. It's a little beyond my coding skills, so any input would be welcome. See discussion at Template talk:Italic title. Cheers! PC78 (talk) 22:10, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Is there a template which, when substituted, becomes a URL pointing to that revision of the page?
Hi,

I'm trying to create a template which, when substituted, becomes a URL (example) pointing to the resulting page-revision as of the moment of the save. You would put the template in your signature, so when future editors are reading through your comments on a talk page, they can very quickly see what the underlying article looked like when you were talking about it. The idea is to make old talk page discussions easier to read and relate to.

I'm currently using a version that isolates that revision on the article's "history" page:
 * Input:
 * Output:

That works OK, but it's less convenient, and less likely to take hold widely. I want to generate the URL of that revision, directly.

Over at the help desk, <b style="color:#000">TFOW</b><b style="color:#F00">R</b> introduced me to. That seems to put us on the right track: However, we need to make the oldid permanent, but here is what happens when we use : In fact, <b style="color:#000">TFOW</b><b style="color:#F00">R</b> points out, i.e. that MediaWiki can't perform , and suggests maybe we need to create a magic word for. So we might need another trick.
 * Input:, output =
 * Input:, Output:
 * Input:, output =
 * Input:, Output:

FYI, here are the instructions for creating MediaWiki URLs.

AGradman / talk / how the subject page when I made this edit 01:20, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You can't get the revision id into the revision you are saving since it is only generated by the database at the time of insertion, and as far as I'm aware nobody has yet figured out another reliable way of generating a satisfactory link at PST time. Amalthea  08:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Templates shouldn't go in signatures, anyway. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  03:18, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A subst'd template wouldn't be a problem. The prohibition on templates is there to keep people from dropping thousands of unecessary templates on talk pages that must be recached every time they change their sig. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:24, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A substed template could be a problem if the resulting output is overly long, see WP:SIG. The entire sig after substing templates should remain within the 255-character limit enforced by MediaWiki on normal sigs. Anomie⚔ 14:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This is a bug worth solving. I'm pretty disappointed that so few people are responding to this thread.  I would think the goal has enough promise to inspire some people to look for a way to implement it.   AGradman / talk / how the subject page  when I made this edit 04:06, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What usefulness would there be in having that? Most people see how the page looked by actually digging the diff from your contribs or the page history. It's not that difficult since it is timestamped. Killiondude (talk) 04:11, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * When you are reading an old talk page thread, how often do you open up the article in a new tab, click the "history" button, input the month and year of the old thread, hit "older"/"newer" until a date near the date of interest appears, calculate the date on the list that is immediately prior to a date of interest in the talk page thread, and click a diff? Every time a Wikipedia editor is unwilling to complete these steps, our dialogue gets impoverished.  Consensus gets misunderstood.  By putting the diffs right there inside the thread, we mitigate these problems.  AGradman / talk / how the subject page  when I made this edit 04:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I use popups, so I don't click anything. And I do it ("it" being following each diff) fairly frequently for conversations I'd like to follow. Killiondude (talk) 07:00, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

For using the revision ID of the subject page on the talk page the bug is unrelated. What we need here is allowing REVISIONID to have a page name as parameter. You could file a new feature request at bugzilla.--Patrick (talk) 09:24, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I confess I'm not fully following all this but does Template:Freeze do what you want? SPhilbrick  T  17:07, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, a direct link would be better, but arriving at the page in two clicks is the next best thing.--Patrick (talk) 21:13, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Non-working 404 Wikipedia link
I posted the original query here and got redirected to the VPT, so doing a cut/paste of the original report made here. Hope this is the right place to report this link error.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senkaku_Islands is the wikipedia URL for the Senkaku Islands article that I have problems getting into.

I was searching for "Senkaku Islands" from google, and clicking on the wikipedia result gave me a "404 Not Found" error. Typing "senkaku islands" in Wikipedia's search box will throw up the same error. Similarly, clicking on "senkaku islands" on the disambigiuos Senkaku article page shows up the same 404 error. Same with this redirect page. In fact, the only way I can reach the article is to search for the less common Diaoyutai.

A check with the move logs show that the page has recently been subject with quite a number of moves, due to it being a result territorial disputes between China and Japan. (That was the reason why I was searching for the article originally, as I was looking for more background on the incident). The last discussion regarding the move resulted in a "no-move" agreement among the editors, but the prior moves may have somehow "broken" the way Wikipedia is linking to the article.

As this is a hot news topic at the moment, the article will be highly sought after and the bad link should be fixed as soon as possible. Thanks in advance! Zhanzhao (talk) 06:24, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Unable to reproduce. What's the full exact text of the 404 page you're getting? --<b style="color:#3773A5;">Cyber</b> cobra (talk) 10:27, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Works for me, too. Both via the google.com.sg link, and via the wikilink. Maybe a temporary issue, now resolved? What happens if you try again? <b style="color:#000">TFOW</b><b style="color:#F00">R</b> 10:36, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Could this be a Great Firewall of China issue? Anomie⚔ 14:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That sounds likely. A Wikipedia-internal page should never return 404, no matter what it is.  Even hgfqwdfwevgerg at least gives you a MediaWiki error message saying there's no such page.   —  Soap  —  14:48, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki does return a 404 HTTP status code, though; it's possible the browser or a proxy might ignore the returned HTML to show its own generic 404 page. Anomie⚔ 15:30, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not from China (nor Hong Kong), so I don't see how a Great Firewall of China could be working here. The full message I got is

"Not Found

The requested URL /wiki/Senkaku_Islands was not found on this server.

Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS) Server at en.wikipedia.org Port 80"

Page title is :404 Not Found Zhanzhao (talk) 15:39, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I just asked. The Foundation does not use CentOS anywhere. This likely means that your connection is using a proxy server between you and wikipedia. It might be that the many article renames of that article have confused the proxy somehow... Or you are being censored of course :D Anyway, this problem is probably bound to your ISP. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 16:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry guys for the false alarm, I just checked at a computer at my office and its working fine so apparently it IS a home proxy issue, sorry for taking up your time. I was just getting paranoid and thinking that some faction from the region dispute was getting overly enthusiastic and somehow hacking the wikipedia system or at least gaming it over the dispute. Case closed?Zhanzhao (talk) 23:36, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

nbsp;
How do i get "& nbsp;" to display. I tried code and nowiki and it still just shows a space. Just granpa (talk) 21:43, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Here: &amp;nbsp; -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:56, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * LoL. Of course. Just granpa (talk) 22:03, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Block improperly licensed files from upload rather than immediate tagging?
When a user selects "Wikipedia use only" or non-commercial use only in the license drop-down on the upload form, the file is uploaded with a CSD tag on it. Can we just return an error message to the user and not upload the image at all in these cases? &mdash; Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 19:04, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable. Of course, that new Commons upload wizard prototype completely skips the possibility that a file could *gasp* not be licensed appropriately for Wikimedia uploads, so it's not like this will change soon, because apparently it's too BITEy or something. Ridiculous. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  12:57, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What "Commons upload wizard prototype" are you talking about? I'm not aware of any proposals. I don't see how refusing the upload would bite newcomers. I think the scary speedy box and "This file is not suitable for use on Wikipedia" are even more BITEy. Only problem I see is people might upload non-free content masquerading under a free license simply to get it uploaded.&mdash; Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 00:39, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This is the work the wmf is doing to make uploading easier for people. It is still a prototype (obviously). Killiondude (talk) 00:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe that is the reasoning behind the current setup - they are honeypots for imagevios. MER-C 08:09, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * MER-C is right. The reason why we allow and tag likely imagevios is because if we disallow them, we create a requirement that uploading editors misclassify non-free media.  Our largest image problem is non-free images tagged as PD-SELF and the upload wizard helps avoid that for non-egregious cases. Protonk (talk) 22:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're correct. Because people somehow cannot understand "Stop! You cannot use this file on Wikipedia! Like, don't try again, seriously!". Which is basically why the new upload prototype is useless against copyvios because no tutorial (which they plan to use to explain the acceptable licenses and whatnot) will stop people from ignoring it and trying again and again to upload copyrighted files until they get a block. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  03:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

CSS for highlighting discussion threads
Is there any way I can add custom css to my vector.css to get the effect of highlighted posts, as seen here? If so, what would the css be? / ƒETCH COMMS  /  23:15, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The code is in fr:MediaWiki:Vector.css, specifically the part below. Note that it will only work on talk pages, so for example not on this page. Svick (talk) 23:39, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Excellent, thank you! / ƒETCH COMMS  /  00:29, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Just a quick note: this layout is an important usability and accessibility improvement. Especially for people with dislexia. It would be worth implementing site-wide until Liquidthreads are implemented. I can provide more details - as well as translation of advices from accessibility experts - if people are interested. Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 06:59, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I was thinking that myself. I dislike LQT for use on talk pages, but I like the highlighting thing here. The current downside is that templates with indented text get the highlighted boxes too, but this is a minor issue. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  18:11, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the biggest problem. On the French Wikipedia we have been using this tool for a long time, so our templates and syntax is fitted for it. Implementing it on en.wikipedia would require several adjustments of templates. But it's definitely worth it. Dodoïste (talk) 00:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I have proposed a sitewide addition of this feature at Village_pump_(proposals). / ƒETCH COMMS  /  03:35, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

template loop
Is there a way to make a loop in a template? I want to send the template a number X and have it return an expression repeated X times. Just granpa (talk) 00:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I found Template:Repeat But the whole thing is turning out to be too complex.
 * I think I may have to settle with what I got so far.
 * Just granpa (talk) 01:54, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You cannot make a true loop in a template. there are a few ways of faking it over limited iterations (see for loop), but templates were not designed to to be a full programming language.  what precisely are you trying to do?  -- Ludwigs 2  17:15, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Collapse & sort table
Hi, could you guys (and ladies) help me out with the table "Known Roman bridges" at Roman bridge? I would like to make it so collapsible that only the bold (continents + total) appears when collapsed. Also, I'd like to have a sortable list, but somehow some countries don't follow the order. Thanks in advance Gun Powder Ma (talk) 08:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Both collapsible and sortable tables have limitations, which means you might not be able to do what you want precisely the way you want it. but I'll take a look at it and see if I can get something working.  -- Ludwigs 2  17:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, I made a draft. it's not perfect, but it will give you an idea of how to move on.  incidentally, that 0 template is throwing off sorting by number.  are you sure you need it?  probbly better just to text-align right.  -- Ludwigs 2  18:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Top icons
This is a problem in Tamil wikipedia. The template is not working there. It just displays the coordinates as inline text. While investigating it i found that none of the top icons - pp, fa, ga etc work there (they don't appear at all). Similar problem exists in a few other wikipedias like Friulian Wikipedia. Can someone help me to solve this problem? --Sodabottle (talk) 14:11, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The template does not do much by itself, it only wraps the content in ... . The real work of displaying it at the top of the page is done by CSS, see the styling of #coordinates in MediaWiki:Vector.css and/or MediaWiki:Monobook.css. This may be missing in the other language Wikipedias, for example ta:MediaWiki:Vector.css is empty. Similarly, top icons rely on styling the class "topicon".—Emil J. 14:26, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Emil, I imported the vector.css file and now the templates are working.--Sodabottle (talk) 15:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

edit conflicts with my own posts?
Has anyone else noticed this? every once in a while I'll submit a post, get an edit conflict, and then go back to realize that my post actually went through (implying that the edit conflict was with my own post). This could happen if (for instance) something in the software was duplicating submit requests, so that the first goes through and then the duplicate request conflicts with the original. it's not a huge problem, just odd. Working on Safari 5.0.2 on Mac OS 10.6.4. -- Ludwigs 2 17:12, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Buy a new mouse. Old ones tend to double-click unintentionally, sending the edit to the server twice. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 17:23, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The explanation sounds wrong. Duplication of submit requests should not trigger edit conflicts: you don't get an edit conflict if your version of the file is identical to the current one, the request is silently ignored.—Emil J. 17:26, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If it's a new section (+) and it gets double-submitted, it might trigger an ec. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 18:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm using a trackpad rather than a mouse (which doesn't make things more accurate, I know). it's possible I'm getting an actual edit conflict with someone else that I'm just no seeing (but then I don't know why my posts are going through as well as generating an edit conflict - should be one or the other).  -- Ludwigs 2  18:04, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It may happen if your computer's time is off, I know that has happened to me. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 18:06, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I get it too sometimes, using Google Chrome 6.0.472.63 on WinXP. DuncanHill (talk) 18:09, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

It's also possible for this to happen when some editor starts a new section on a busy discussion page by using the section edit link on the last section and adding a new top-level section at the end of it. The edit conflict resolver doesn't handle this very well - it either ought to be an edit conflict or not, but it generally manifests as an invisible edit conflict that ought to be resolvable. — Gavia immer (talk) 18:17, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Folks who do this should be directed to read WP:NEWSECTION. =) – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 18:18, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * or perhaps directed to someplace less pleasant...-- Ludwigs 2 18:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

how does wikipedia parse out links for each article?
I hope this is the right place to ask...

I'm just wondering how the database stores links within each entry. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_Great_America In the first paragraph, there are links to "amusement park", "cedar fair...", "santa clara...", etc. How are these links stored in the database? They aren't actual HTML-formatted links, right? That would be far too cumbersome.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.210.240 (talk) 21:21, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The wikitext is stored in the database, and the fact that article A links to article B.--Patrick (talk) 22:21, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

template layout trouble
My new template at Template:Nuclides is finished.

I just have to add the values for the half-lives.

There is one glitch left in the layout that I cant seem to fix myself.

The template, which creates a table, contains this code


 * | 5 0{{#ifeq: {{{D}}} | no | |  &amp;nbsp;


 * {{!}}-

The first line creates a table cell containing "50".

When D=yes then the second line starts a new table row.

But when D=yes I get an extra space after the 50 that I dont want. But if I remove the &amp;nbsp; then I dont get a carriage return which is essential.

How can I get a carriage return without also getting a space?

Just granpa (talk) 21:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You can see why this messes up the layout here.Just granpa (talk) 21:52, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Use Template:Ifeq.--Patrick (talk) 22:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That did indeed create a carriage return without me putting a space there but somehow it still didnt work.
 * I'm just going to sacrifice the zero. That fixes the layout.
 * Thanks Just granpa (talk) 23:38, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I found a work around. Just granpa (talk) 23:46, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Search box issue
When the cursor is not in the search box, the search box contains the word "Search". Usually, it is a light gray color and disappears as soon as one clicks to type in the search box. At times, however, it is black and does not disappear when one clicks to type in the search box, and it must be manually deleted before searching. The issue is present both when I am logged in and logged out. Any ideas about what may be causing this and how to fix it? (I am using Vector and have IE8). Thanks, -- Black Falcon (talk) 01:07, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I have this issue when dragging text into the box. Not too annoying for me, but it works fine the rest of the time. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  01:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I encounter it in about 20% of my attempts to use the search function. When you encounter it, have you noticed any connection with using tabbed browsing? -- Black Falcon (talk) 17:15, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hey I'm a wmf contractor who wrote some of the code for the current search box. I'm not able to replicate the original issue in IE8 and am at a loss for what could be causing it. If you can provide any more info on how to replicate the problem, I can look into it further. The dragging issue is something we've known about for a while, and unfortunately it's supported about as best as possible right now. Safari and Chrome work well, Firefox and IE have some issues. --Acm6603 (talk) 18:49, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll see if I can identify any specific conditions under which the issue arises. Thanks for your attention and response, -- Black Falcon (talk) 19:06, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales and Reflist Template
Please look at the References section of the Jimmy Wales article. After the initial note, there is a use of the reflist template and a long string of references, none of which appears in the article, at least not when I'm looking at it. I looked at the template documentation and became hopelessly lost in what appeared to be all sorts of caveats about using the template in this manner. Can someone please explain what is going on? If it matters, I'm using the latest version of Firefox, although if I view it with IE6, it looks the same to me.--Bbb23 (talk) 07:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Said article is utilizing List-defined references (relevant part of the template's docs) (albeit using reflist rather than → foo

Is this an intended feature. Seems a bit daft. – droll  &#91;chat&#93;  20:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You'll have to explain a bit further. "if" will evaluate as "yes" if there is something (anything) after the colon. Are you suggesting the output should have been foo*bar? rather than foo with bar on a bulleted line? If so, you could use  *  (or the HTML entity &amp;#42;). – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk  20:15, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It seems to me it should result in foo*bar and that * normally starts a list only when it is the first character on a new line. – droll  &#91;chat&#93;  20:24, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. I don't deny the reality of what the output is but is it an undocumented feature? – droll  &#91;chat&#93;
 * Anomie⚔ 20:36, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Vector top menu
Is it possible to have the items in the drop-down menu appear as tabs instead? — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 22:50, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Svick/DropDownToTabs.js is listed at WP:JS. Can't vouch for it. Monobook 4ever! – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 22:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Works like a charm! Should be an option/gadget. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 23:57, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Little x in watchlist
There is now a little "x" after the page titles on my watchlist. Does this mean anything? Thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 16:53, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That sounds like one of several AJAX watch/unwatch scripts that exist, but I don't see that you have any such script enabled in your <tt>monobook.js</tt> file, and you haven't changed it recently, either. Are you running scripts from any other source (Greasemonkey, for instance)? — Gavia immer (talk) 17:35, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No, and it now seems to have disappeared. DuncanHill (talk) 18:17, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I just had a capital U appear in the same space, went when I refreshed my watchlist. DuncanHill (talk) 11:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

New template
I've started a new template at Template:Nuclides. The doc page fully explains how it works. Parameters A-D determine which rows are displayed. Ideally I would like to be able to use another set of parameters to determine which columns are displayed. (right now all columns are displayed all the time) The obvious way to make a column not display is to set width=0px for that column. I tried it and it didnt work in firefox. Using #if: for every single cell will be a pain and will be slow to render. Any suggestions?
 * This has been completely fixed now. Just granpa (talk) 07:22, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm also hoping that someone who knows more about templates will be kind enough to look over my work and tell me if there is a much easier way to do this before I get any further involved with it. Just granpa (talk) 22:47, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This template seems to repeat the same code many times. The main template could be greatly simplified by having a sub-template (something like Template:Nuclide/row), if this is possible without removing any necessary functions. Template:Infobox/row serves a similar function for Infobox, for example. Intelligent  sium  22:54, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I hadnt even considered the possibility of using straight html code for the table.

That might help. Just granpa (talk) 23:38, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Navigation/search/interaction etc
All the Navigation/Search/Toolbox etc malarky that should be under the Wikipedia logo on the left of my Watchlist has disappeared in the last ten minutes. They all still shew fine on any other page. Old-stylee Wikipedia, Google Chrome on WinXP. DuncanHill (talk) 11:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Correction - they haven't exactly disappeared, they are hiding right at the bottom of the page, still on the left hand side but below the very last item in my watchlist. DuncanHill (talk) 12:01, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a very long and thin screenshot at File:Naughty navigation.png. DuncanHill (talk) 12:12, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What skin are you using? None of those listed at WP:SKIN is named old-style, and none of them has the green-on-black colour scheme as seen on the screenshot.—Emil J. 12:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The "take me back" skin. The green on black is a gadget enabled through user preferences, which I have been using for ages. DuncanHill (talk) 12:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I can confirm this. It only seems to affect my watchlist. Monobook, Chrome, Ubuntu 10.04. I can upload a screenshot if necessary - mine won't be green and black ;-) <b style="color:#000">TFOW</b><b style="color:#F00">R</b> 12:39, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Also a problem on Safari with MonoBook, see Help desk. DuncanHill (talk) 12:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Got it, diff. Small error in the watchlist notice. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 12:48, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, back to normal for me now. DuncanHill (talk) 12:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Likewise. Well caught, TheDJ, and thanks! <b style="color:#000">TFOW</b><b style="color:#F00">R</b> 12:51, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks folks, working again here too. Lexicografía (talk) 13:14, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

SPER
My question is why is Database reports/Cross-namespace redirects/2 appearing on the list of ? That category holds the list of open semi-protected edit requests indicated by a template on the page. The data report page does not contain that template anywhere on it but still appears in the category. --Stickee (talk)  02:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Interesting - if you look at the current or any prior version, the only category it's in is Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls, but if you try to edit any version, it shows as being in a bunch of categories on the edit screen. The page format uses a bunch of display templates, and where the appropriate page name to display is a category, the bot formats them without protecting them with a leading colon; probably what's happening is that having too many transclusions is causing page breakage, and the page breakage is manifested by naked category names being treated as categorization instead of links. That's my theory, at least. The fix would be to break up the report into multiple pages, and probably to protect category names with a colon when the bot generates the page formatting. — Gavia immer (talk) 02:53, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I came to a similar guess after seeing the page in Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls. This means some things are not done normally after a certain point and the software may add illogical links instead but I don't know the details. I recall a similar situation where template transclusions after a limit has been broken are replaced with a link to the mainspace page with the same name as the template. Here (big slow load) is an example of a page revision in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded with such mainspace links at the end. 7005 mentions this latter problem. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:09, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Marking a new page as a minor edit
Why is that possible, and when would that ever be necessary? New pages really aren't minor edits (nor are new sections, really), so I'm not sure why this option is available for such situations, unless it's because the software always shows it on every edit screen and that can't be changed. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  03:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd say redirects are minor changes.  ~DC  We Can Work It Out 04:32, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * There wouldn't be edit warring over redirects if they were minor changes. They can be pov, just plain wrong, etc. Dougweller (talk) 05:12, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly. Is there any way to disable marking new pages as minor edits? / ƒETCH COMMS  /  12:53, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe it can happen if an editor has "Mark all my edits minor by default" checked in Preferences. (BTW I'm sure that often results in non-minor edits getting marked as minor. Is the existence of this option really a good idea, or should we simply default the other way so edits are only marked as minor when an explicit decision is made?) PL290 (talk) 17:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That setting is going away sooner or later. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 17:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Article feedback tool: Join the workgroup
Hi. As you may have read recently on the Wikimedia Blog or in the latest Signpost, the Wikimedia Foundation has released an experimental Article feedback tool, currently enabled on a small subset of Public Policy articles (more details are included in the blog post). The main reason why I'm coming to you today is because we're trying to build a small team of users and developers to assess the feature itself to see what we should do with it, if we should improve it (and if so, how) or simply abandon it.

I realize you may want to focus on "bigger" features such as Pending Changes right now, but it's really important for us that some of you join the workgroup so we make sure it meets your needs.

If you don't want to join the workgroup, but still want to provide feedback, please read the Q&A page and leave comments on the workgroup's talk page.

Many thanks in advance for your help!

guillom, for the Features engineering team. 20:04, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I saw this over at Test: I would encourage as many people as possible to look at this, it is a potential big change to the user interface, quite apart form look-and-feel issues, it also affects tone in the same sense (but a different way) that the fund-raiser and other banners do. Rich Farmbrough, 23:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC).

Interface block notice while viewing user talk page?
As was suggested here, is it possible to show an interface notice while viewing a user's talk page, noting that they are blocked? – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 17:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Two key technical questions I think are:
 * Is there a parserfunction or similar way to determine if account is blocked
 * Is there something for registered accounts analogous to the MediaWiki:Anontalkpagetext for IPs?
 * which would allow this to be done easily without requiring MW system hacking. DMacks (talk) 18:03, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Item #2 could be done within MediaWiki:Talkpagetext (thanks NuclearWarfare!), triggered by a parserfunction test for the namespace. Would work for both registered and anons. DMacks (talk) 18:06, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, there is no way to do #1 however. Well we could use Javascript, but that doesn't sound like a good plan. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 19:03, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Bugzilla it is, then. =\ – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 19:17, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Done.  DMacks (talk) 06:40, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Why is a javascript solution so repulsive? Popups already does it, so it couldn't be that hard. Gigs (talk) 19:49, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, mostly because it's a solution that will only work for those with javascript. Though I suppose it could be used as a bandaid until the bugzilla is fulfilled. They do tend to take time. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 19:53, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, the pageviews of users with popups would pale in comparison to the total amount of views of a all userpages. Doing this in JS, would require running a API request every single time a user page is opened. That is not very efficient. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 22:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup categories
Take a look at Category:Wikipedia_articles_needing_cleanup_from_August_2010. For some reason, almost all of the cleanup categories have been deleted, though they're still populated. What happened? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 22:17, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Categories will not depopulate only for being deleted. The deleted category will still display all pages that include it. For example, look at 2010 Northern Hemisphere summer heat wave, in Category:Wikipedia articles needing cleanup from July 2010. At the bottom, it still has "Wikipedia articles needing cleanup from July 2010" (a redlink) in the categories section. To remove these from the deleted category, one must remove the category syntax from each page included. Intelligent  sium  22:37, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've now created the categories and added to each. This makes each category a hidden category, so most reader will not see the maintenance categories. No sign in the logs of them being deleted, I guess no one got round to creating them. Maybe there is a bot which could create these every month.--Salix (talk): 23:14, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Femto Bot seems to be that bot..--Salix (talk): 23:21, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Following recent changes to cleanup, the categories have been renamed from "Articles needing cleanup..." to "Wikipedia articles needing cleanp...". I'm not personally convinved this was a necessary or even desirable change, but there we are. PC78 (talk) 09:19, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * yes but it is a very small bot, and still getting the hang of things. Rich Farmbrough, 16:52, 1 October 2010 (UTC).

Interactive timeline of article edits
I can't remember whether WikiRank had this or something similar, but in any case they have now (apparently) discontinued the service after their acquisition. Out of curiosity, I built an interactive visualization of Gliese 581 g's edits, using Google Spreadsheets, and thought I'd share the concept here in case someone has ideas on how to improve it (make it work with any article, supplied by the viewer, or group sequential edits by the same editor, etc.), or gets inspired to create something similar (toolserver devs, anyone? :D). It can be found here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aj_U36rhRPNldFUwOW4xaEtqMUxobUR4elVVLTdURmc. --Waldir talk 10:56, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Search function has died?
I entered WP:VPT into the search bar, and although am normally redirected here, it now lists no search results, with the link that says there is an article with the exact name. What's going on? Searches for terms (not article titles) don't work at all either.  Bramble  claw  x   18:22, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * never mind. issue has disappeared.  Bramble  claw  x   18:23, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I've done some further testing, and the search function only works some of the time. For example, I searched "Brambleclawx" in Everything (I've set my search default to "everything"), and it stated that nothing matched my query. Later, when I tried again, it managed to display my user page, and all my various subpages, etc. I'm not sure what the problem is? I believe the search function still works if I search the exact title.  Bramble  claw  x   21:05, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * FWIW: I did Search for "Brambleclawx" one time, and it gave the serious results. End of testing for me. -DePiep (talk) 21:16, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Earlier today, the search servers were seeing an unusual spike of traffic. The traffic causing this was blocked, which should have returned normal service. http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Server_admin_log —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 21:28, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Table Position
Please look at List_of_Jewish_Justices. The table doesn't start until (I assume) after the navbox on the right ends. I'd like the table to start at the top of the section as there's plenty of room for it to do so, and when I first scrolled down, I initially thought the section was blank. I've looked at the template(s) used, but I don't see how to make this happen.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:41, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Removing   from Template:Start U.S. judgeship would work for this specific problem, but I'm wondering if it is there for a reason and the change may affect other articles. If it would then just copy the header and make the change into the article in question. <b style="color:#E32636;">Rambo's Revenge</b>  <b style="color:#FFA500;">(talk)</b>  23:48, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Changing the template without knowing every article that uses it is probably a bad idea. I'm assuming, because you didn't say so, that there's no way of overriding the template in an individual article? One other idea. Is there a way to change the template so its current settings are the default but give editors the ability to override the default?--Bbb23 (talk) 23:52, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That will "override the default" but obviously any changes to the template won't happen in this article and it might be a good idea to copy in the code from Template:end U.S. judgeship in the same way to remove any alliance. Is that what you wanted? <b style="color:#E32636;">Rambo's Revenge</b> <b style="color:#FFA500;">(talk)</b>  23:56, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me make sure I understand. You're suggesting I remove the two templates (start and end) entirely and just use their code (modified to eliminate the clear); is that right? If my understanding is correct, the only downside I see is that any "improvements" to the templates in the future would not be picked up by this article. What are your thoughts on the advisability of doing this (as opposed to just the technical feasibility)?--Bbb23 (talk) 00:07, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd just use the paste the code in but, as you seemed concerned about this, I tweaked the template to give the option of not having "clear: both" so now Jewish Justices performs as you requested and is still using the template. Happy? <b style="color:#E32636;">Rambo's Revenge</b> <b style="color:#FFA500;">(talk)</b>  15:42, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * My friends tell me I'm never happy (smile), but I think what you did is the best way to go for flexibility. Thanks very much for doing it.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:04, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Not to stuff beans up my nose...
but I'm setting up a private testwiki space on my own server, and I wanted to know what the code was to get the "Unable to proceed" page when trying to move/delete the Main Page.

Also, would the MP be deleted if I tried to move a page over it? That's what is happening with Mediawiki Default, it seems. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  03:37, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * See, wfNoDeleteMainPage in the wikimedia setup. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 12:46, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Thumbnails incorrect
File:DarioCampanile.DalaiLama.Missing Peace.jpg File:DarioCampanile.Paramount.jpg

The thumbnails for these two images appear to be corrupted, somehow.

I'm reporting this 'on behalf of' who asked for feedback here.

 Chzz  ► 20:24, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * That is weird, purging and resizing does not eliviate the problem. I suspect the images themselves are somehow corrupt. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 22:59, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Fixed. This happens more often and it's a bug in the software. 24854. Repaired by forcing the colormode to RGB. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 00:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Dorongou
Could someone please fix the coord problem on Dorongou? ~  EDDY  ( talk / contribs / editor review ) ~ 23:22, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem was that the  parameter was 70, which is not valid (recall that there are 60 minutes of arc to one degree, just as there are 60 minutes to an hour). I've temporarily fixed it by commenting out the invalid parameter, but you might have to do some more research to find the correct coordinates. The Maplandia external link seems to be the source of this erroneous measurement.  Intelligent  sium  23:31, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah hah. Maplandia made the mistake. I will no longer use them as a source, even though their other coordinates are generally accurate. ~  EDDY  ( talk / contribs / editor review ) ~ 23:37, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Clicking on signature icon gives erratic results
Sometimes when I click on it it works as normal, other times it adds my sig to the section heading or the search field (the one above the editing field), or elsewhere. I'm using the current version of Chrome. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 17:40, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You know that it places it where the text cursor is. So if you select the search box, and then press the signature icon, it will place a signature in the search box. Is this what the problem is? - Kingpin13 (talk) 17:04, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Help with table - alphabetical order of St
Hi, can anyone help with the table at User:Skinsmoke/Sandbox/Civil parishes/Kernow please? The places starting with "St" should of course sort at "Saint", how do we make the table do this? DuncanHill (talk) 09:37, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I made an edit to the page with &lt;span style="display:none">Saint Agnes&lt;/span> as an example of how to use a hidden sort key. Cheers.  Haus Talk 09:55, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you! DuncanHill (talk) 10:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * See Help:Sorting. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:04, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Part of Refdesk vanishing
This diff makes everything below it disappear from the visible page. Can anyone fix it please? DuncanHill (talk) 14:31, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅, it was missing a closing tag. <b style="color:#E32636;">Rambo's Revenge</b> <b style="color:#FFA500;">(talk)</b>  14:42, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks! DuncanHill (talk) 14:57, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Template help needed
I am passing a parameter with value "06" and it seems to be received with a value of "00" - no doubt it is either something incredibly subtle or something incredibly stupid - however I'm not likely to spot either it seems. Symptom: page displaying "December" ewhen it should be "June"
 * Category:BLP articles lacking sources from June 2006 (see diagnostics on page)
 * Passing template Template:Monthly clean up category
 * Receiving template Template:Monthly clean up category/outer core

Just possibly this is WM limit on depth of transclusion? (You can see this limit in effect I believe at template Weather box where the sample box has some empty cells - the doc page however shows them filled in. Also template Delink which works beautifully in test but in anger breaks inexplicably.)

Rich Farmbrough, 16:58, 1 October 2010 (UTC).


 * Bit of an aside here, but does delink not largely duplicate the function of unlink? PC78 (talk) 18:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Deja vu all over again! Yes you are right I wrote that one too, and had forgot it quite. In both cases the result was too good to throw away, but not good enough to use, much. Delink simply fails when used from another transclusion (but works on it's own doc page I think) - but is reasonably smart.  Unlink is less smart but still suffers the limitations of our very-clever-but-hacked template string functions. Oh for proper string functions! It might however be useful in certain cases - thanks for reminding me of it. Rich Farmbrough, 23:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC).
 * Incidentally you can see Delink fail here - had it worked it would have been a nice (part) solution to the random encoding of country names in infoboxes. Rich Farmbrough, 23:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC).

Is it related to the typo in Monthly clean up category and also Monthly clean up category/outer core, where  should presumably be   (with an extra brace before "diags")? — Richardguk (talk) 22:27, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well spotted, (and thanks - that bug fixed) but no, the diags are just to try and resolve this problem - and not display the cruft that is on Category:BLP articles lacking sources from June 2006 on all the cat pages. Rich Farmbrough, 22:58, 1 October 2010 (UTC).
 * Any one? I'm reluctant to troll individual talk pages 'cos I know people are busy, especially template gurus (I have thought we should have a WP:Template Clinic).
 * I think hitting some template transclusion limit is probably the problem and while I don't know how to properly solve the problem, there is a simple workaround – specify the month number manually. Svick (talk) 11:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes.. that's where the template started. OK at least it's not something obvious I was overlooking, that's good to know. I'll have another think about it. Thanks for looking. Rich Farmbrough, 14:46, 2 October 2010 (UTC).


 * The template is more complex than I have the time to work through at the moment, but I'll through out the possibility that it might be a data-typing problem. some magic words and parser functions throw fits if you feed them strings rather than numbers, and they may be interpreting '06' as a string rather than as the integer '6'.  what happens if you feed the template a simple 6 without the leading 0? -- Ludwigs 2
 * OP: one template sends a "06" (by parameter), the receiving template receives a "0", if I read it well. Could you provide a demo of the fail at a templates /testcases page? I had this problem elsewhere, and the explanation indeed was calling depth (so not data-type not param-defaults). I remember there is a limit about 20 (or is it 40) deep. As yet, there is no error message when this happens. User talk:Patrick can use & interpret the testing template edt.
 * Again, can you link to a page that has the error? -DePiep (talk) 16:36, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The error has apparently disappeared. Earlier Category:BLP articles lacking sources from June 2006 displayed "This category combines all BLP articles lacking sources from December 2006 ...". Now it correctly says June 2006. I don't know what fixed it. I made some tests during the discussion but didn't find the cause of the error. Previewing correctly displayed 06. Previewing correctly displayed "... articles lacking sources from June 2006 ...". But earlier, previewing incorrectly displayed "... articles lacking sources from December 2006 ...". PrimeHunter (talk) 12:17, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * RE: Well, it works, but that's all. No /doc, testcode is still in main template, unused subtemplate (not cheap) still in main code, original bug not found not changed not tested. This is what I found:


 * One day after RF (OP) posted here, and a few hours after RF's last post here, RF created . This template produces the correct month name now. Earlier subtemplate (input param #1=  i.e. to use the part "from August 2009") is still used to pass through monthno, but monthno is not used in subtemplates /outer core and  at all. So it's calculated, possibly wrong and unused.
 * RF left testing code in /core template, behind the switch {{#ifeq:{{{diags|}}}|yes| in {{tlx|Monthly clean up category/outer core}}. -DePiep (talk) 15:46, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * PrimeHunter, your tests produced right or undecided, because monthno is not used at all (not as input, not as subtemplate), and monthname is determined directly from the mw PAGENAME. I could not test whether /monthno is OK. Also, the /monthno should be tested in a stack (nested) too.
 * If you want to sandbox, create a page that has the pattern "/... from March 2008".
 * All together, this is sloppy programming in the template. -DePiep (talk) 15:46, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm going to re-read, but quickly, yes inserting "diags=yes" will show what is going on. The fix is actually an improvement, since the very old version required one to specify as input both the month name and the month number, version 2 (as it were) worked out the name from number, version 3 got the number from the PAGENAME - it was a bit crazy to convert the PAGENAME -> number -> name (although obviously not a speed/cpu cycles issue since there is no loop and deriving them separately calls more string handling functions - which are a clever, but expensive, hack) - so version 4 derives them separately. Rich Farmbrough, 16:23, 5 October 2010 (UTC).

I think Ludwigs is probably correct in his diagnosis. The value of monthno (if not passed in as a parameter, as none of the current uses that I am aware of do) is as DaPiep says, correctly calculated and passed down the stack => outer core => core (at one point I thought I was going to need "inner core"!), although /core does use it - successfully - as a category sort key (which was it's entire function originally) see for example Category:BLP_articles_lacking_sources. It also uses it to calculate the age of the template and nominate it for speedy deletion if it is old and empty - again successfully. Thanks for all the input, it is a great help (especially reassuring me that I'm not just "template blind" and missing a piece of punctuation!) if I do not hear otherwise I will remove the diagnostic parameter in the relatively near future. Rich Farmbrough, 16:43, 5 October 2010 (UTC).


 * You are right, monthno is well used there. Only the string-datatype now unresolved & unused. -DePiep (talk) 17:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Bunching Problem
I tried to fix the section edit link, bunching problem in the United States Congress, but I guess I don't understand the Template:Fix bunching well enough. Can someone please help?--Bbb23 (talk) 18:43, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅. mostly done.  there's still a little bunching farther down in the article, but that's because the 'congress' section has too many images.  move them about a bit. place some on the left, delete some; you can work that out.  -- Ludwigs 2  19:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I did the same thing with the template as you did, but it didn't work. You did one more thing, though, you moved up the image in the Overview section, which fixed it. As for your comment about too many images, that'll be harder because the article was recently revamped, and the revamping editor LOVES images. But that's not your problem.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:20, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * well, that's kind of everyone's problem.   images are supposed to enhance an article, not get in the way of the reading experience.   I may go do it myself - either by pruning or by shifting the images to a gallery section at the bottom. -- Ludwigs 2  16:20, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I've fixed the bunching problem by playing with the images (shortening captions, moving images, deleting) - with the blessing of the editor who added so many images. I'm not sure whether the article and the images are in the best state at the moment, but I'll try to look at the substantive issue later. The technical problem, though, is gone.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:01, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks people for fixing. Yes I do love images (guilty as charged) and I sometimes go overboards (definitely one of my problems) with pictures. So thanks for fixing/deleting/ improving them. That said, I'd LOVE to have a picture of a beautiful celebrity like Angelina Jolie or Katie Holmes or Dana Delany or George Clooney testifying before Congress -- it would be SUCH an improvement over Archibald Cox -- I hope that was one of the pictures you people nixxed. I mean, Cox is important, but hey this is America, and we love pretty people, right?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:53, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Once again plugging the solution to the entire problem: User:Drilnoth/lefteditlinks.js/doc. OrangeDog  (τ • ε) 09:56, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

redirects in search engines
Two questions: 1) Why don't redirect pages and titles appear in search engine results?. Is it deliberate? if so, are we (wikipedia) doing it or the search engines are programmed to ignore redirects?

2)I read some where that article talk pages in en.wiki are not indexed by google. But i found that talk pages in some other wikis (like Tamil Wiki) are indexed. Who decides this? google or us (i mean, can we turn this on or off from wikipedia's end?) --Sodabottle (talk) 17:54, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Redirects are served with HTTP 301 status code ("Moved Permanently"). I can imagine that this makes search engines ignore them.
 * 2) Us, via robots.txt (whose local part is editable as MediaWiki:robots.txt). I don't see any blanket prohibition of talk pages there, though.—Emil J. 18:11, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Emil. We have a situation in Tamil wikipedia, where we want the redirect pages to be indexed. Tamil script has two slightly different ways of writing some words and currently we use one method for standardisation. Article titles written in the other method are used as redirects. We want the redirect pages to be indexed for enabling those who use the alternate writing method to search. Is there a way to work around the HTTP:301 feature? or get wikimedia to turn it off for ta.wiki alone?.--Sodabottle (talk) 18:27, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, no, redirects are served with ordinary 200 OK (at least to my browser, I doubt it serves something else to Googlebot). But it seems Google understands that. For example Ablepsia redirects to Blindness and searching for ablepsia on en.wikipedia.org gives link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindness, although on the last position. Also, why should searching for ablepsia return that page (from the POV of Google)? It doesn't even mention that term. I don't know what could be done to solve that problem.
 * Also, talk pages are indexed, Svick (talk) 23:04, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Clicking "Cached" on your Google result to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindness correctly gives: "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: ablepsia".
 * http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers also reports "200 OK" and not "301 Moved Permanently" on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablepsia. The page is not noindexed so I don't know how Google actually detects Wikipedia redirects to avoid indexing them. Maybe it's a part of their normal duplicate content removal and they choose the version where title and url matches or where there are many incoming links, or maybe they coded specifically for a Wikipedia hint like "(Redirected from ...)", but I'm just speculating. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66359 asks sites to use 301 redirects for duplicate content. Regarding the Tamil Wikipedia, if we could get Google to index both url's (that may not be possible) then a lot of searchers would get two Wikipedia hits to the same page unless perhaps if they search exactly on the redirecting term and that term doesn't occur on the real article. I don't know Tamil but wouldn't it be possible to just write the title in both ways on the real article? Maybe the way that isn't in the page title will be lower in Google's search results but we should be writing an encyclopedia, not making search engine optimization. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:43, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * In addition, Template:NOINDEX can be used to remove individual pages from some search engines. See Category:Noindexed pages. -- &oelig; &trade; 22:45, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the replies. I will try raising this in the google SEO forums.
 * >>don't know Tamil but wouldn't it be possible to just write the title in both ways on the real article? Maybe the way that isn't in the page title will be lower in Google's search results but we should be writing an encyclopedia, not making search engine optimization
 * If only it were that simple :-). There is language politics involved and the purists dominate ta.wiki and the consensus there is not to use the second method (it uses a few characters loaned from Sanskrit to represent sounds not in Tamil) at all. Using both versions in the same article is discouraged and only allowed in redirects. But a overwhelming majority of real world Tamil speakers use the second method and their searches don't end up in wikipedia (despite have good content). --Sodabottle (talk) 08:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Easy peasy. Transclude the pages. Rich Farmbrough, 04:43, 7 October 2010 (UTC).


 * I am under the impression that Google are smart enough to have special code written for Wikipedia. And to do other smart things. Incidentally, I rather think that putting spaces (%20s?) in the url instead of underscores does return a 301. Rich Farmbrough, 04:43, 7 October 2010 (UTC).


 * Thanks Rich, will try transclusion--Sodabottle (talk) 05:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot
Please be aware of Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot 35 Rich Farmbrough, 04:21, 7 October 2010 (UTC).

Total size of pictures actually used in articles?
(A) How many GByte do the images actually used in english wikipedia articles use in total?, (B) what would the size of the thumbnail used be? I tried to find this info in the statistics- and download section(s) but only found just about everything about number of articles, requests, size etc.. Electron9 (talk) 00:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * There a re a lot of confounding factors here. While there is a default size for thumbnails in px, compression means that the number of bytes can vary. So you would have trouble getting an exact figure.  to confuse matters further pictures are used on multiple pages, so you would have to decide whether to double count these, and at different sizes, and in different formats.  Also images are used in templates - Image:Portal-puzzle.svg is transcluded on at least 94,765 pages - plus this one.   One large picture, 2000x2000, is equivalent (in pixels) to 100  chunky thumbnails of 200x200, or 10,000 icons of 20x20. Moreover if you have your preferences set that way all MathML is downloaded as images too. Rich Farmbrough, 04:37, 7 October 2010 (UTC).


 * Case B) I certainly consider a thumbnail (or ..|200px) of the same size used in different articles as one image. Same image in two sizes would in that case count as the image size of both added together. MathML could be as-is. Case A) One source image would be counted as one. Indifferent to the number of articles using it in various sizes. As these are a plain recomputation of the source. Ie if you have "aa.html bb.html cc.html dd.html" and "ee.jpg". The image would only count once despite being used from all pages. The joy of hyperlinking.. Electron9 (talk) 11:00, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think this is tracked, due to the way the images are stored and used by the various projects. Anecdotally, I believe that all of the full-sized images used on wikipedia would require less than 1TB of space, and the thumbnails would take few hundred GB. -Steve Sanbeg (talk)

Which pages in my contributions list are also on my watchlist
I'd like to know, when browsing through my contributions list, which of those pages I currently have watchlisted, is there any easy way to do this? -- &oelig; &trade; 10:30, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's a straightforward way, especially if you have a very large watchlist. It's probably possible to write a user script to do this, though. --ais523 10:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You could use AWB to generate a list of all the pages you contributed to and compare it to your watchlist. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 15:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

More than one watchlist?
Regarding watchlist.. is it possible to have two of them ..?, one for important. And one for less important ones. Without resorting to two users or script-fu? Electron9 (talk) 11:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not exactly. However, you can create a page with a list of links (a user subpage is a good place) and then use the "related changes" link from it to see changes from articles on the list, which works almost exactly the same way as a watchlist; the major difference is that other people can see what the list is. --ais523 11:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Register another account, and declare it as an alternative account. Fences  &amp;  Windows  23:42, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit count discrepancy
I noticed that my total edit count clicked up to 20,000 last night, according toX!'s edit counter and SoxBot's admin stats (15,554 edits plus 4,446 deleted edits). A rough count of my contributions and deleted contributions indicates that these are correct. However, the number of edits according to my preferences is only 18,427. Can anyone explain the discrepancy? —  Tivedshambo   (t/c) 11:45, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * See WP:EC. For example, page moves are counted differently by different counters.—Emil J. 11:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That would explain it - thanks. —  Tivedshambo   (t/c) 12:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

URLs in diffs not clickable within a cite template
Say you're looking at a diff of a deletion edit where someone has left the edit summary, "Not supported by source cited". So you want to look at the url for the source to verify that. If the ref was given as just a bare url between two "ref" tags then all you have to do is click on the URL to open it.

But if the URL is embedded within a "cite" template then the URL won't be "clickable". If you try to click on it you'll get directed to Template:cite_news or Template:cite_web or whatever. And if you try to "highlight" the URL with your mouse so you can copy-paste it to your browser's "destination address" field, you'll find that you can't easily do so: The highlighting behavior is all wonky, and you'll invariably end up grabbing more characters than you want. You'll have to paste the whole mess into the "destination address" field, and then trim off the extra characters there before trying to access the web site. This makes verifying sources from diffs much harder than it needs to be.

I'm guessing it should be fairly easy to correct this in the MediaWiki software, to just "turn off" the feature whereby hovering over a cite template in diffs targets Template:cite_web or whatever. Would other editors also be in favor of such a feature change request? – OhioStandard  (talk) 20:39, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The on-hover or on-click behavior in the two-column diff display sounds like a browser or third-party-extension feature. But as to the issue of the amount of text picked in the cite-templates, does it recognize whitespace as the limits of the link? I usually write template parameters as |url= http://example.com |title= example link |etc (among other reasons) to make it easy to keep "the URL" as a separate word easily selectable. Could you give more specific examples (links to diffs) where it does vs doesn't work, and details about your OS, browser, other options, etc.? DMacks (talk) 20:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. Here's a diff where I encounter the problematic behavior. The first ref to The Guardian occurs without a "cite" template being used, and I can click on the target URL to reach the corresponding web page. The second ref to The Guardian occurs within a "cite news" template, and clicking on the url there just takes me to Template:cite_news. As to the second part of your question, in the example the URL and other parameters used inside the cite template were set off with spaces, I find, and this doesn't seem to make any difference for me. In other words, wherever I "hover" over the cite template I always have the "hand" icon for my cursor, never the "vertical line" ("select text"?) cursor.


 * The only way I can grab part of the contents (e.g. a url) embedded within the cite template is to start with the cursor placed outside the darker green "diff column" on the right, press the mouse button, and then move the cursor into the darker green diff column. In the example I've given here the resulting behavior is predictable and unsurprising: As I move the cursor horizontally across the darker green diff column, text is progressively highlighted in the direction corresponding to the direction of travel of my mouse/cursor. In other instances, though, the behavior as to what gets highlighted as I do so is not predictable; sometimes a dozen or more lines will be highlighted. I haven't been able to figure out what differentiates the circumstances in which the "predictable" versus the "wonky" behavior in this regard occurs, btw.


 * Sorry to have neglected to include O/S, browser details, and such. I'm using Firefox 3.6.10 on Ubuntu Linux 8.04 ("Hardy Heron") with all updates installed. I have the usual Ubuntu Firefox Modifications Pack version 0.9rc2 installed; I believe this is the default for Ubuntu users. I also have Adblock Plus 1.2.1 installed, and two other add-ons, Ghostery 2.2.1, and "TACO with Abine" ver 3.10. These latter two are privacy and cookie opt-out browser add ons.


 * So does this appear to be browser or configuration specific? That is, do you find you get a different on-click behavior re a url embedded within a cite template? –  OhioStandard  (talk) 21:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you using WikiEd? I get that behaviour with this installed. Fences  &amp;  Windows  23:39, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I am: good call! Thank you. It didn't even occur to me that this might be due to one of the "gadgets" I have installed, but that was it. Turns out wikEd is responsible both for making a url (that's not embedded within a cite template) "clickable" in the first place, and also for the "wonky" behavior I described above in trying to access urls that are so embedded. Weird. So it's not a feature/bug in MediaWiki software at all, but has to do with wikEd. I'll miss that "undo" feature in wikEd, especially, but I've uninstalled it for now, and will file a bug-report/feature-request with wikEd's developer. Thank you very much, Fences&Windows, and thanks to DMacks, as well. I really appreciate your help on this. Best, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 01:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

characters that take up zero space?
Are there any characters that take up zero space? Control characters maybe? I am using &amp;nbsp; but it takes up too much space and messes up my layout. (Some columns refuse to go to zero width when they are supposed to) Template:Nuclides The template code demands that I put something there before it will give me a carriage return so I cant just leave it empty. Just granpa (talk) 04:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Have you tried using <tt> </tt> as a spacer? The parser evaluates that to nothing at all, so if you need less than one space that might work. — Gavia immer (talk) 04:21, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes! That did it. The layout is now perfect. Thank you. Just granpa (talk) 04:51, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * For future reference, the character you asked for does exist: &amp;#x200b. Anomie⚔ 11:01, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You can also use    , which also evaluates to a clean empty string.  -- N  Y  Kevin  @739, i.e. 16:43, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * &amp;#x200b is available as zwsp, or &amp;zwsp; -- being Zero White Space. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DePiep (talk • contribs) 17:03, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note that the entity &amp;zwsp; is not supported by all browsers. Anomie⚔ 17:11, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oops, better not mentioning then. -DePiep (talk) 18:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * For other purposes there is also Null - which is ... null and Void .. er.. well you get the picture. I don't think there is a Null and void yet though. Rich Farmbrough, 19:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC).

IRC Recent changes seems to be down
Just a note, my huggle isn't connecting to IRC and is using slow api queries, making vandalism reversion a bit slow. am I the only one having this problem? Access Denied [FATAL ERROR] 02:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know, how do you tell? Mine seemed jumpy and crashy a few days ago.Rich Farmbrough, 04:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC).


 * Igloo works fine right now, but Igloo runs through an external feed AFAIK. Access Denied  [FATAL ERROR] 04:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Igloo is alright, but Huggle only reached API list. Sir Stupidity (talk) 10:27, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * There is similar conversation at Wikipedia talk:Huggle that gives more information-- Wolfnix •  Talk  • 16:51, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

WT:Huggle gives a bit more explanation into this matter. Killiondude (talk) 16:48, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism I can't find?
Still showing for me (blatantly, and it's ugly), and I can't figure out why. It's not in the transcluded template. Is this a fluke in my browser? If not, can somebody fix it? I don't want to publicize this at ANI or a more visible forum, and you guys seemed likely to know. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Entered here.
 * Reverted here.
 * Purge the page, that should fix it. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 16:13, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I tried that. It's still there. :/ Even more oddly, it should never have been there for me to begin with, since the first time I visited the page was just after 16:00. The vandalism was reverted hours ago. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It looks to be gone from my perspective, so if this is still occurring it must be something on your end. have you tried clearing the cache on your browser?  -- Ludwigs 2  17:50, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, multiple times. It did finally disappear a bit over an hour ago. Again, the really weird thing here is that I had never even visited the article until hours after the vandalism was removed, so theoretically it should not have been in my browser to begin with. I mentioned it to another edit who said, "Could be an issue with the proxy in your network..." whatever that means. :) My main concern was that if it was showing on my computer due to some strange glitch, it would probably show on others. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe a network proxy cache serves the same purpose as an individual's web cache, but for all the users on the network. So, if you're looking at the site through a network proxy, and another user looked at the same site while the offensive material was there, the network proxy server might show you the cached (offensive version). You can read a little about this here.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:31, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting! Thanks. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Place or tool to get WP stats
Is there a place or tool where one can get particular statistics? If I wanted to know (as I do, in fact) what percentage of articles created between August 1, 2009, and July 31, 2010, by newcomer editors who had less than 20 edits at the time they created the article were still in existence 60 days after the day they created the article, is there a place or a way to get that information? Best regards,  T RANSPORTER M AN  ( TALK ) 21:18, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Have you checked Statistics? Many links there that I'm sure should help. -- &oelig; &trade; 23:56, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * No, didn't know it existed. Thanks for the pointer. Best regards,  T RANSPORTER M AN  ( TALK ) 00:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

New toy to play with: Gradient background
Introducing Gradient. Still a bit a work in progress. Works in Firefox, Safari and Chrome, but not in Opera and IE (yet). It seems Microsoft filters are blocked, and I am still looking for a way around that. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 17:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I just checked and it does not work with Opera 10.x (at least not 10.62 on OS X 10.6.4) or Opera Mini 5.x - the background is entirely the start color. It does work with Mobile Safari, though. —DoRD (talk) 18:44, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * OMG I didn't even know there was a -moz gradient property. I am so in love. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  18:13, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That is beyond awesome. Just one thing... is there a way to make it work within tables? sonia ♫  22:51, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Within hardcoded HTML tables should be no problem, but wikitables may require some hacking around with !. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 22:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * How would I do that? I've screwed around with it in my emailnotice, but can't get it to work without just copying in the code. sonia ♫  00:12, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Should be working now; I removed all the linebreaks from the template, and now seems to work, even without !. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 00:27, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Damn. Did I manage to miss a linebreak? Thanks!  sonia ♫  00:28, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep, just before the disabled MS filter. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 00:36, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It is beautiful. But from a usability point of view, overuse of gradient is quite distracting for the eye and reduces readability. Too much useless strain on the eye. Dodoïste (talk) 00:40, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Only if use with stoopid colors. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 00:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Not only. I meant overuse in a matter of quantity. Not really in a matter of color choice quality because soccer projects will have their way anyway (as well as many other projects, its just an example so don't take it personally). Do you consider Template:Gradient/testcases as good examples? I absolutely don't. There are too may contrast and color variations, and the eye needs to get adapted at every change of contrast. In the end, it simply makes it waaay longer to read. Dodoïste (talk) 01:12, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * (←) Testcases is only a technical testbed, although the navbox there looks quite stunning now. :) Everything can be overused, but I believe this template can be put to good use. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 01:17, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It would be great if it was only used in table headers, for example. Thus, it would not disturb the reading of the main content. Dodoïste (talk) 01:22, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not up to me to restrict any use. I ammended the documentation and I expect those wanting to use to do so with care. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 01:28, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've checked the testcase and I can only say that there's no way you can fix the navbar color leak. Because in the navbox, the style defining the navbar is as follow: <tt> </tt>. So unless you can justify the editprotected to remove the predefining fontstyle of navbar, the gradient leak will persist. Or you have to give up the gradient on the title row. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 01:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Adding <tt>background: none transparent;</tt> after <tt>titlestyle</tt> should fix that problem. But I'm in no hurry. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 02:09, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I was looking into creating nifty iPad-esque buttons on GeoTemplate the other day, but it uses a color stop 3/4 way through for more depth. Would it be possible to add it to this one or create another template, perhaps button.  — Dispenser 19:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That is a tough one... <tt>-webkit-gradient</tt> uses quite a convulted syntax for adding color stops. I don't see it going into gradient, as it is coded to share common features supported between browsers. So perhaps coding it into the button is the better way to go. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 20:39, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Two more toys
Border-radius and Box-shadow. Have fun. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 16:49, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * These doesn't cause readability issues. :-) They are great, and it's only the beginning, since CSS3 is already fairly well implemented in every good browser (and I meant good as opposed to major because of IE). Plus, IE9 is finally coming. ^_^ Dodoïste (talk) 17:01, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I consider these 'temporary', until all browsers have settled on a common syntax. Hopfully, all browsers will comply with CSS3, so these templates are no longer needed. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 17:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * too much fun. I've gone ahead and asked to have these added to quote box (Template_talk:Quote_box).  You might want to weigh in there on technical tweaks before it gets implemented, if you have any ideas. -- Ludwigs 2  17:54, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

For an exapmle of how much typing these templates can save, see this edit. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 23:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Please don't turn Wikipedia into a cheap Powerpoint presentation. Use these as little as possible. —Noisalt (talk) 04:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes keep them very limited in project space, but for other stuff, "Woooooooooohoooo!". Rich Farmbrough, 09:30, 7 October 2010 (UTC).

Nice one! I've already been using box-shadow and its variants on certain Signpost templates... I think subtle use looks great with the new Vector skin. <span style="font-size:0.9em; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-style:italic;">&mdash; PretzelsHii! 18:37, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Adding as improvement to wikipedia boxes
see the discussion at Template_talk:Quote_box and the test cases at Template:Quote_box/testcases. my feeling is that these make for some nice improvements to the interface, and so long as they fail invisibly in browsers where they fail, we might as well start a discussion about using them more broadly in the project (either as separate templates or as additions to the core CSS classes). need some broader opinions on that, though. -- Ludwigs 2 23:19, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Add -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; to MediaWiki:Handheld.css
Proposal here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_talk:Common.css&oldid=389737066#Add_-webkit-text-size-adjust:_none.3B_to_MediaWiki:Handheld.css --MZMcBride (talk) 17:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

What is the CSS class for external links?
I'm trying to figure out the css for external links, but none of the ones I use are working? Is there any place that lists all CSS classes used by Wikipedia? Access Denied [FATAL ERROR] 18:19, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I changed your monobook.css to use, which should just about always work. Go bypass your cache and see if it's fixed. {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits&#124;⚡}&#125; 18:28, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * As for your second question: Catalogue of CSS classes. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  • 18:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Citing google cache copy of Bloomberg
I wanted to cite this bloomberg article, but it gives a 404 now. Google cache has a copy though. How can I preserve the google cache copy? (Webcitation doesn't allow citations of google cache).Smallman12q (talk) 16:34, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The various templates have a separate set of fields for archived-copy information (URL and archive-date), so you don't have to rely on WebCite's interface or features (or deficiencies and usage quirks thereof) when putting citations in a Wikipedia article. However, I don't know how long until google expires its caches, so definitely good idea to get it archived somewhere more stable. Sounds like the weak link here is in WebCite, which looks like an independent system from Wikipedia...you'd want to contact them for usage issues or bug-reporting. DMacks (talk) 17:57, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal regarding colors of userlinks
See this to see what I mean. Don't bother looking for me there, as I'n not involved, but I feel like this might be helpful here in quickly identifiing who has what major user right (of course excludin minor things like rolback ad reviewer). Access Denied [FATAL ERROR] 00:40, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We have way too many users with elevated user rights to do something like that. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 00:43, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not if someone writes a script to compile a raw list of admins so we don't have to do it manually. Access Denied  [FATAL ERROR] 01:02, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * So, it's like that "highlight admins" option that several other wikis have, but less glaring and with more detailed functionality? User:PleaseStand/userinfo.js, popups or any number of other scripts would do the job (identify rights) for those who find it convenient, but my personal opinion is that putting this kind of identifier on user rights for everyone makes them easier to be misconstrued as a status symbol, and is thus undesirable.  sonia ♫  01:33, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Also this would force every visitor to download a giant CSS file whose interpretation by browsers will cause excessive rendering delays, or memory exhaustion problems, of the list is very long (and CSS selectors based on the value of attributes are very fuzzy, this would be an open door to many implementation bugs of CSS in browsers).
 * Really a bad idea. For this type of thing, we have categories for listing users with specific privileges or policy agreements, plus special pages to generate the list. In addition, user pages already display the status of users (including blocked users, whose user page or user talk page will contain a notice). I also strongly oppose for such deployment here in English Wikipedia, in a so large wiki with so many users ans so many visitors from all around the world, worldwide with modest browsers or systems or slow Internet connections. verdy_p (talk) 13:39, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want this function for yourself you can add User:Ais523/adminrights.js to your monobook. <b style="color:#E32636;">Rambo's Revenge</b> <b style="color:#FFA500;">(talk)</b>  13:49, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Movepagetext
I previously posted about this here. The mediawiki message linked above is tailored for page moves but is also the message provided when one moves files, where it either makes no sense or gives poor advice. As noted at the past discussion, in order to do this it would need to be coded so that it displays a different message for the file namespace. I have attempted to figure out the code myself but I am not sure at all what I came up with will not break the move text for all moves (a bad result you'd agree) so I would appreciate it if one of you coding gurus would provide me the code or made the edit (giving me credit in the edit summary). Below is the text I propose be added for the file namspace. Thanks.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC) Using the form below will rename a file, moving all of its history to the new name. This option is only available to administrators and those with higher permissions.

Leaving a redirect from the prior title to the new is the norm for page moves for various reasons, such as that the prior title often has numerous internal and incoming links that would be broken upon the move and that it may be a likely search term. By contrast, such concerns are not normally applicable to file titles, which are often only linked from the one or two pages on which the file appears. Accordingly, unless this file is included in many pages (check using what links here; do not rely solely on the file links at the bottom of the file page), please consider manually changing all links to the old title to the new title, and then moving the file without leaving a redirect behind. The option to leave a redirect behind is checked by default, and must be unticked if you take this course.

Please remember after the move to revisit the file page and remove rename media or any other code that requested the move. Please also consider moving this page to the Commons if it is a public domain release or under a suitable free license.

I'd like to create a font-family
Under development is. Target: in specific ranges of Unicode (plane 1 and higher, so non-BMP) use a font-family that does those characters well. This implies that in those places we skip the more general unicode template. It is combining Unicode planes (or blocks, scripts), fonts, and browsers, especially browser-default-fonts. (is: for that one script/block, we want to use a font via unicode2 that does well on many browsers. Another script/block, another font)

Request: Can someone check the coding of the class="font-family"-trick in the template? Difficult to check myself, and very sensitive to typos. Earlier talk e.g. here. And: can I create like ? See /testcases. -DePiep (talk) 22:55, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Has been improved already, here, but extreme characters do not show in FF nor Safari. -DePiep (talk) 23:56, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Transclusion depth problem
There is an on going problem with convert and documentation not working well together. I believe it is a transclusion depth problem. If anyone wants to take a stab at the problem, see Template talk:Documentation. Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk) 04:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Adding vertical bars to version comparisons
How difficult would it be to add vertical bars next to the line(s) that have been changed in a comparison of different versions of an article? I sometimes go crazy trying to find a single character that has changed. Sometimes, as here, I can't find the change at all. Some publications that have recurring updates (like computer manuals and legal treatises) use the convention of inserting vertical bars next to the changes. Would it be hard for Wikipedia to implement such a system? Wine may improve with age, but my eyes don't.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Each paragraph is a single line. Changed paragraphs are highlighted with colour. Changed text is highlighted in red. Unfortunately, changes in whitespace aren't highlighted properly, even if, like me, you have changed your user CSS to highlight changes with a red background instead of with red text . It frustrates me to no end that whitespace changes aren't highlighted properly, because they're the hardest to find—but the diff algorithms are complex enough that improving them to catch this sort of thing is no trivial change. Actually, I just had a little brainwave on how I might solve the problem for myself using JavaScript… I'll go play around a bit and see if I can solve the problem as an end-user. {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits&#124;⚡}&#125; 02:13, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think whitespace changes get removed from diffs by Wikipedia's use of HTML Tidy when rendering pages, in which case it would not be possible to identify the relevant characters without a change to MediaWiki. — Richardguk (talk) 03:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, that would explain much. Then HTML Tidy would have to be configured to ignore those particular span elements … I wonder if that's feasible, or for that matter desirable—for example, would it cause us to output invalid HTML? I'm supposing HTML Tidy is removing it for a good reason… {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits&#124;⚡}&#125; 04:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * HTML Tidy is applied by the MediaWiki software on enwiki to fix or make consistent various errors in wikitext. Tidy is an optional post-wikiparsing configuration and it would be technically simple to switch it off altogether, but that would cause a large number of pages to have unpredictable rendering problems. In principle, MediaWiki could be amended to apply HTML Tidy only to the preview part of a page (excluding the diff). Alternatively, it might be possible for significant spaces in diffs to be replaced by non-breaking spaces or other characters that would not be moved or removed by Tidy. If desirable, that change would need requesting at Wikimedia's Bugzilla. — Richardguk (talk) 14:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I use the default vector skin. What would I do to show changed text as a red background?--Bbb23 (talk) 13:38, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Try adding the following line to "/vector.css". (At your user page which would be "User:Bbb23/vector.css".)

.diff-addedline * .diffchange { background-color: #FF7458 !important; color: black !important; }
 * It did not work worked (see below) for me using monobook but you may be able to fix this if you have time. – allen四names 16:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Allen, it worked for the changed part on the right. Is there a way to apply the same highlighting to the previous version on the left?--Bbb23 (talk) 17:26, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You can try replacing "<tt>.diff-addedline * span .diffchange { background-color: #FF7458 !important; color: black !important; }</tt>" with "<tt>.diff-deletedline * .diffchange, .diff-addedline * span .diffchange { background-color: #FF7458 !important; color: black !important; }</tt>". – allen四names 15:52, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Postscript: If you are using Firefox remember to check "Site Preferences" under "Tools" => "Clear Recent History". – allen四names 16:01, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That worked, thanks! Just fyi, I cleared my cache but not my recent history, and that worked fine.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:03, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You are welcome. Note that I made some corrections in a previous post. – allen四names 07:33, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Image problems today
On the Help Desk today we have reports of intermittent problems with images not displaying - WP:Help desk, WP:Help desk. Is this the place to report it? -- John of Reading (talk) 16:50, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * All thumbnails for File:Jenness-for-president.jpg are broken, giving the following error: "Unable to forward this request at this time". Kaldari (talk) 18:05, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's make my question clearer: if a site problem is reported on the Help Desk, is this the page to report it? If not, where? Or is there a page somewhere where I could learn that "feature XYZ is currently not working well but it should be OK in an hour", so that I can pass this back to those asking at the Help Desk? -- John of Reading (talk) 09:18, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This is generally a good place to report issues like that. Once others have confirmed there's a problem it is usually reported to bugzilla. Killiondude (talk) 17:32, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:25, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Citing non-article pages
For an information science class in my grad program, I'm writing a paper about the DYK process; although it feels very odd to cite Wikipedia for an academic paper, this is definitely an acceptable situation, since I'm writing about the website itself. To my surprise, the "cite this page" button visible in the toolbox when looking at an article isn't there when I look at a page in any other namespace. Have we ever had such a link available for non-articles? Nyttend (talk) 14:58, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Special:Cite is third door down the hallway, make sure you dont go to the forth door. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 15:02, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, I guess I didn't pay sufficient attention; thanks for the quick pointer. Nyttend (talk) 15:10, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

String manipulation templates are harmful... and bogous
See the doc of Template:Str_left, and also 22555.

Not only these templates are very costly in terms of ressources (notably CPU and memory in the garbage collector), and causing excessive delays to render pages (so much that it now affects all other wikis, because the Egnlish Wikipedia constantly takes all ressources and never ends consuming more), but these templates are simply bogous (due to a bug in MediaWiki parserfunctions).

Time to reconsider the use of Template:Str_left and all the related templates that use it, including ALL infoboxes and ALL stub templates, i.e. almost ALL pages of this Wikipedia. Please consider making and using templates that will not need to perform trimming of positional parameters the way it is done today, or that will need to extract a domain name from a specified URL (consider adding a description text parameter instead, or just display the URL without attmpting to truncate it).

Most of those very tricky templates should be phased out (their introduction in this wiki have seriously impacted its performance in too many pages). You should not build this Wikipedia using them, just because MediaWiki does not offer an efficient way to to that with a conventient native parser function. Please ask instead to install string parser functions in this wiki. verdy_p (talk) 13:50, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not a fan of using such hacks as current string templates, but enabling StringFunctions on Wikipedia has been declined, so currently, there is no alternative. Svick (talk) 14:29, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The stub templates only use it on their documentation pages, not directly in their transclusions. -- WOSlinker (talk) 17:38, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Many of these uses are caused by the ugly italic title hack used by some infoboxes. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 19:27, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You're wrong, there's an an alternative: don't use these templates whose cost is very huge. You can certainly redesign your stub templates or infoboxes without using these ugly templates, even if it requires an additional template parameter to these infoboxes... In addition these templates are simply bogous (because of the bug I documented in Template:Str_left. I have found various pages where those infoboxes simply generate parsing errors visible in the pages.
 * Note also that you absolutely don't need to use the ugly trimming template : the trimming is used when you pass positional parameters without naming them. Just name the parameters, and trimming will become automatic.
 * For infoboxes, you don't need to use string handling templates to extract the domain name from an URL : pass a separate parameter for the domain name to display, in addition to the full URL. If this parameter (used for display) is absent just display the full URL, even if it's very long (more than 100 characters, something that DOES occur in various pages using infoboxes.
 * Only English Wikipedia uses those ugly templates. Other editions simply don't do that and have no difficulties to create stub templates or infoboxes, why do you need string manipulation templates to build these infoboxes and stub templates is a mystery for me. Are you so lazy that you want to manage parameter cleanup with these functions ?
 * Note also how many pages in English Wikipedia take SOOOO LONG to render: they clearly abuse the parser functions that are building lots of string (in some cases, I have counted tens of thousands of calls to these templates (whcih also use a LOT of parameters, and consume lots of memory just when inserting a single infobox in the page. This is clearly excessive, and causes the parser statistics to explode, generating about one megabyte of intermediate parameter strings just for a single infobox that will display very few information ! This can break lots of pages, and anyway the cost on servers is excessive and affects all other wikipedias (running on the same servers), and I even suspect that these are causing a significant part of server failures (including broken pages when wiki servers are not responding fast enough to the frontal caching proxies (and this causes truncated pages, truncated images, truncated javascripts to be delivered to visitors, until the server-side caches are manually flushed, or the servers are completely restarted). In other words, these string templates are really harmful, for little or no effective benefit. verdy_p (talk) 20:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The long render times for large pages is not caused by str_left. It is caused mostly by the citation templates in all the references, as well as just the sheer number of templates used in pages. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 21:49, 10 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you have any specific examples where these templates are causing long page load times? Otherwise this is just unnecessary worrying about performance. Mr.Z-man 02:57, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I am less concerned by the overall server performances, than the very long time it takes to just navigate to a page whose rendering is extremely long, just because you have used extremely costly templates using hacks (like using string parser functions, such as padleft, padright and titleparts, in a very unsafe way for which they were NEVER designed for, and with severe limitations and ignorance of these limitations by those that created those bogous templates).
 * Really, they cause two major problems: very slow navigation when rendering pages that are no longer in the cache, and severe bugs (many of them not corrected because most editors absolutely don't know how to correct them), and bad design decisions when creating editor policies (instead of simplifying problems, these templates are making the situation even more complex jsut to save a parameter whost value would be easy to understand by editors.
 * Those tempaltes are a clear misuse of MediaWiki, and really attempt to override a strong decision made earlier to NOT implement this kind of things on Wikipedia (so these templates are a clear breach of policy). If you really want these features, revert your past decision of not supporting them by an much simpler (and less bogous) impelmetnation in a server-side extension. Be pragmatic, and reorganize a new vote to change this past decision ! verdy_p (talk) 01:24, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * For the record, there is no "strong decision made earlier to NOT implement this kind of things on Wikipedia". Brion Vibber, who was Wikimedia's CTO at the time, only decided that he wanted to wait for a different implementation of string functions, and not that they would never be implemented.  In addition, he took explicit actions that enabled the current generation of string manipulation templates.  In essence enabling the current mess as a stop-gap measure prior to a more complete solution.  I don't know whether he believed at the time that there would be a complete solution "soon", though in retrospect there has been almost no development in the direction of a comprehensive solution beyond the function set that the developers already chose not to enable.  Brion has since left Wikimedia.  I don't know the thinking of the current generation of project leads.  Also, I should be clear that the current situation stems from top-down decision making, and has never been subject to community process or vote.


 * In addition, I would note that template rendering almost never causes delays for Wikipedia readers, and only infrequently causes delays for Wikipedia editors who use the default preferences. This is because the default rendering of a page is nearly always cached.  If you find it slow to visit pages, then this is probably because you are using a non-default preference set that causes pages to be re-rendered just for you, and that process can be slow.  Also, as noted above, most Wikipedia pages have far greater rendering expense associated with the ubiquitous and abundant citation templates rather than with relatively rarer string templates.  Dragons flight (talk) 12:02, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * That didn't answer my question at all. What pages, specifically, have you found to be slow as a result of use of these templates? Mr.Z-man 13:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

nested infoboxes: impossible to navigate!
Often I want a structure of an infobox and I need it modified for a slightly different purpose, but I find that all the if-conditionals and the recursive template substitution blows up in my face. Isn't there an easier way to modify the structure of an infobox template? John Riemann Soong (talk) 00:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I felt good by using subtemplates: unichar is the public editors input. It calls the organising template unichar/main, while passing through the internally calculated value "gc" using subtemplate unichar/gc. So every subtemplate does its own job, and by using levels, lower subtemplates can receice input from a subtemplates outcome. (hm. easy?). -DePiep (talk) 02:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You could always seek help at WP:WikiProject Templates. --<b style="color:#3773A5;">Cyber</b> cobra (talk) 02:52, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That depends on the template. Some of them (e.g. ) use the meta-template and those can have code that is relatively easy to understand and edit. Others (like ) use conditionals with wikitable syntax, which can be quite complicated. My opinion is that the latter should be converted to the former format. Svick (talk) 19:29, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh gorch ! Once again a use of the costly and bogous string manipulation templates (all of them are severe hacks and abuse of MediaWiki usage policies, as they attempt to use an unsupported and unstable trick or limitation of their current implementation, as well as abusive work-arounds trying to bypass a strong policy decision). Really should be completey avoided in.
 * Stop developping these templates, please consider voting for the development, implementation and deployment of new parser functions that will do this work much more cleanly ! verdy_p (talk) 01:43, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The devs who get to make those decisions ignore the votes, and ever since Brion left there doesn't seem to be any sign of them trying to engage with or listen to the communities who have to use MediaWiki. In the last week every post from you I've seen has been very uncivil to everyone concerned. Have you considered that there might not be any viable alternatives? Instead of assuming that we're all deliberately doing things wrong, perhaps you might provide some constructive solutions? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 20:32, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The /documentation of does not mention any deprecation or disadvice. Also, could you link to that policy? That would greatly base your use of the word "abuse", and also point to alternatives. Having seen the age of the development question, I don't think a vote from me would add much.  -DePiep (talk) 10:24, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Null edits
Are null (invisible) edits saved into the MediaWiki database or not? As far as I know, they are not shown in the page history. Hey Mid  (contributions) 13:59, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Correct - a null edit is not shown in the page history. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:01, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * They are not saved. Dragons flight (talk) 17:34, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * They are saved. All tables are updated if there is a difference (mostly because of changed template inclusion) and the page_touched date is set to now. But a null edit does not create a new revision. That's why you don't see it in page history. Merlissimo 21:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I thought it was pretty clear the original question is asking whether a revision is saved during a null edit. The answer is of course, no.  The page is re-rendered and that results in various caches and link tables being updated (both in the database and outside it), but I personally would not describe that process as null edits being saved.  Dragons flight (talk) 23:45, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No ! they are effectively saved, and this is demonstrated in the database for the table of references to a page. A simple "purge" action will not cleanup these saved (possibily obsolete) references. So null edits are still very useful for aministrators, in order for them to cleanup the list of references (for example references used by a template whose content has changed).
 * Blocked pages that cannot be at least null edited are a problem when they maintain references to page that has been renamed, or deleted, or that should be deleted because it is really no longer referenced at all. Only null edits performed by admins can cleanup those old bogous references maintained in blocked pages, even if they do not save anything.
 * My opinion is that the "purge" action should also perform a null edit to cleanup references, every time someone is allowed to perform a "?action=purge" request, and even if the page is blocked ! This should not be restricted to admins that are the only one allowed to edit and save the page again.
 * verdy_p (talk) 01:13, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * As I said above, updating the link tables and caches (though obviously a form of saving information about the page) isn't really the same as saving the page. There is no new revision committed to the database, and no record of when or who made the null edit, or even if there ever was a null edit.  Hence I would say that "null edits" (as a thing in itself) are not saved since there is no direct log of their existence.  Dragons flight (talk) 12:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)