Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 216

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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (technical). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Is AutoEd safe

I installed the script and all of its modules, is it safe or not? Electrou (formerly Susbush) (talk) 19:00, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

You're responsible equally for all the edits made with automated tools, if that's what you're asking. You still have to check to make sure your edits are correct and not disruptive. Remsense ‥ 论 19:04, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

The original poster is probably referring to the message that begins "Code that you insert on this page could contain malicious content capable of compromising your account ..." at MediaWiki:Userjsdangerous. To answer the original question, yes, it is safe. Graham87 (talk) 02:05, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

You can never be sure of that about user scripts (hence the warning). AutoEd and its modules are in the Wikipedia namespace and protected, which means they can be compromised if any admin's account is compromised. Nardog (talk) 02:12, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but the message @Graham87 linked to ends, If you are unsure whether code you are adding to this page is safe, you can ask at the appropriate village pump., which is what directed the OP here.

It's kind of pointless to do that if the answer is always going to be, "Weeeelll... you can never be completely certain..." — that's not helpful. The user was already warned, and while it's true that you never can be completely certain, the AutoEd code is currently safe. And since it's used by many Wikipedians, it will screw over a much larger portion of the community than just @Electrou in the unlikely event that it becomes unsafe, so it's probably not worth personally fretting over. FeRDNYC (talk) 17:35, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Most scripts are either in the MediaWiki namespace where js pages can only be edited by interface administrators, or in userspace where they can only be edited by the user and interface administrators. AutoEd is in the Wikipedia namespace for some reason. The pages are fully protected but all administrators can edit them so it's less protected than most scripts. There are currently 847 administrators but only 10 interface administrators and it's a more trusted position. Apart from the risk of malice, ordinary administrators may also know less about JavaScript and security (including securing their account), and accidentally do something unsafe. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:46, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Table

How to make this table look like this one? I don't see any parameters which could be used. Eurohunter (talk) 20:52, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean "look like"? They look roughly the same to me, except for some styling applied by |namestyle=, |headingstyle=, |class=, and similar. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:24, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm gonna dissent from @Jonesey95's claim as those boxes look pretty significantly different to me, but I agree it's mostly a question of styling, all of which is done by parameters that most assuredly are there and being used ­— most of what's involved in making Template:Politics of Yemen look more like Template:Politics of Uzbekistan would involve removing the ugly style nightmare that's been imposed on the former. Places I'd start:

• Lose the border: 1px double #8C959A from all of the style parameters where it's used (titlestyle, headingstyle, and listtitlestyle), because that just looks like trash.
• Just remove |style=border 4px double var(--background-color-inverted, #101418); completely. (What is this obsession with double-lined borders?)
• Use {{Politics sidebar title}} to set the |title= parameter, rather than hardcoding separate |title=, |image=, |namestyle=, |titlestyle=, etc. Specifically, you'd probably want this:

  |title={{Politics sidebar title|country=Yemen|image=Emblem of Yemen (2).svg|size=125px|title=Yemen}}
  

  replacing not only |title= itself but also those other three parameters.
• Consider getting rid of the |headingstyle= and |listtitlestyle= entirely, as well. Beyond the border styling, all they do is set specific (and ugly) color parameters that ruin the look of the sidebar because content boxes of unequal dimensions are revealed. That makes for a very "ransom-note" kind of effect where different-sized yellow rectangles and red rectangles are slapped all over the place.
• Finally, if you don't want the contents of each expandable heading to be presented as just a wrapped horizontal line of text, remove hlist from the |bodyclass= parameter, as that's what makes them format that way.
  (If you do that, you might consider using the {{hlist}} template to create horizontal lists out of some of the links in specific lists, like Template:Politics of Uzbekistan does in the |list6= contents.)

FeRDNYC (talk) 22:34, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Lua to generate information about a page

Hello, does lua template have the capability to get information like

• page contributors
• last date of edit to page

for a provided page name? If so, please send me an example? Thank you. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 07:23, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

@Gryllida: You don't need Lua for the second one, it is available as a variable. If you only need the last contributor, that also is available in the same way. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:40, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Need this info for page and for page talk so I think variable will not work. Need a list of contributors not only last one. I can get this information using js but would prefer to avoid it. if possible. Thanks. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 14:16, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Why do you think that a variable wouldn't work? Consider the article London - we can do this:

• {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP:London}} → 20241227113231

  {{#time: H:i, j F Y (e)|{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP:London}}}} → 11:32, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

• {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP:Talk:London}} → 20241201211624

  {{#time: H:i, j F Y (e)|{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP:Talk:London}}}} → 21:16, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

If either London or Talk:London get edited, the above examples will change when this page is next edited or WP:PURGEd. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:04, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

This is fabulous Thanks. I will go try to use it in my template now. Just need the nicks of contributors now if possible. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 22:59, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

No, Lua (Scribunto) does not have access to page history. One option would be to have a bot periodically build a list of contributors and update a page somewhere that a module could read. Or, have a JavaScript gadget which can use the API. All that is tricky. Johnuniq (talk) 00:41, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Js is ok,I can write. I was hoping for Lua. Why not? Can it be implemented for Lua to have such access? Thanks for your insight. 🙂 Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 10:28, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Part of the answer to that question is likely something vaguely along the lines of, "just as we expect of all wikipedians, Scribunto is here to create an encyclopedia, and no part of that goal ever requires access to edit history."

(Which... is actually kind of true. There are plenty of behind-the-scenes tasks/goals that could benefit from page history access, but none of them would ever directly affect article content.) While there are plenty of conceivable ways in which it would be useful to have history access (or other functionality) in Scribunto, the focus has primarily been on providing functional equivalents to what's achievable with template coding, but without the template-coding nightmares involved in building any sort of complex logic.

Templates similarly have no access to page history.

Another factor is that the results of Module {{#invoke:}} calls, like template transclusions, are meant to be cacheable. 'Dynamic' code that relies on making an external resource query, meaning it potentially changes each time the module is invoked, is a bad fit with the caching model. Lua results should ideally be fairly static unless a dependency is edited or the code is invoked with different parameters.

Not to say that these things couldn't, potentially, be implemented. They just haven't been, and adding them would be a significant development effort, it's not a matter of flipping a switch or inserting a line of code somewhere. In fact there's a Phabricator tracking bug (T50176) for bugs requesting new Lua functionality — it's a long list. Things like MediaWiki API query access, access to Category lists, Namespace indexes, etc. are already there. It doesn't look like edit history access has ever been directly requested. (But API queries would provide one potential path, since page history info is accessible via the API.)

It's important to note that none of those requests are actively being worked on, though. They're just that: Requests. Unfulfilled requests, with no predicted timeline for completion beyond "...probably never?" FeRDNYC (talk) 21:52, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

i wanted list of article authors to inquire about edit to the article, e.g. send @ pings on talk. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 03:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Your best bet will be to use xtools to generate a list of people who edited the article by using this link: [1] NightWolf1223 <Howl at me•My hunts> 03:41, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Permalink notice not styled

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T376848

The message "This is an old revision of this page" or "This is the current revision of this page" at the top of a permalink has the cdx-message--warning class but is not styled unless the skin is Vector 2022 (example). Is there a Phab task for this? Nardog (talk) 06:26, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

There were several tasks about missing warning box styling in various places, but I don't think there was a task about this particular one. Please file it. :) Matma Rex talk 16:15, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Matma Rex: Done. Please add appropriate tags; I didn't file it earlier mainly because I didn't know what tags to use. Nardog (talk) 23:06, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Alternative to normal talkpage notification

Something I've been thinking about:

A lot of new people don't seem to see talkpage messages. The cause is not really important here; it may be a case of banner blindness, or our (mobile) interface is not clear enough, or whatever.

Would it be a good idea to implement a special message notification, perhaps one that:

• is hard to ignore
• can perhaps only be sent by an admin
• requires confirmation of receipt to dismiss (so it is on every page you visit until you click a button)
• takes up most if not all of the screen
• would still appear on the talkpage as a normal message so others can see them as well
• comes with a short explanation that someone is trying to reach them, translated in many languages

To prevent abuse in case of hijacked admin accounts we could restrict each message to only one recipient, and limit the amount you can send to 1 per minute. And perhaps it should only be possible to send such messages to people who are not extendedconfirmed. To prevent people receiving too many of these messages, perhaps limit them to, for example, 1 per hour per recipient.

Ideally those You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you... warnings would be sent via this alternative method of talkpage notification.

A potential downside is that its, in some cases, easier to give someone WP:ROPE and then not have to deal with them for the duration of their block.

I think that at least some people keep doing what they are doing, without ever noticing a growing list of messages on their talkpage of people trying to steer them in the right direction. Has such a feature been considered?

Polygnotus (talk) 02:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Works in Special:ExpandTemplates but fails in regular page?

As I am climbing the bumpy learning curve for templates I hit another road block. This code (with extra double curlies on the outside) evaluates when I use Special:ExpandTemplates but just sits there in a page like this:

• {{
• common:−4, −3, −2, −1, 0, +1, +2, +3, +4
  
• notable:
  
• predicted:
  }}

My goal was to have a database layer accept the name of a formatter and a selector, then return a template with that formatter and the selected data. It works in ExpandTemplates, but where it counts. Any hints? ()

Johnjbarton (talk) 21:43, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I unchecked Remove comments on the ExpandTemplates and the result is different. Still in the dark though. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:51, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

This is a known, and annoying, but in ExpandTemplates, which half-parses the text and then parses it fully. How the ordinary parser works is that if a template outputs wikitext that wikitext doesn't get parsed again. If you really want to run through the parser multiple times you can use {{expand wikitext}}, so {{expand wikitext|{{ {{User:Johnjbarton/sandbox/Infobox element/symbol-to-oxidation-state-data|os-formatter=User:Johnjbarton/sandbox/Infobox element/symbol-to-oxidation-state-echo|symbol=C}} }} -> (example removed since template changes made it obsolete). While I've done that in the past it's kind of hacky.

You also need to put a space between the two sets of curly brackets, or else the parser gets confused. {{{{1}}}} is parsed as { {{{1}}} } (take the value of a parameter and wrap it in curly brackets), not {{ {{1}} }} (evaluate Template:1 and then evaluate the result of it as the name of another template). * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:22, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Also if you were to put the opening curly braces in User:Johnjbarton/sandbox/Infobox element/symbol-to-oxidation-state-data itself, then that would work. (this is similar to how {{country data United States}}) et al. work. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:36, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok great thanks! These are the kinds of things I need to learn:

• "How the ordinary parser works is that if a template outputs wikitext that wikitext doesn't get parsed again."

I was able to base my prototype on {{country data United States}} by changing the design of the "data". This kind of system is much easier to use with good examples. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:39, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

You're welcome. Also, I misspoke - a better way of phrasing it is "How the ordinary parser works is that if a template outputs template calls those template calls don't get parsed again" - other wikitext like wikilinks, refs, etc. is of course parsed. There's a very long manual on how the parser works at mw:Help:Template and even more stuff at mw:Manual:Advanced templates if you want to really enter the weeds. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

References

youtu.be blacklist

When I share a youtube video with a timestamp I get a link like this:

https://youtu.be/Zl8BIUx8QW0?feature=shared&t=1

but when I try to post that on wikipedia it says the link is on a spam blacklist. I can't find it on meta:Spam blacklist or on MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist.

And it wouldn't even make sense to block it anyway because I can change the link to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl8BIUx8QW0#t=1

and suddenly it is allowed. Polygnotus (talk) 21:24, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Shorteners are categorically rejected. This one is rejected at meta:Spam blacklist \byoutu\.be\b. Izno (talk) 21:29, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. The spam blacklist is intended to blacklist spam, and shouldn't be hijacked by people with an irrational hatred for url shorteners. Polygnotus (talk) 21:36, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

URL shorteners are used to introduce spam, and aren't always particularly stable addresses, and they can lead to hijacked sites, which are much more dangerous than spam. These reasons for banning them are categorically rational, contrary to your hyperbole. No, they will remain banned. Whether specifically youtu.be should have an exception is perhaps a worthy question, but as you said, the expansion is trivial, so just use the full URL instead. Izno (talk) 21:48, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Shirley there Izno reason not to use the full URL. EEng 23:07, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

@Izno: I know what URL shorteners are. This particular URL shortener cannot be used for malicious purposes because it only redirects to youtube. So it is obviously irrational to block all url shorteners. It is rational to block attack vectors while leaving domain aliases unblocked. This kinda stuff should be decided on a case-by-case basis (e.g. block bit.ly and tinyurl but not youtu.be). I can use the full url, but others do not know how to do that. Polygnotus (talk) 22:00, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

If someone doesn't know what a URL is or how to copy and paste it, they definitely shouldn't be adding external links to articles. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:27, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien: If someone says something truly ridiculous, it is often wise to re-read it in its context. Polygnotus (talk) 06:30, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

URL shorterners are blacklisted for good reasons. They can be used to circumvent blacklisting of their target. MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist blacklists several specific videos at youtube.com, e.g. the entry \byoutube\.com\/watch\?v=W0a6L7hbD7U\b. We don't want spammers to use a youtu.be redirect instead. And there are other problems with URL shorternes, e.g. that they can be shut down and break all links. If you don't think YouTube's owner Google would do such a thing then think again. They are shutting down their URL Shortener goo.gl.[2] PrimeHunter (talk) 21:55, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Gotta love https://killedbygoogle.com/ Polygnotus (talk) 22:00, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

I actually agree that youtu.be shouldn't be blacklisted. The solution to PrimeHunter's concern would be to just blacklist the string W0a6L7hbD7U instead - the blacklist doesn't have to point to the full URL. But despite being a Meta admin and thus having the technical power to action this I don't have the social power to do it myself. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:26, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

@Pppery: Thanks! The discussion continues at meta:Talk:Spam_blacklist#youtu.be. Another advantage of blocking W0a6L7hbD7U is that it would work for both the youtu.be/%id% and /watch?v=%id% format. Polygnotus (talk) 02:33, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

The key point here, which was (indirectly) mentioned by the OP, is that https://youtu.be/video_id links are provided by YouTube itself directly from their UI whenever a "Share" link is requested for a video. They are, in a certain sense, even more of a permalink than the actual https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=video_id page they redirect to.

And while it's true Google could terminate support for https://youtu.be/ tomorrow, they could also redesign YouTube tomorrow so that the https://www.youtube.com/watch page is no longer functional, replaced by https://www.youtube.com/view or some other nonsense, which the https://youtu.be/ redirects get updated to point to.

Do I think that will happen? Absolutely not; I just think it's of equal unlikelihood (...ow) that anything will happen to https://youtu.be/, as that would break like a quarter of the entire frickin' internet.

The simple fact is, when requesting links to YouTube videos from YouTube itself, users are provided with https://youtu.be/ links, which IMHO we shouldn't make it unreasonably difficult to make use of.

Especially considering, if a user is viewing a video in the YouTube mobile app (which accounts for a very significant percentage of YouTube traffic, at a level that shames our own mobile app's laughable 2%-3% of monthly pageviews), the short URL is the only URL they can retrieve. The app doesn't expose https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=video_id URLs anywhere. FeRDNYC (talk) 18:03, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Linking to invidious instance could be better, it loads faster and does not track the user as much. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 07:26, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

See Principle of least astonishment. Polygnotus (talk) 07:28, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

The two issues appear to be the general issue with url shorteners, and spamming of the shortened url.

Although this is a url shortener it's doesn't have the issues inherent in most shorteners. The only end point is a youtube video, so the usual concerns that it could link to anything do not apply here. Whether you use .com or .be you can't link to anything but a youtube video (correct me if that's wrong).

The spam issue is separate, and blacklisting individual videos is a poor option unless it's in a very particular situation. But the .com version could be spammed as well. I don't know how long ago the spamming and blacklisting were, but maybe unblacklisting as a test would be useful. If the past issues reappear it could be reapplied. I can see reasons why the .be link would be easier to spam, but beans. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:59, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

While it doesn't directly - it does procedurally. In many use cases using the youtube "share button" generates a shortener that also includes a tracker, which we don't want. And 'someone else can go back and remove trackers later' isn't a strong argument - bad edits that can easily be avoided (by just using the actual link) are much more desirable. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:29, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: In GDPR countries that tracking parameter is omitted. Polygnotus (talk) 10:37, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Sometimes sure, and in the rest of the world it's not. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:49, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I would propose to develop a mechanism to expand the shortened URL to its full form. For example, either

• write a bot that automatically expands certain short URL patterns upon user publishing an edit, and if the expanded URL hits the spam blacklist, revert the edit. There are already external Spam blacklist search tools [3]. Or,
• integrate the short URL expansion mechanism into MediaWiki, automatically expand shortened URLs upon publishing. If the expanded URL hits blacklist then disallow the edit.

MilkyDefer 08:23, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh great, it is in idea lab. MilkyDefer 08:29, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Link for those curious: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab)#URL_expansion_bots Polygnotus (talk) 08:31, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Hot cat not working and visual editor not as easy

I was setting up the article at Gábor_Bálint and wanted to add the "category:Hungarian linguists" and it did not work because that category does not exist. I finally found "category:Linguists from Hungary" and I usually do not like this inconsistency (and especially do not see why American and English are special nationalities) so I added {{Category redirect|Linguists from Hungary}} at the wrong category. Now hot cat usually uses that and helpfully replaces the category if I typed "Hungarian linguists". Strangely hot cat does not seem to work at all today and the visual editor for categories does not have this automatic feature to suggest preferred category names. Perhaps someone knows a better way of explaining this or adding a suggestion for the visual editor folks. PS:hot cat now working!! Shyamal (talk) 12:48, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Adding section after closed discussions

I added a new section using the "*" tab with this edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Fishing_cat&curid=7607570&diff=1250477244&oldid=1250369650

The new section is included within the closed discussion. I might be able to fix it in this case, but it seems to be a bug.  —  Jts1882 | talk  19:03, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not really a bug; the person who closed the GA review section forgot to match their {{atop}} template with an {{abot}} template, which means the "close" box didn't end. I've fixed it. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:10, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank-you. I knew there was a problem but couldn't identify it. It's too easy to cast blame on bugs.  —  Jts1882 | talk  19:18, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Matching tags in strings?

I need to create a series of ref tags from wikitext with refs. I'll settle for a very specific pattern of text removed. I tried things like: {{#invoke:string|replace|source=−4,<ref name="cn"/> −2,<ref name="cn"/>|pattern=[−+]%d,<.-><|replace=<|plain=false}} but the left angle bracket never matches. I think the match is being performed on a source or pattern after it has been converted to Help:strip markers. Thus the angle bracket is not in the source during the match. Is there a way around this? Johnjbarton (talk) 23:15, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Because <ref /> tags are replaced with stripmarkers before Module:String ever sees |source=:

{{#invoke:string|replace|source=−4,<ref name="cn"/> −2,<ref name="cn"/>|pattern=[−+]%d,<.-><|replace=<|plain=false}}

−4,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000025-QINU`"' −2,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000026-QINU`"'

no <ref /> tags to match.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:40, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, very helpful. On the plus side the issue I was concerned about, finding my digit-strings like ",9" inside refs, can't actually happen:

{{#invoke:string|replace|source=−4,<ref name="has9">,9</ref> −2,<ref name="cn"/>|pattern=[−+]%d,<.-><|replace=<|plain=false}}

−4,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000029-QINU`"' −2,'"`UNIQ--ref-0000002A-QINU`"'

On the minus side, templates can't manipulate contents of ref tags I guess. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:55, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

References

Help Escalating security issue with Webauthn

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T358771

With the help of WMF staff we identified a critical issue with webauthn that is likely locking users out of their accounts. The issue prevents webauthn activated on a device from being used on another device, or between browser sessions. This means users can be activating webauthn , intending to secure their account, and end up losing access to wikipedia. Because relatively few users activate this feature in the short term, the issue may not be getting the attention it deserves. It will also discourage future users from activating webauthn, which is a critical security feature to protect the community.

Please help me find the appropriate contact with WMF technical staff to help get the fix merged. It's a one-line fix from upstream repository so it should be low risk. Tonymetz 💬 16:50, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I guess that would be us, the Platform Team. I'll raise it with the team and we'll have a look. Matma Rex talk 19:30, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, webauthn has multiple known issues and is certainly in the "experimental" role. As far as our contributors and readers here at the English Wikipedia go: webauthn shouldn't be used by anyone for anything important. Technical reports in phabricator are of course welcome. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:09, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

thanks for the context. On the ticket , Reddy mentioned it was completed by a contractor and hasn't been supported. To whom could I appeal to have it turned off? I believe it's locking people out, so it's a liability. Tonymetz 💬 18:00, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that would also be us. There's already a task: T376021 that lists some problems and suggests turning it off as one possible solution. I think that's currently waiting on some decisions about the new login system (code name "SUL3", see T348388 for some details), which may either let us fix it instead of disabling it, or force us to disable it, depending on which approach we end up going with. Matma Rex talk 01:10, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

thanks for sharing the context and I'm glad to hear that the concern is being addressed. Thanks again for the updates on that. Tonymetz 💬 02:58, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Sticky table headers placement issue for short/nested tables

It looks like someone tweaked the CSS for the sticky table headers — which can be enabled with the fourth checkbox at Special:Preferences#mw-htmlform-gadget-section-test — so that (if your browser also satisfies a @media screen and (min-width: 1000px) media query) it applies a top: 3.125rem offset to table headers when one is stickied, to prevent the sticky header from either covering or sliding under the also-sticky TOC button.

Nice idea, in theory. Problem is, on pages containing nested and/or short tables that don't exceed the height of the screen, the stickiness can kick in at unexpected times, particularly when there are multiple tables. And when that happens, all of the tables' headers jump down a distance of 3.125rem, potentially covering their first data row.

I first noticed this at Module:Sports results, in the documentation. The "What it looks like" areas of those docs all contain short tables. If you have the sticky headers gadget enabled, then no matter where you scroll on that page, each table's header row will be shoved down to cover the first data row below it.

That's a problem, as it obscures content, and the only way to make it visible is to defeat the CSS rule applying top: 3.125rem. FeRDNYC (talk) 16:16, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like this only affects nested tables, and it may be sufficient to augment the existing CSS rule:

@media screen and (min-width: 1000px) {
  .skin-vector-2022.vector-sticky-header-visible .jquery-tablesorter > thead,
  .skin-vector-2022.vector-sticky-header-visible .mw-sticky-header > thead {
    top: 3.125rem;
  }
}

with a second one overriding the offset in nested tables:

@media screen and (min-width: 1000px) {
  .skin-vector-2022.vector-sticky-header-visible .jquery-tablesorter .jquery-tablesorter > thead,
  .skin-vector-2022.vector-sticky-header-visible .jquery-tablesorter .mw-sticky-header > thead,
  .skin-vector-2022.vector-sticky-header-visible .mw-sticky-header .mw-sticky-header > thead,
  .skin-vector-2022.vector-sticky-header-visible .mw-sticky-header .jquery-tablesorter > thead {
    top: 0;
  }
}

FeRDNYC (talk) 16:57, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

...Smaller issue, the nested table headings then end up passing on top of the sticky outer table headers when they cross, instead of underneath them. Looks like some z-index tweaking might also be needed. FeRDNYC (talk) 17:01, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Ohh, now I see. The offset isn't to avoid the floating TOC button, but rather the full-width version of the .vector-sticky-header. But the weird thing is, that CSS doesn't kick in until @media screen and (min-width: 1120px), so there's this weird 120px limbo range of browser widths where the table headings are ducking under nothing at all. FeRDNYC (talk) 22:53, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Those values change sometimes. I'll make an edit request. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:16, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@TheDJ Nice, thanks!

The nested table issue is still a problem, though, whether the breakpoints are synced up or not. When a table's sticky-header activates and the top: 3.125rem; offset kicks in for its header rows, the header rows of all tables nested inside that table will also move down to obscure their own content, unless the offset is defeated for nested tables with something like my second CSS block above. FeRDNYC (talk) 09:18, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this is almost impossible to bypass. Sticky headers are relative to their scrolling context. So every time you introduce a new scrolling context (as done here at Module:Sports_results#L-277), you have to cancel out the offset of the main context. This is part of the reason why the sticky headers are not the default behavior. It is not really possible to make it work predictably in any and all contexts right now. If you want to override this specific situation, you need to make an override for this gadget's behavior in Module:Sports_results/styles.css. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:11, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@FeRDNYC: The offset isn't a problem with the change request at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-StickyTableHeaders.css#Interface-protected edit request on 10 September 2024, which adjusts "top" to 0 if the table is wrapped in an "overflow" style. Basically nothing is sticky at Module:Sports results/doc, which is better than unreadable content. Jroberson108 (talk) 05:55, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Battle of Helena

See Talk:Battle of Helena#In appropriate photo when viewing in app. Any idea what's going on with the issue the IP just reported? There were some image vandalism issues over a year ago. There's no infobox image in the article so I don't know what would be causing that. I am unable to really look into this because I am at work and do not want to replicate the reported issue. Hog Farm _Talk 16:29, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

@Hog Farm the article was vandalized at some point (see the edit summary at Special:Permalink/1163371835) and while the vandalism was removed, it's likely that some resource the app is using didn't update their cache correctly. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:53, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

SuggestBot - is it running?

Hi, I submitted a request 20:32, 10 October 2024 (UTC) here, and awaiting a response of suggested articles wikitable. At User talk:SuggestBot I did include @Nettrom, the bot operator. Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 21:41, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

It appears not - the recent contribs to User talk pages show that it typically runs twice a day, at 11:24 and 23:24 (UTC), but today's 11:24 run was missed. Have you contacted the botop directly? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:55, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Redrose64 - I did just now leave a message on Nettrom's talk page. JoeNMLC (talk) 00:10, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Well its contribs show that it's making edits (permalink to contributions at time of writing). It seems to be taking its time. At least it's still carrying on the fourth-longest daily editing streak of any user here (I'm at #5 of out of all human editors). Graham87 (talk) 02:44, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

 Done at 11:26, 12 October 2024 (UTC). Cheers! JoeNMLC (talk) 11:50, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Queries

Hey, all,

Just a minor query but I hope someone will know. When I use to visit Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement or WP:ANI, in the top right corner of a discussion, there was a link to "Archive" the discussion. Instead, now, there is a link to "Subscribe". So, is there an easy way to archive discussions other than cutting and pasting them into an archive page? It used to be easy to do this but now I don't see a way to do this. Is it because of a skin or some setting I have opted into or was this a change to discussion format? There also use to be a Reply link on talk page discussions and I no longer see that link either.

Thanks for any explanation anyone can provide. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:06, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I had this issue recently and I was told to update / use a new user script. Let me hunt that down for you. Ktin (talk) 06:25, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

See this post Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_214#User_Scripts_and_Template_Substitution. I ended up using User:Elli/OneClickArchiver and this works for me. Ktin (talk) 06:29, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

@Liz In User:Liz/common.js you are loading User:Technical 13/Scripts/OneClickArchiver.js on line 36. That particular version of the one click archiver was deleted in 2023 because it was broken and Technical 13 is arbcom blocked and unable to fix it. You'll need to replace it with an alternative, see Wikipedia:One click archiving for a list of maintained versions. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 17:11, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

‘Newcomer Tasks’ got a screw loose? Or is it the user?

Wikipedia:Growth Team features didn’t look like the right place to phone this in, so dragging it up here. If what looks like problems with the Newcomer kit, belongs somewhere else, please signpost accordingly.

See this and this. Is this the user making mistakes, or is Newcomer Tasks actually telling them to put refs at the top? MM (Give me info.) ^(Victories) 15:44, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

It seems to be just link spam, unrelated to Newcomer Tasks, even though the edits are tagged as such. —⁠andrybak (talk) 15:53, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Cpmrev- Jeez, how did I miss that… uw-spam1 it is. Cheers Andry. MM (Give me info.) ^(Victories) 15:57, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Standard width of appearance tool does not work properly

Hi, "Standard" width of "Appearance tool" does not work properly. It functions the same as "Wide" width. Please inspect. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 12:52, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I just tested and it works fine. Is your screen wide enough for the wide mode to even kick in ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:00, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@TheDJ Sorry, I zoomed out my browser and the problem resolved. Please close the thread. Thanks. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 14:13, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@TheDJ I really propose that we can disable this functionality in the case that zoom of browser is high, and this functionality does not work properly. We can implement that by a few JavaScript codes. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 14:33, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Cannot request a move

I have been unable to request a multiple-page move. It goes like this: I am using Wikipedia on an Xbox console (my computer is out of action at the moment), and attempting to request a multiple-page move does not work. Doing so instead yields a mere reply in the form of bare wikitext. You can find those three trainwrecks (or should it be planewrecks, given the topic?) on Talk:Microsoft Flight Simulator. I attempted to request a move of four pages relating to the series in question, as I had previously done with the first game: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2.0, Microsoft Flight Simulator 3.0, Microsoft Flight Simulator 4.0, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.0 in a similar vein to my move of the 1982 game, as in moving them to something like "Microsoft Flight Simulator (19XX video game)".

Can someone request a move for me? Ægc's friendly xbox alt (talk) 08:30, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Turn off Visual Editor in all its myriad forms (it may be OK for articles, but it's hopeless on talk pages). Use MediaWiki's own plain text source editor - I use the oldest one that still exists (I think that it's called the 2003 wikitext editor), and have no problems at all. Template transclusions and substitutions do exactly what they're supposed to. Any typos are therefore my own fault. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:41, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@Redrose64 I don't think this is good advice in general, and it's not relevant here, because Æ is not using the visual editor here to edit the talk page, but rather the new topic tool. Matma Rex talk 16:00, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@Ægc's friendly xbox alt In the top-right corner of the interface for adding new topics, there are two tabs labelled "Visual" and "Source" – try switching to the "Source" tab before writing the move request. Matma Rex talk 15:58, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-42

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

• The Structured Discussion extension (also known as Flow) is starting to be removed. This extension is unmaintained and causes issues. It will be replaced by DiscussionTools, which is used on any regular talk page. A first set of wikis are being contacted. These wikis are invited to stop using Flow, and to move all Flow boards to sub-pages, as archives. At these wikis, a script will move all Flow pages that aren't a sub-page to a sub-page automatically, starting on 22 October 2024. On 28 October 2024, all Flow boards at these wikis will be set in read-only mode. [4][5]
• WMF's Search Platform team is working on making it easier for readers to perform text searches in their language. A change last week on over 30 languages makes it easier to find words with accents and other diacritics. This applies to both full-text search and to types of advanced search such as the hastemplate and incategory keywords. More technical details (including a few other minor search upgrades) are available. [6]
• View all 20 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, EditCheck was installed at Russian Wikipedia, and fixes were made for some missing user interface styles.

Updates for technical contributors

• Editors who use the Toolforge tool Earwig's Copyright Violation Detector will now be required to log in with their Wikimedia account before running checks using the "search engine" option. This change is needed to help prevent external bots from misusing the system. Thanks to Chlod for these improvements. [7]
• Phabricator users can create tickets and add comments on existing tickets via Email again. Sending email to Phabricator has been fixed. [8]
• Some HTML elements in the interface are now wrapped with a <bdi> element, to make our HTML output more aligned with Web standards. More changes like this will be coming in future weeks. This change might break some tools that rely on the previous HTML structure of the interface. Note that relying on the HTML structure of the interface is not recommended and might break at any time. [9]

In depth

• The latest monthly MediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available. This edition includes: updates on Wikimedia's authentication system, research to simplify feature development in the MediaWiki platform, updates on Parser Unification and MathML rollout, and more.
• The latest quarterly Technical Community Newsletter is now available. This edition include: research about improving topic suggestions related to countries, improvements to PHPUnit tests, and more.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 21:17, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Preview weirdness

Use Navigation pop-ups. Point mouse at Aaron Brennan, an article about a bearded man, with a picture of a bearded man in the infobox, before any other pictures. Be surprised to see, in the pop-up, a picture of an unbearded young lady from several sections down the page. DuncanHill (talk) 11:37, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@DuncanHill: And now? Polygnotus (talk) 12:46, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@Polygnotus: Works as expected now, thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 23:50, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Navigation pop-ups doesn't have access to the result of parsing the wikitext but makes its own primitive analysis of the source text. It can detect file syntax and certain common infobox parameters like image and logo, but apparently not image1. Unlike Page Previews, it can select images outside the lead. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:30, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

It would only require adding |image1 to this line in MediaWiki:Gadget-popups.js:

			'image|image_(?:file|skyline|name|flag|seal)|cover|badge|logo'

PrimeHunter (talk) 14:39, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Mysterious newline

At Wikipedia:Contents/Mathematics and logic § Glossaries, there's an unintended newline between Algebraic geometry and Algebraic topology. Looking at the source (Wikipedia:Contents/Glossaries/Mathematics and logic), there's a newline between all the entries, but all of them are ignored on the subpage, and all but the first are ignored when it's transcluded. Inspecting Wikipedia:Contents/Mathematics and logic in my browser, the first entry is outside the <div> that holds all the other entries. (And I've checked that this isn't skin-specific or browser-specific.) I've tried putting <nowiki /> at the start of Wikipedia:Contents/Glossaries/Mathematics and logic, because I vaguely remember a bug like that, but no dice. Does anybody know what's going on here? jlwoodwa (talk) 00:33, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I made the list use actual wikitext list formatting like the other sections. It was using bullet characters with line breaks, which may or may not work, as you saw. Does normal formatting work for you? – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:54, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that did it. No point in debugging something if it's automatically solved by upgrading to semantic list markup. jlwoodwa (talk) 01:11, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Disambiguation links added

What is happening at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents? Of the last 100 edits 62 are tagged as having added disambiguation links - from random checking, most didn't?
The first edit that has it was this, which did add a disambiguation link (MOS:CONSISTENCY). – 2804:F1...D2:B7E7 (talk) 19:57, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

MOS:CONSISTENCY is a redirect to the disambiguation page Wikipedia:Consistency. MOS is a namespace here at the English Wikipedia while [[MOS:CONSISTENCY]] at other wikis would have been an interlanguage link to https://mos.wikipedia.org/wiki/CONSISTENCY. Maybe this confuses a piece of software. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:39, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I've changed it to bypass the redirect, see if that works. – 2804:F1...D2:B7E7 (talk) 21:02, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

It worked. Your edit [10] was the last to be tagged, and the page still says [[WP:Consistency|MOS:CONSISTENCY]] many edits later. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:38, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

So it did. I'm guessing it isn't happening here because you also linked the redirect target ... interesting. – 2804:F1...D2:B7E7 (talk) 21:41, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Redhead (bird) also links MOS:CONSISTENCY and was tagged when it was added.[11] I made two dummy edits without triggering the tag so it seems hard to guess when it will be tagged. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:21, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

That's true. I also noticed at ANI that it had started tagging every edit, but after the bot archived 5 sections (diff), only every other edit or so was tagged. In that edit the bot removes some :MOS links, which, coincidentally, were made :MOS because a bot thought they were accidental language links.

Seems to be some combination with other unknown factors. – 2804:F1...D2:B7E7 (talk) 01:47, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm guessing it's a bug in mw:Extension:Disambiguator, since it's what sets the disambiguator-link-added tag. jlwoodwa (talk) 00:42, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

The relevant function is onLinksUpdateComplete. jlwoodwa (talk) 00:49, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

(To be precise, I mean a bug either directly in that extension, or in its dependencies.) jlwoodwa (talk) 00:51, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Newspapers.com

I've not been able to log in to Newspapers.com since February because I have free account there linked to my paid Ancestry account. I was told it was very hard to maintain that, for very good reasons. I found it very difficult to edit articles because I depended on Newspapers.com for sources. Now I don't even see it as an option in the Library anymore. Have we totally given up on that? I see Ancestry in the library. Is there some way to access newspapers.com for articles that aren't obituaries? I hope I'm asking this in the right place. Oona Wikiwalker (talk) 01:09, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Have you applied for access as instructed here? Nardog (talk) 02:31, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Module:Nihongo and Module:Lang

Hey there. It looks like Japanese sword is having a Lua error. I am guessing that this may have to do with recent changes to either Module:Lang or Module:Nihongo. I can't edit those anyway, but maybe someone here has the ability and/or the ability to test what is going here. Sumurai8 (talk) 15:34, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Yup, something is wrong with Module:Nihongo. Many Nintendo-related articles are affected. Anyone with technical knowledge able to fix this? QuicoleJR (talk) 15:54, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Update: Everything is working properly now. Thank you, Trappist the monk, for fixing the module. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:14, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I am still seeing this on mobile with Module:Lang. It seems to only affect articles after it was changed to langx. "Lua error in Module:Lang at line 1422: attempt to concatenate a nil value" Mellk (talk) 17:05, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:NULLEDIT is your friend.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:25, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I suspected it was something to do with the cache. Mellk (talk) 07:13, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

How can I edit an article in full screen, not a column with preview to the left

I want to have to click preview to preview and have the full edit field available. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 12:16, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Ignore, figured it out. Doug Weller talk 12:21, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Red link tool

This tool does not work. Is there any analogue? Kaiyr (talk) 18:54, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@Kaiyr: Do you mean that you couldn't reach the site? Or that there was a server error? It currently appears to be online. Polygnotus (talk) 13:36, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah when I click "Do it!" it says Server(ServerError { code: 1054, message: "Unknown column 'lt0.lt__namespace' in 'where clause'", state: "42S22" }).

You should probably report that issue over at https://github.com/magnusmanske/petscan_rs/issues Polygnotus (talk) 13:37, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Enhanced editnotice loader

I worked on a module that would serve as an enhanced editnotice loader for Wikipedia. See testwiki:Module:Editnotice_load and Module:Editnotice load (which is an exact copy). Features include category editnotices, better group notices, and editnotices by page ID (which would reduce the need to move pages around).

I want to get further feedback on this loader before it inevitably gets implemented. Please check out the testwiki. It should be backwards compatible with the way we do things, but I would like checks for this first.

If this is to be implemented, there will need to be a couple of changes made, including to:

• Template:Editnotice load (would need to be replaced with {{#invoke:editnotice load|main}})
• Template:Editnotice load/notext (would need to redirect to Template:Editnotice load, or should call {{editnotice load}} but with the parameter "notext=yes")
• Template:Editnotice/notice (would need to be updated to match that on testwiki)
• MediaWiki:Noarticletext-nopermission (should be updated with the following addendum: {{#invoke:editnotice load|protectionEditnotice}})
• MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext (would need to be updated to match that on testwiki)
• MediaWiki:Cascadeprotected (would need to be updated to match that on testwiki)
• Template:Editnotices/Group/Template:Editnotices (would need to be updated to match that on testwiki)
• MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-custom-editnotice (would need to be updated to match that on testwiki)

This would make the editnotice loader much more robust.

Immediately, in preparation for this, I would consider adding the following category editnotices templates:

{{BLP editintro}}

• Template:Editnotices/Category/Living people
• Template:Editnotices/Category/Possibly living people

{{Disambig editintro}}

• Template:Editnotices/Category/Disambiguation pages

Anything else? Awesome Aasim 19:06, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Some documentation on how it works from a user's perspective would be helpful, in order to understand the context and how it would be used in practice, including how security restrictions are enforced. On a side note, I'm not sure that its deployment is "inevitable". isaacl (talk) 22:03, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I have some testcases on testwiki. For best results, view when logged out and inspect the HTML when logged in.

testwiki:Taylor Swift should be a good example of me getting category editnotices working. testwiki:Protected title and testwiki:Protected title2 show the protection editnotice on both the create screen and on the "does not exist" screen when a title is protected from creation for other reasons.

testwiki:Special:EditPage/A should show the page notice from testwiki:Template:Editnotices/PageID/54370 (which is for A). You can also see I renamed previous "page notice"s to "title notice"s because the way page notices are bound to currently are actually to titles, not pages. The new "page notice" will remain bound to a specific page because it uses PageID. There will be no need to update the title notices for pages that exist. On the other hand, for pages that don't exist, the title notice will need to be kept up to date. Awesome Aasim 04:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I can't tell from the article page how to use the feature: where the edit notice lives, how will access be limited, and so forth. Thus it's hard to evaluate the feature without knowing the maintenance cost. isaacl (talk) 09:58, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The editnotices live in the same pseudo-space: Template:Editnotices/. See testwiki:Module:Editnotice load/config.

I also moved the editnotice links to a collapsible box because the number of creatable editnotices has gotten relatively high after adding category notices. Awesome Aasim 13:16, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, I see there's now a link above the edit notice point to its location, so category-based notices are grouped under a "Category" subpage. What are the enhancements for the group-based notices? isaacl (talk) 18:33, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

There is less ambiguity in how they are handled. For example, on testwiki:Template:A/B/C/D/E, there are five different group editnotices that can be created. So if there is a page where it is desirable that the group Template:A/B needs one group notice, and Template:A/B/C needs another group notice, and Template:A/B/D needs another group notice, that can now be done; there will be one common group notice and two separate group notices for subpages. Awesome Aasim 19:21, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I would suggest to phase the rollout into stages, and creating a test plan to ensure nothing regressed. Editing this many interface pages and fully protected templates at once sounds like too much work for an admin to volunteer to. For instance, the specific category editnotices you mention can be left for later as we already have a decent system to handle those categories.
Immediately, in preparation for this, I would consider adding the following category editnotices templates this cannot be done immediately as they also need to be removed from Module:Mainspace editnotice, else they would show up twice when the rest of the changes are deployed. – SD0001 (talk) 08:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I actually think this might be something that is better done all in one go. Removing the two category editnotices from Module:Mainspace editnotice should be kind of a no-brainer after the rollout. The way that the module currently does these checks, checking the unparsed wikitext, currently sucks.

Do you have an idea for a Scribunto test runner for Module:Editnotice load to ensure that everything works with demo editnotices? Awesome Aasim 16:53, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I haven't noticed any bugs or regressions yet, if someone could take a second look at my code maybe then we will be able to identify potential problems. Awesome Aasim 12:52, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I submitted an edit request. I think this is something that could be botted by an admin opening up 8 edit windows and then saving all of the proposed changes at once. I have done this before, it gets annoying when you get rate limited but it is not impossible. Awesome Aasim 20:05, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

how do I restore the copy-paste function to the edit window? (dvorak keyboard)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T62928

This changed just recently. I first noticed it on Wikt-en, and at the time I had no problem on WP-en, but now it's spread here. It occurs on some other language wikis, like Wikt-ja, but not on Wikt-vi. In the edit window of a WP article or talk page, if I hit control-x I get bold formatting, with control-c I get italic, and with control-v I get superscript. Presumably this has something to do with me using a dvorak keyboard (dvorak x and c correspond to qwerty b and i), but other commands are unaffected. E.g. control-z and -y are still 'undo' and 'redo', despite corresponding to the qwerty keys for t and /. That means that I can't use the keys with qwerty x c v printed on them for cut-copy-paste, because they continue to act as dvorak q j k and either quit the browser or take me to the URL. It doesn't affect normal typing in an edit window, only commands where the 'ctrl' key is used.

This does not happen when I 'respond' to a thread on a talk page, so that a new window opens: Then all keys act as dvorak, both here and on wikt. The skin also does not seem to be the issue. Here I use Monobook, on Wikt I use Vector 2022. I tried Vector legacy on Wikt and the behaviour was the same.

Can I do something with my css to override this behaviour? — kwami (talk) 00:29, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

The patch that broke it is reverted and going out on the next train on Thursday. phab:T62928 You can turn on syntax highlighting to work around it for now. Izno (talk) 00:47, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks!

Syntax highlighter is good fix in the meantime. — kwami (talk) 01:27, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Keyboard shortcuts broken for alternative keyboard layouts (macOS, Safari)

For the last couple days, when editing an article and press 'Command-V' to Paste, the text below is inserted instead:

<sup>Superscript text</sup>

When I 'Command-C' to Copy, double single quotes are wrapped around the selected text.

''selected text''

Strangely, when editing THIS PAGE the shortcuts are working fine. But If I got to edit an article or talk page in mainspace, they do the above.

NOTE: macOS, Safari. I type using the Dvorak keyboard layout. Dvorak's C is in the same location as QWERTY's I. The italics issue above leads me to believe the shortcuts have been (recently) hardcoded to the QWERTY locations rather than taking the actual key/letter typed.

Does anyone know what could be wrong or have a better venue to raise this?

PK-WIKI (talk) 16:49, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

See above. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:51, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Unable to use the visual editor for a specific article

For some reason the visual editor is not working on this article. getting the message "sorry this element can only be edited in source mode for now".

Why might this be the case?

Is this normal or is there a problem that has to be fixed? i was told to try clearing my cache and fit that didn't work to ask here.BruceSchaff (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:33, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Should be fine now. Someone had added some bold that doesn't work in the way it was added. Izno (talk) 20:48, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Template:Wikipedia stats issue

The template seems to be having issues with "mos" as a parameter, possibly due to the MOS namespace or related changes. Could someone please take a look at it? In particular, it's used on Wikipedia:List of Wikipedias, and the issue is visible if you uncomment that row of the table. Thanks. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 00:55, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

It's indeed the MOS namespace which caused problems. I have modified {{Wikipedia stats}} to link the mos wiki as m:mos: which works via a redirect at meta.[12] It's a hack but it works so I have uncommented the mos row.[13] I don't know whether it's possible to make a wikilink which goes directly to the mos wiki. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:42, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

phab:T363538 included a proposal for a mos-x-deconflict: interwiki, but (judging by how that's a redlink) it doesn't currently exist. Special:Interwiki doesn't show any other prefixes for https://mos.wikipedia.org, so I think m:mos: is the only solution for now. jlwoodwa (talk) 01:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

That was the solution I originally went with (and coded up). The WMF decided to instead embrace the concept of a namespace and an interwiki having the same name, rather than working around it. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:04, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Part of that included adding parser functions to explicitly indicate you wanted the interwiki link, but that part hasn't been code reviewed yet. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:05, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Daniel Quinlan (talk) 02:29, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Accounts with no visible creation date on their contribs page

When I visit the contributions page of a user, it shows their account's creation date at the top. But some, like Dennis Brown and Muboshgu, don't. Why? Avessa (talk) 14:10, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Because those users were created before user creation times were being logged. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:20, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

But your account was created seven months earlier than Muboshgu's (21 April 2005 vs. 22 November 2005), and yet the creation date is visible on your contribs page. Then there are also Bearcat (created on 3 October 2003), BD2412 (20 February 2005), Koavf (5 March 2005), etc, which all were created before Muboshgu's account too, and yet have their creation date visible. Avessa (talk) 15:23, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Strange things sometimes occur with logins created before WP:SUL went live in May 2008. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:18, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the "creation date" for early accounts is a later guess that was added to the database at some point (I remember that it was not there in the beginning; for me, the date given is the date of my first edit, which is probably correct). The list of users by user ID claims to be "by creation date" but that is clearly incorrect. —Kusma (talk) 16:52, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Kusma: well it is by creation date ... in terms of the current database, which was implemented in January 2002 with the Phase II software. The previous UseModWiki login system was quite different, as described at the Wikipedia FAQ on the Nostalgia Wikipedia. Graham87 (talk) 01:58, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The sorting is by actual creation date, not by the date given as "creation date". —Kusma (talk) 08:12, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The user_registration column wasn't added until MediaWiki version 1.6, which was released on April 5, 2006. There's a script that backfills the column with each user's first edit, but - as best as I've been able to reconstruct - it apparently hasn't been run on enwiki since at least August 24, 2006. Users who registered before 1.6's deployment but didn't edit until after the last time the update script was run still have empty registration times. —Cryptic 16:52, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Redlinked category

Resolved

 – Categories removed by intadmin, user informed. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:58, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Special:WantedCategories has, not for the first time, a redlinked category populated solely by a user's .js settings page. The category is Category:New Pages — but obviously .js pages aren't supposed to be categorized at all, and there'd be no call for "creating" that category to serve any other purpose. So the category needs to come off the page, but I don't have the necessary privileges to edit other people's .js pages, and the user is a brand-new editor who so far has only edited their own .js and .css pages with absolutely no edits to anything else.

So could somebody who does have the necessary privileges remove the category from the page? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 13:47, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

This is User:Coderreyansh/vector-2022.js and you should make a request at WP:IAN. If they don't know what to do, they should (i) insert one line at the very top:

// <!--

and (ii) append one at the very end:

// -->

This will not alter how the page is interpreted as javascript, but will hide all the Wikicode and so decategorise the page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:42, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

 Done — xaosflux ^Talk 15:58, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

XTools seems to be down again

Here - on Firefox it says "The connection has timed out". Achmad Rachmani (talk) 10:00, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Working here. GrabUp - Talk 10:01, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Might have just been a temporary issue — is it working for you now? — TheresNoTime-WMF (talk • they/them) 10:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@TheresNoTime-WMF: No, it's not working for me now. Achmad Rachmani (talk) 10:45, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@Achmad Rachmani According to our uptime stats, the last outage was on September 17, so I think it may be an issue on your end. This is assuming you're talking about xtools: as a whole, and not statistics for a specific user/page. Sometimes queries time out when you look up stats for a very prolific user, but I don't think that is what you're referring to. — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:51, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Text fragments

Some links contain #:~:text= and then a quote from the article, e.g. here. Should we keep or remove those? Polygnotus (talk) 11:54, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure this came up a year or two back, but I can't find it. I can't even remember if it's a browser-specific thing or a website-specific thing, but it's to help you find the right place on the page when there are no handy anchors. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:46, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

It used to be Chrome-specific (introduced in 2020), but Safari and Firefox have added support for it recently too (in 2022 and just this month, respectively). [14] Matma Rex talk 15:29, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

URL fragment text directives are defined by a W3C draft. As noted by Matma Rex, it does seem to be supported by the newer versions of many browsers (though Safari lacks CSS styling support, except in a prelease version on the desktop). isaacl (talk) 15:38, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I would be in favour of removing it enmasse regardless of it being a W3C specification. Sohom (talk) 21:16, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Why is usually a good idea ;). My personal opinion is that it adds little value to the URL, especially above and beyond a quote in the relevant citation template where actually necessary. And that way we have a permanent record locally rather than relying on text which might change externally. Izno (talk) 21:25, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

If we are going to remove these, should we also remove traditional URL fragments that can only target either an id= attribute, or the name= attribute of an <a> tag? I don't see the point: both are harmless, both aid in reaching the appropriate part of a web page, neither of them is connected with tracking. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:25, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Traditional URL fragments have an implicit stability that random text does not. Izno (talk) 22:47, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

My why align with that of Izno :) I don't see text fragments as being stable over longer periods of time unlike anchors. I'm also unsure if they can be technically considered to be leaking identifiable information (since you could potentially reverse engineer what a person was searching for by looking at the highlighted text?) Sohom (talk) 01:01, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Adding a target to support an URI fragment is an intentional act to define an addressable subordinate resource, so I agree that is a more stable reference. I can see situations where using a text fragment may be helpful (say, to the specific text in a versioned legal document). I think for many cases, though, the advantages of a concise URI are, on balance, a higher priority than a less stable targeted destination. isaacl (talk) 01:40, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Infinite JS errors?

I happened to disable pop-ups on a Wikipedia page, using some unintended key combination. I now get an infinite number of the following pop-up messages

 Javascript Error

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Manishearth/orphantabs.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript at line 125: Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read properties of null (reading 'document')

Hmm... All the best: Rich Farmbrough 16:40, 15 October 2024 (UTC).

You can turn off your personal scripts, that one is loading from User:Rich Farmbrough/monobook.js, just comment it out. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:57, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that really wasn't my point. I know where the error is coming from, more or less, and it is not an issue for me as I only had one page in this odd state. However the situation where the gadget "Show an alert when you encounter JavaScript errors" is popping up perpetually is indicative of some underlying design issues. Whether they should be addressed is up to anyone who thinks it's worth doing and has the ability, desire and time. Feel free to discuss. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:47, 17 October 2024 (UTC).

I need an advice how to split rows/lines in a wiki-userbox

I made a userbox draft

This user tries to reduce Gender bias on Wikipedia.

,

but I want to put a linebreak between "reduce" and "Gender". Anyone knows how to do this? Walter Tau (talk) 17:31, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

{{line break}}? MM (Give me info.) ^(Victories) 17:33, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. It worked ! Walter Tau (talk) 17:37, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Very good. Enjoy your breaking of many lines. MM (Give me info.) ^(Victories) 17:38, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

even simpler, just put <br />. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:21, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

There's an advantage to avoiding HTML. I think {{Break}} is probably the canonical way to do this. It supports multiple breaks too. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 15:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC).

How about a non-breaking space? Johnuniq (talk) 22:10, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

nav box help

i want to get all articles that have the si:සැකිල්ල:Monarchs of the Sinhala Kingdom's navbox in it fall into a specific category. how to do that? the category is ප්‍රවර්ගය:සිංහලේ රජවරු(sinhala kings). if possible can someone edit the code?

so when its done, it will be like: every page that has this template which include this navbox get automatically added to that category. it would be nice if the category entering option was as in "asbox" so we can enter respective category to respective navboxs in templates. or is there and easy way to do this without editing the modules? VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 22:00, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Answered at Wikipedia:Help desk#navbox help. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:37, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Problem with cite web

There appears to be a problem with {{cite web}} and related templates on some pages - see, for example, Beroidae, where all the references display "Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2083: attempt to index a boolean value." rather than the reference. The references are displayed correctly in preview mode, with no template errors shown in the editor. I'm using Firefox with the Monobook skin. Tevildo (talk) 22:25, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I WP:NULLEDITed the page and the error went away. No idea of the cause. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:35, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

This is usually caused when the Citation Style 1 module components used by the cite templates are updated and are out of sync for a few moments. Some pages are re-rendered and cached during that short time, and they can throw errors when new code tries to call older code and fails in some way. With so many millions of pages, it is inevitable that at least a few pages will be affected. Null-editing affected articles re-renders them with all of the updated module components. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:45, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers, I'll try that if I come across this issue again. Tevildo (talk) 15:50, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Lua errors

Please have a look at @DannySI's problem report in T377379, it looks like something to do with Module:Citation/CS1. Matma Rex talk 18:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Same as above. A null edit should fix the problem. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:34, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The code that is emitting that error message was first added at the 23 March 2024 module-suite update. There was another update 17 August 2024. I do not recall seeing this error message before the 17 August update. It is possible that Editor Jonesey95 is correct. Still, I wonder because that particular bit of code does not rely on any other cs1|2 module. It should work so long as there is a MediaWiki connection between commons and en.wiki.

The code uses tabular data stored at commons (c:Data:CS1/Identifier limits.tab). The data in that table are supposed to be returned by mw.ext.data.get() in a Lua sequence of sequences. The error message suggests that the call to mw.ext.data.get() is returning a boolean value; could be true, could be false. Don't know; a boolean return is not described in any of the (very limited) documentation that I can find about the function. Does anyone here know? If a boolean is a proper return, what does it mean?

If this persists, I'm afeared that I will need to revert the code that fetches the data from commons. Disappointing that. I prefer updating that small data table when necessary rather than editing both the sandbox and live cs1|2 modules...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:10, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk This function seems to be implemented here:

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/plugins/gitiles/mediawiki/extensions/JsonConfig/+/refs/heads/master/includes/JCLuaLibrary.php

line 18 onwards. It seems like it can return false if it fails to load the table content? 86.23.109.101 (talk) 20:47, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I suspect that you are correct. Alas, I don't speak .php but it seems that at line 45 an attempt is made to fetch the raw page content from the local cache. Failing that, an attempt is made to query the database. If that too fails, I think that $result is set to false which is the return value that Scributo is complaining about. But, clearly, in this case, the page (and therefore its content) exists so JCLuaLibrary::get() should never return false, right?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:28, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk The various JCSingleton functions are in this file if you want to do a bit more digging.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/plugins/gitiles/mediawiki/extensions/JsonConfig/+/refs/heads/master/includes/JCSingleton.php

I also can't write php but getcontent appears to try to get the stuff from local cache again, then if that fails parses the title and then tries to retrieve the content from the database, setting the content to false if parsing the title fails?

I do see a comment in the parsetitle function about things being null in "wierd cases" followed by variables being set to false, so there might be some edge cases where the table data fails to show up even though the table exists? Either way it seems that there is some undocumented behaviour in that false is a valid output from mw.ext.data.get(), seemingly in the event of an error.

As far as fixing this goes I think the citation module would need to check if the result of mw.ext.data.get() is false and if so so just skip doing the bound checks? 86.23.109.101 (talk) 00:04, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Phab:T229742, reported on the Russian wikipedia, might be related? 86.23.109.101 (talk) 00:47, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Is this not just a server side connection issue though? English and Russian Wikipedia are not in the same server cluster as Wikimedia Commons. Snævar (talk) 15:41, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

just a server side connection issue? (emphasis added) I would think that that is not something trivial. If the problem is a connection issue, wouldn't we be seeing some sort of failure when attempting to fetch images from commons?

In this case, JCLuaLibrary::get() apparently knows that the tabular data page exists – try this in the Debug console:

=mw.ext.data.get ("CS1/Identifier limits.tab") → table

=mw.ext.data.get ("CS1/Identifier limits.ta") → Lua error: bad argument #1 to "get" (not a valid title).

I have not seen any of those error messages and, so far as I know, none have been reported. This suggests to me that there is something other than a connection issue that is causing =mw.ext.data.get() to return false.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:33, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I mean an temporary connecting issue, as the cache of the article has expired, the pages are fetched again and just happen to stumble on an temp connection issue, which is then fixed minutes later, but by then it is too late. That is also why an purge/null edit works, because minutes or hours have allready passed and the connection is fine by that point. Checking the connection now would not tell me anything. I think only a WMF dev can be absolutely sure, users do not have the tools to check this.

I do not think thumbnails are a good comparision. The thumbnails are stored in Swift and chaching data centers (see wikitech:Media storage). The caching data center has the most popular files by usage in each region. As for where the caching data centers are, there are two in europe, one in asia, one in south america and one in the usa (assuming the main servers do not have one). Swift has its own servers and even English wikipedia files are there too. I do not think Swift is within the Wikimedia Commons cluster, which is s4 (https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=dblists/s4.dblist). English wikipedia is on s1 (https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=dblists/s1.dblist), on it's own, due to it's sheer size. Russian wikipedia is on s6 (https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=dblists/s6.dblist). I do not know how the data namespace on Wikimedia commons is stored, but I would assume it would be in s4. Snævar (talk) 05:20, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Weird related search results

If I search for "Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2083" 70 results are returned. If I purge the first entry and update the search there are 57 results. If I purge the first entry and update the search it goes back to 70 results, and purging and refreshing makes it 57 again. I can just keep repeating this, the same articles appear at the top of the search results (different articles for each set of search results). Without performing a purge or dummy edit the results stay the same.
The entries also don't update, very few of the entries actually had the error message and those were corrected by purging. This doesn't change the result. I thought this was just the search being slow to update, but this issue has been reported a couple of times previously at Help talk:Citation Style 1. So I've been searching and purging any I find. Some of the entries in the search haven't had this error in weeks. I don't know if this relates to the 2083 error, or a separate issue with search but it's repeatable and weird. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:09, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Search says it found 6 pages but only shows 5?

this search says it is displaying "Results 1 – 6 of 6" but is actually only showing 5 results:

User:RoySmith/sandbox/test/foo/f2
f2...
2 bytes (1 word) - 17:11, 17 October 2024

User:RoySmith/sandbox/test/foo/f3
f3...
2 bytes (1 word) - 17:12, 17 October 2024

User:RoySmith/sandbox/xxx
foo...
3 bytes (1 word) - 22:10, 8 May 2024

User:RoySmith/sandbox/test/bar/b1
b1...
2 bytes (1 word) - 17:11, 17 October 2024

User:RoySmith/sandbox/test/foo/f1
f1...
2 bytes (1 word) - 17:12, 17 October 2024

RoySmith (talk) 17:34, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

WTF!? I just re-ran the search and now it's saying "Results 1 – 5 of 5". Is there some bizarre caching going on? RoySmith (talk) 17:37, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

May get confused by redirects, there are actually 7 subpages in all, with some being redirects. Special:PrefixIndex/User:RoySmith/sandbox/ is more reliable for this sort of query. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:19, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to open a bug on the search results off-by-one problem, your screen shot may help. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:27, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

T377501 RoySmith (talk) 18:59, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

This isn't uncommon. Search works by fragmenting itself over multiple nodes (and a result can be on multiple of those nodes), and then pulling in the results of those multiple nodes. It also works on a long delay in terms of updating. These features make it fast (faster then doing the same search on the main database) and it is why search uses a separate database, but they also can cause minor inconsistencies like these for fragments of time. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:15, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Keep getting logged out

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T372702

Over the past few weeks I've been occasionally getting logged out unexpectedly, despite ticking the "remember me" option every time. Most recently it's happened twice in the past ~24 hours. It always happens when I've been idle for a while, but only on the order of hours not days. I'm not aware that I've changed any of my settings recently. Thryduulf (talk) 20:15, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Me too. I believe there is a phab ticket covering this issue. Let me go find it real quick NightWolf1223 <Howl at me•My hunts> 20:55, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I've had the same issue for a week or so, I just rather lazily assumed it would get fixed at some point. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:08, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Probably the same problem as T372702. Matma Rex talk 16:16, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if this sequence of actions has a trigger in it.

1. explicitly log out on one machine (this invalidates all login cookies on all devices)
2. log in to en.wp on a different device, selecting "Keep me logged in (for up to one year)". I now have a fresh new login cookie
3. Microsoft informs me that updates require installation, so I finish what I am doing ...
4. ... close Firefox, go for "Start"→"Power"→"Update and restart", wait an age. Make coffee. Clear a pile of snailmail. Open Firefox ...
5. ... and back to my watchlist. One edit adds an image to an article, which I am suspicious about, so:
6. visit Commons. It says I am not logged in and should reload the page. In my experience, this never works, but following a different commons link does; so I go to the page history. I am now shown as logged in.
7. Still on Commons, I follow a link to en.wp - I am not logged in
8. Return to commons, visit another page, still logged in
9. go to Meta - I am logged in there
10. try en.wp again - not logged in

Why might en.wp stop recognising my login cookie when commons and meta are perfectly happy with it? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:17, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Not getting automatically logged in on some wikis sounds like some sort of anti-tracking protection in your browser. Commons and Meta share the same parent domain with login.wikimedia.org where the central session cookie is stored so browser restrictions on cross-wiki cookie access are more relaxed.

Does clicking on the login link at the top of the page on enwiki help? That should work in Firefox. Tgr (WMF) (talk) 18:26, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

@Tgr (WMF): I think you missed something - my proper login (asking me to enter name and password) was on English Wikipedia. When I went to Commons and logged in there, I became logged out on Wikipedia, but remained logged in on Commons. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:16, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah the logged out part is the bug Matma Rex linked. I'm just saying Commons and Meta login being more "sticky" on some browsers is expected - your enwiki session somehow went missing, your central session on login.wikimedia.org remained, and then other wikimedia.org wikis can recover the session from there but wikis on other domains can't. Tgr (WMF) (talk) 21:31, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

OK it's not random but it is replicable:

1. On en.wp, log in (full login using Special:UserLogin, with Username/Password)
2. Click this link: commons: - observe that you are logged in
3. Use the browser's "back" button to return to en.wp
4. Press F5 to reload the page - observe that you are not logged in
5. Click this link: commons: - observe that you are still logged in at Commons

This also causes loss of session data and more than one lost edit. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:54, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

@Redrose64 I cannot reproduce this behavior. RoySmith (talk) 00:49, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

@Redrose64 if you are able to reproduce it, would you mind doing it with the WikimediaDebug extension enabled and the "Verbose log" option checked? Tgr (WMF) (talk) 15:59, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Tgr, but this is now working as expected - not sure when it began behaving again, yesterday, maybe? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:39, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this could be connected, but I've noticed recently (a few weeks?) that sometimes when I go back to my watchlist after looking at/editing a linked page, I get an earlier version of the watchlist. I've just assumed it has something to do with caching, as clearing the cache brings up the most recent version of the watchlist. Donald Albury 19:50, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Hindustan Times

HT sources can no longer be added automatically via ref gadgets like ProveIt and VisualEditor, only manually. Can't this be fixed, the way other websites like The Times of India were? Kailash29792 (talk) 05:20, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I have been getting the same problem with the HT sources for a few months now, although every other sources seem to work fine. Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 12:12, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Add buttons to Reply Tool

How can I add buttons to the Reply Tool (part of DiscussionTools)? Polygnotus (talk) 17:38, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Polygnotus The reply tool is not designed to be easily customizable by the end user. If you wish to request a new feature for everyone, you can do so at mw:Extension talk:DiscussionTools. If you're trying to write your own WP:USERSCRIPT to modify the reply tool, you'd need to do something like $('.oo-ui-toolbar-tools:not(.oo-ui-toolbar-after)').append(CODE_FOR_YOUR_NEW_BUTTON) . --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:42, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@Ahecht: Thank you. I would've written my own userscript but they use some kinda weird dummy textarea while the real thing is actually a bunch of divs. Terribly confusing for a techdinosaur like myself. I would have to dive in the code to figure out a way to add my own buttons. I have posted a request on mediawiki.org. Polygnotus (talk) 17:58, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Quite complicated.

if (mw.config.get('wgDiscussionToolsFeaturesEnabled')) {
	mw.loader.using('ext.discussionTools.ReplyWidget', () => {
		ve.ui.HelloWorldCommand = function VeUiHelloWorldCommand() {
			ve.ui.HelloWorldCommand.super.call(this, 'helloWorld');
		};
		OO.inheritClass(ve.ui.HelloWorldCommand, ve.ui.Command);
		ve.ui.HelloWorldCommand.prototype.execute = () => {
			alert('Hello world!');
			return true;
		};
		ve.ui.commandRegistry.register(new ve.ui.HelloWorldCommand());
		ve.ui.HelloWorldTool = function VeUiHelloWorldTool() {
			ve.ui.HelloWorldTool.super.apply(this, arguments);
		};
		OO.inheritClass(ve.ui.HelloWorldTool, ve.ui.Tool);
		ve.ui.HelloWorldTool.static.name = 'helloWorld';
		ve.ui.HelloWorldTool.static.icon = 'help';
		ve.ui.HelloWorldTool.static.title = 'Hello world';
		ve.ui.HelloWorldTool.static.commandName = 'helloWorld';
		ve.ui.toolFactory.register(ve.ui.HelloWorldTool);
		mw.loader.moduleRegistry['ext.discussionTools.ReplyWidget'].packageExports['dt-ve/CommentTarget.js'].static.toolbarGroups[3].include.push('helloWorld');
	});
}

Based off of mw:VisualEditor/Gadgets. Nardog (talk) 13:58, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Getting different fonts into wikipedia

inside the english wikipedia we are able to use several other types of fonts for userpage editings. in the si:wikipedia.org(sinhala wikipedia project) we only have one default font. is there someone who can make it so we can use other few famous free licensed sinhala fonts inside sinhala wikipedia?

i did ask the one and only most active admin in that project here, he says he dont have the technical knowledge for this, hence im seeking help here.

below are some free licensed sinhala fonts:

• font.akasa
• sinhala-font

VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 13:19, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

The proper way is to ask on phabricator for those fonts to be added to "Universial Language Selector". Also, try to use the gear icon next to the "languages" heading in the left sidebar on old vector. If you are on new vector, then it is under languages next to the page title and then the gear icon. Sometimes people ask for fonts that are present, they might just not be the default font. Snævar (talk) 17:39, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there evidence suggesting Template:no spam works?

This has been something that has been bugging me for a while. I know that it is possible to match emails with just a bit of regex, namely (.*)?@(.*)?(\ |$), but is escaping with nospam actually reducing spam? My concern is really with OCR because although the literal character @ is escaped, it only takes a bit of OCR, which is at this point much, much better than a human, in order to get all the emails and continue sending that same spam.

I wonder if maybe the best solution for this would be to have another CAPTCHA before a person is able to view an email or all the emails on the page. This is done on YouTube and more. This could be done for all mailto: links, etc. Awesome Aasim 18:45, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

My concern is really with OCR because although the literal character @ is escaped, it only takes a bit of OCR

would be to have another CAPTCHA

Did you think this one through? Izno (talk) 18:54, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I am not thinking there should be one of those text CAPTCHAs. There are much smarter ones like GeeTest and ReCaptcha and etc. The reason we do not use one of these is that we are really, really concerned about privacy.

The text CAPTCHA was defeated over a decade ago, thanks to OCR. The current trend in CAPTCHAs I am seeing are those where one clicks on sliders. We unfortunately will have to collect more data to tell if someone isn't a human.

For example, YouTube's CAPTCHA to view a business email address on a channel is the standard "I'm not a robot" CAPTCHA.

If we do not want to go the CAPTCHA rabbit hole, we can rate limit. Rate limiting effectively stops spam, and we can go a step further by preventing people from viewing email addresses when using an open proxy or Tor. Awesome Aasim 21:25, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

It probably works at least some of the time. I doubt that it's cost-effective to even parse HTML correctly to harvest email addresses, much less render the whole page and run OCR on it. Here's an article by someone who tried a few simple techniques and found that some of them indeed work: https://spencermortensen.com/articles/email-obfuscation/ (although he didn't try the specific thing this template does). It'd be easy enough to test it yourself, if you don't mind waiting a few months for results: just create two unique email addresses and post them somewhere, one with this template's obfuscation, one without; then wait for the spam to arrive (or not). Matma Rex talk 19:10, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Another thing that could be tried is replacing each of the characters with their Unicode/ASCII values. It probably would make it even more confusing, while still allowing linked email addresses and the like. Awesome Aasim 20:54, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

An email link needs the literal email to be present in the link, so it can be passed to the email client. It can be obscured in the HTML source by rendering it with Javascript, but it's still going to be in the resulting page, and with the widespread prevelance of dynamic web pages nowadays, it's common for web crawlers to process retrieved pages after running any Javascript code on them. isaacl (talk) 22:24, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

As for OCR, there is a way to run browsers in headless mode; in other words, render the page without showing anything to the user. There are utilities that also can take scrolling screenshots of pages. With OCR so ubiquitous I doubt it wouldn't be hard to set up something that reads webpages like that. Awesome Aasim 20:56, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you're referring to headless browsers? Anyone harvesting email links isn't likely to be using a browser per se. (What might help deter some harvesters is including some obscured text on every page that is designed to produce a huge amount of back-tracking in typical email regexes, and perhaps causing memory overflow... except that it would confound uses by good-faith users, too.) Implementing an effective CAPTCHA system that is accessible and preserves user privacy is a challenge that the WMF has not resolved for many years now (see Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 56 § Captchas for some discussion). isaacl (talk) 21:56, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I particularly liked T354234 on that front. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:01, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Is it something that the WMF alone could solve? We can just have a CAPTCHA system that is FOSS and that can be hosted on Wikimedia be done with it. Or choose one of the proprietary options that may or may not be the best (like GeeTest or reCAPTCHA or uCAPTCHA or etc.), although they technically collect more data, and be done. Maxmind (which is being used for IP information) is proprietary, as are all the other WHOIS sites. Don't those sites and "whatsmybrowser" and etc. collect browsing data? Even Wikipedia has some tracking used by the WMF.

The fundamental problem with data and privacy is a CAPTCHA has two opposing forces: On one side you need to collect as much data as possible to assess whether one is a human or not. On the other side you do not want to store that data indefinitely. There is not a good easy way to balance this. Awesome Aasim 23:06, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

If you have a good free, open source implementation in mind, please do go to the appropriate Phabricator ticket mentioned in the other thread and let the WMF know about it. Yes, the tension between keeping personal data private and using it as an identity check is why expanding the use of CAPTCHA may not be the best approach. isaacl (talk) 23:49, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Remember of course the principle that spam only works on the gullible, and those using techniques to hide their email address from spammers are likely to be the least gullible, so there's is surprisingly little incentive to circumvent such techniques. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:01, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Does the "gullible" include "those who naively think replacing characters with images to try to deter spam"?

BTW I actually think that a lot of the spammers have moved onto something else like impersonating Amazon or Google or Microsoft or whatever to do a phishing attack. I think they get these emails from actual data breaches, not just from random parts of the web. For phone numbers those are consecutive, so it isn't too hard to send spam via text. Nonetheless, we can all fall for phishing attacks. Where they somehow get email addresses is anyone's guess. Awesome Aasim 23:11, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Spammers don't generally use OCR because it adds processing time and cost. They get plenty of addresses to spam with simple web crawling. Captcha systems are either not accessible (for the blind for example), or they contribute to commercial AI-training (reCAPTCHA, others) that a free encyclopedia should not be involved with. And spammers have no problem getting captcha solutions. Many 'free' sites that show a captcha are really forwarding queries for a spammer who will use the solution on their real target. MrOllie (talk) 23:17, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Images looping

When I'm viewing images with the mediaviewer in any article, I often navigate to the next image using the arrows. And when I get to the end, there are no more arrows. This makes sense. But for the past few days, the images have been looping, which is especially confusing when there's only one image. How can this be fixed? Thanks, Cremastra — talk — c 19:55, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, looping with only one image would be confusing. Fixing it probably requires filing a task on Phabricator. Izno (talk) 20:09, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Please provide a link to the page you are seeing this problem on. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:28, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

As I said, it's every page. So try Thomas Cooke (actor) or Scolopendra alcyona. Cremastra — talk — c 20:39, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

A loop was requested at phab:T77877 with code by Simon04. It was deployed here yesterday. I don't know whether he considered it would give a "self-loop" when there is only one image like Scolopendra alcyona. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:36, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there a way to disable it for myself? I find it somewhat annoying to be flicking through a picture gallery and thinking there's more and then ending up back at the start. It's confusing and disorienting, as was pointed out on the phab ticket. Cremastra — talk — c 21:44, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

No, it cannot be disabled for yourself (at least non trivially). I have left a comment on the ticket. Izno (talk) 22:02, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

On some websites with photo loops, it shows "1 of 6", etc. somewhere on the screen (top right on IMDb), so you know how far through you are, and if you have cycled to the start. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:23, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Jdlrobson has replied on the ticket that they intend to add such numbering at the top right and will add CSS classes so users can disable the behaviour.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

map embedded with maplink-road doesn't show fill colors even tho expanded map does

I recently embedded https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data:Navajo_Nation.map into Navajo Nation by doing this:

image_map = {{maplink-road|from=Navajo Nation.map}}

The map was successfully embedded, however, the "fill" color (eg. data.features.0.properties.fill) is being ignored. At least in the embedded version. When I click on the map in the article the expanded map shows the filled color. So why doesn't the embedded map show the "fill" color and what can I do to fix that? TerraFrost (talk) 22:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Linkclassifier seems to be forcing page refresh

I'm not sure what is going on. I've only noticed this since yesterday (Oct 18). I have installed User:Anomie/linkclassifier from long time back. The code I use is updated to place the link in the sidebar/toolbox. When I click that link on any page, it appears to force the page to reload and does not highlight any of the links as it used to. I've tried using the current instructions for loading, but with no difference. I use Vector 2022 skin and I also checked in monobook; the reload still happens there, although it looks like at least some of the links get highlighted. Any help would be appreciated. older ≠ wiser 15:29, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Bkonrad: Well, have you asked Anomie (talk · contribs) directly? Their script may be old, but Anomie is still around (as of yesterday), so should be able to offer advice. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:54, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I made some changes yesterday, but nothing that should have forced a page refresh... Ah, I had a typo. Sorry. Should be fixed now (you may need to WP:Bypass your cache). Anomie⚔ 16:27, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. All looks good now. I asked here first since my js has blend of things I picked up from others here. older ≠ wiser 23:47, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I dislike the visual changes to Mobile Wikipedia

I havent used the community pool before so Im sorry if this isnt in the right village. mobile wikipedia starting today as for some reason started auto directing me to en.m.wikipedia.org instead of the regular en.wikipedia.org. even if i directly remove the ".m" or "m.", it will just autodirect to it again. I really hate it, and find it unbearable to use and love the regular english language wikipedia much more. I dont know what is causing this problem. I havent seen anyone discussing this on either the wikipedia subreddit (where usually any updates are discussed) or on Wikipedia:News. I greatly appreciate any help with this, thank you! 92.236.211.53 (talk) 13:55, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Use the "Desktop" link at the bottom of mobile pages to request the desktop version. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:00, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick response! I already tried this and it unfortunately results in it providing the literal desktop version of the website, resulting in large amounts of negative space and awkward text placement next to images due to website trying to work for the horizontal mobile. the site worked perfectly for mobile prior. is this happening on your phone too? 92.236.211.53 (talk) 14:07, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

im typing from desktop as i also learned today that my phone's ip (this same ip) was caught up in a rangeblock to block a specific user(but is now resolved?). i thought just now that this might be whats causing this but i just made account on mobile and it still autodirects to en.m.wikipedia. i have no idea what to do 92.236.211.53 (talk) 14:28, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Device name:Pixel 6a

Model:Pixel 6a

Android version:12

I wish this information perhaps helps in finding out how to reverse this. I sent this from my mobile. 92.236.211.53 (talk) 16:48, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

The behavior you're experiencing is how it has always worked. The "workaround" Primehunter provided is working how it has always worked. There isn't a way to "fix it". The closest thing you can do is have an account, change the account's skin preference, and then use the "use desktop" link when you are logged in and end up on the mobile website. Perhaps this is sufficient for you. Izno (talk) 18:31, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I went back through screenshots I took and saw that you and Primehunter were right, it has always been "en.m.wikipedia". I think there's been an update to mobile Wikipedia's base, light colour scheme that caused the add-on I was using, darkreader to render it differently.

I do notice that the text on tables is larger, and colours are in my opinion not working well together either in the official dark mode or using my add-on on light mode.

Current, disliked Wikipedia (lightmode+darkreader) from today: https://imgur.com/a/wnNflgF

Correct Wikipedia, just darkmode with no add-ons, also today:https://imgur.com/a/4xdBsow

Previous mobile Wikipedia colour scheme (lightmode+darkreader), from 28th of April: https://imgur.com/a/up24a8G

Is there anyway to go back to how it was previously because I really do prefer how it was literally just yesterday? I'm sincerely sorry for the misunderstandings 92.236.211.53 (talk) 19:33, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

What specifically do you dislike about the "current" version? Izno (talk) 00:09, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

There is a higher contrast between the letters and the dark background, the purple that lists clicked-on links is a lighter purple so you have to strain your eyes more to discern it, the text on tables is larger than it needs to be while the text on the rest of the articles is currently still at their previous very good and readable size (shown in the imgur comparison linked above), and I dont get how that happened.

I dont know how else to describe it, but it looks like there is a white or blue filter over the articles that makes my eyes hurt. I can make another imgur comparison if that would help explain what im reffering to (just two image links this time tho). 92.236.211.53 (talk) 15:35, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

If you create an account or add ?useskin=timeless, then the desktop version is more mobile friendly a bit. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 07:29, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Ive made an account and it hasn't reverted the UI to how it previously was sorry.

?useskin=timeless is working very well thank you. It's a hassle to paste it to the URL for each new article I click on since it resets to the awful default on every new link or page loaded or when the editl is opened. Is there anyway to make it the default, since it will also be bad for when I'm reading with mobile data, having to load the site twice. Thank you very much regardless! 92.236.211.53 (talk) 20:11, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes. You can make it the default by creating an account, logging in with it, then going to your Preferences, and under "Appearance" select the Timeless skin, then Save. But that's what Izno told you five days ago. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 21:03, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. I've logged into this account and and selected timeless in appearance but despite that it's still not automatically going through! Also. I apologize to inzo, I don't think I understood what they are saying then. AssanEcho (talk) 20:37, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the very late reply, about auto directing me to en.m.wikipedia.org instead of the regular en.wikipedia.org: It might've occurred due to a recent update to chrome and other chromium browsers. After this update, browser will always try to give you the mobile view, only way avoid it is to turn on the "desktop view by default" option in the browser settings. Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 12:03, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

its perfectly fine, The main issue now is me trying to find a way to get timeless skin to be the default on mobile as it still autodefaults to the standard, large text on tables and brightercontrast that i dislike. i used firefox on my mobile device as the default and primary browser. thank you very much for the help regardless! 92.236.211.53 (talk) 17:46, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

You can make Wikipedia always give you the Desktop view via User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/unmobilePlus.js. Some skins (for example Monobook with "responsive mode" enabled) are actually more suitable for use on my phone than the official "mobile" version. —Kusma (talk) 19:40, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

This script doesn't work on chromium mobile browsers with mobile view (at leasts not anymore), just tried it. Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 09:57, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there a global way to display a logo based on Wikidata information? Should there be? Can it be made dark mode aware?

Sorry if this sounds like a strange or even stupid question, but please read to the end if it doesn't make sense, I promise you it does.

• Wikipedia added dark mode WP:DARK recently.
• I can access Wikidata via e.g. {{Infobox company| homepage = {{Official URL}}}}. This is nice and it saves time.
• There doesn't appear to be a way to access Wikidata's logo image (P154) property in an Infobox template in a similar named fashion.
  • I know {{Infobox company}} will "fall back" to P154 if it's defined
  • Other infoboxes like {{infobox hospital}} don't seem to be able to do the same thing.
  • I might be a dummy that just hasn't found that yet, but I don't think I've seen any examples in the wild like I have for {{Official URL}}
• If there is and I just haven't been able to find it, is Wikipedia's dark mode smart enough to check for the for color scheme (P8798) property?
  • The only two values are dark-on-light color scheme and light-on-dark color scheme
  • i.e. P8798 is basically designed for this already

Being able to pull something like {{logo image}} without needing each infobox to implement it directly might be useful, and having it adapt to users' dark mode preferences would be pretty cool. I'm not entirely sure if there's even a way for MediaWiki to "check" if a user is using Dark Mode and "reply" with some kind of variable that could be used here.

Reading about Wikifunctions and Abstract Wikipedia got me thinking about far simpler things that might already be common elsewhere online but not implemented here yet. Checking if a user's browser reports "preferring dark mode" is becoming more ubiquitous.

⚠ Disclaimer ⚠

I still use Vector legacy (2010) with Dark Reader because I didn't like the sidebars on the redesign

Just to make sure I wasn't being extra stupid, I tested with Vector (2022), and it looks like some pages try and account for it. For example, Apple Inc.'s logo is black, so an editor used [[File:Apple logo black.svg|frameless|upright=0.4|class=skin-invert]] in their infobox - emphasis on class=skin-invert - but that really only works with Vector (2022)'s dark mode. Dark Reader doesn't pick up on it, and I imagine that one Chromium about:flags option to force dark mode everywhere doesn't either.

Footnotes

-αβοοδ (talk) 19:35, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Middot

OK, this is something that may be an issue that needs looking into (probably not by me) or it may not be important.

When I look at the source code of, for example Talk:Interpunct, using Chrome, and try to validate it at Free Formatter it finds invalid characters such as b7 (interpunct) - despite the fact that HTML clearly says <meta charset="UTF-8">. It could of course be Chrome's fault or Windows not letting me cut and paste UTF8, but both seem unlikely. Are we putting out illegal UTF8? All the best: Rich Farmbrough 23:16, 18 October 2024 (UTC).

We're not, that validator's output is incorrect. Matma Rex talk 00:30, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

A smaller example:

<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><meta charset="UTF-8"><title>a</title>
<body>
<div>This character '·' is valid</div>
</body></HTML>

Seems correct... still errors in the formatter, even when uploaded as a file with utf-8 encoding. Definitely a tool problem. – 2804:F1...ED:5881 (talk) 20:50, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Using a tilde inside <math></math>

I have a problem rendering a tilde inside a <math></math> tag:

Unsatisfactory !

Source code	Result
<math>x</math> ~ <math>y</math>	$x$ ~ $y$
<math>x ~ y</math>	$x~y$
<math>x \tilde y</math>	$x{\tilde {y}}$
<math>x \tilde \ y</math>	$x{\tilde {\ }}y$

The result should be as in the first line, but without breaking the code into two parts. Can that be done? AstroOgier (talk) 15:32, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

LaTeX uses \sim for "squiggly lines" that aren't diacritics. Like so: $x\sim y$. jlwoodwa (talk) 15:41, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

No deletion log entry for office actions?

Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation has been blanked and office-protected. Its history is no longer visible, but I can't find any logs relating to the history's removal. How is this possible? Even oversighting generates a log entry. jlwoodwa (talk) 15:38, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Never mind, I misremembered. As explained in Wikipedia:Oversight § Logging, oversighting does generate a log entry – but in Special:Log/suppress, which normal editors cannot view. jlwoodwa (talk) 16:00, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Oversighting generates a log entry that is visible only to oversighters, everyone else sees nothing. See note 9 for item 5 of Wikipedia:Oversight#Operation on how deleting a page with a 'Suppress all edits' option makes the deletion log show at Special:Log/suppress (oversight log) instead. That's probably what they did. 2804:F1...EE:EFBD (talk) 16:00, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Missing tags for use in <math></math>

I am writing articles on astronomical subjects on Danish Wikipedia and am missing the possibility of inserting proper symbols representing degrees (°), arc minutes (′) and arc seconds (″) inside <nowiki><math></math></nowiki> (outside is no problem as you can see).

Unsatisfactory !

Source code	Result
<math>\delta</math> = <math>-</math>67° 12′ 34.07″	$\delta$ = $-$67° 12′ 34.07″
<math>\delta = -67^\circ 12' 34.07''</math>	$\delta =-67^{\circ }12'34.07''$
<math>\delta = -67</math>° <math>12</math>′ <math>34.07</math>″	$\delta =-67$° $12$′ $34.07$″

The middle one comes closest by using a single <math></math> tag, but uses ^\circ as a workaround.

It would be proper to have tags \degree, \minute and \second for this purpose. Can that be fixed somehow, where should one apply? AstroOgier (talk) 15:37, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@AstroOgier This would be raised at mw:Extension talk:Math or in a feature request at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/102/?projects=Math --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:34, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Weekly highlight

• The Mobile Apps team has released an update to the iOS app's navigation, and it is now available in the latest App store version. The team added a new Profile menu that allows for easy access to editor features like Notifications and Watchlist from the Article view, and brings the "Donate" button into a more accessible place for users who are reading an article. This is the first phase of a larger planned navigation refresh to help the iOS app transition from a primarily reader-focused app, to an app that fully supports reading and editing. The Wikimedia Foundation has added more editing features and support for on-wiki communication based on volunteer requests in recent years.

iOS Wikipedia App's profile menu and contents

Updates for editors

• Wikipedia readers can now download a browser extension to experiment with some early ideas on potential features that recommend articles for further reading, automatically summarize articles, and improve search functionality. For more details and to stay updated, check out the Web team's Content Discovery Experiments page and subscribe to their newsletter.
• Later this month, logged-out editors of these 12 wikis will start to have temporary accounts created. The list may slightly change - some wikis may be removed but none will be added. Temporary account is a new type of user account. It enhances the logged-out editors' privacy and makes it easier for community members to communicate with them. If you maintain any tools, bots, or gadgets on these 12 wikis, and your software is using data about IP addresses or is available for logged-out users, please check if it needs to be updated to work with temporary accounts. Guidance on how to update the code is available. Read more about the deployment plan across all wikis.
• View all 33 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the South Ndebele, Pannonian Rusyn, Obolo, Iban and Tai Nüa Wikipedia languages were created last week. [15][16][17][18][19]
• It is now possible to create functions on Wikifunctions using Wikidata lexemes, through the new Wikidata lexeme type launched last week. When you go to one of these functions, the user interface provides a lexeme selector that helps you pick a lexeme from Wikidata that matches the word you type. After hitting run, your selected lexeme is retrieved from Wikidata, transformed into a Wikidata lexeme type, and passed into the selected function. Read more about this in the latest Wikifunctions newsletter.

Updates for technical contributors

• Users of the Wikimedia sites can now format dates more easily in different languages with the new {{#timef:…}} parser function. For example, {{#timef:now|date|en}} will show as "28 December 2024". Previously, {{#time:…}} could be used to format dates, but this required knowledge of the order of the time and date components and their intervening punctuation. #timef (or #timefl for local time) provides access to the standard date formats that MediaWiki uses in its user interface. This may help to simplify some templates on multi-lingual wikis like Commons and Meta. [20][21]
• Commons and Meta users can now efficiently retrieve the user's language using {{USERLANGUAGE}} instead of using {{int:lang}}. [22]
• The Product and Tech Advisory Council (PTAC) now has its pilot members with representation across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America. They will work to address the Movement Strategy's Technology Council initiative of having a co-defined and more resilient technological platform. [23]

In depth

• The latest quarterly Growth newsletter is available. It includes: an upcoming Newcomer Homepage Community Updates module, new Community Configuration options, and details on new projects.
• The Wikimedia Foundation is now an official partner of the CVE program, which is an international effort to catalog publicly disclosed cybersecurity vulnerabilities. This partnership will allow the Security Team to instantly publish common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) records that are affecting MediaWiki core, extensions, and skins, along with any other code the Foundation is a steward of.
• The Community Wishlist is now testing machine translations for Wishlist content. Volunteers can now read machine-translated versions of wishes and dive into discussions even before translators arrive to translate content.

Meetings and events

• 24 October - Wiki Education Speaker Series Webinar - Open Source Tech: Building the Wiki Education Dashboard, featuring Wikimedia interns and a Web developer in the panel.
• 20–22 December 2024 - Indic Wikimedia Hackathon Bhubaneswar 2024 in Odisha, India. A hackathon for community members, including developers, designers and content editors, to build technical solutions that improve contributors' experiences.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 20:49, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

So... why is this page suddenly squeezed into the header?

Checked previous revisions and it happens there too. Also can't click reply, the script gets confused. This is not happening with any of the other village pumps, is it something from the updates above(tech news)?
In case you don't see it, for me the div with id "villagepumpfaq", which is added manually in this page, is consuming the entire page. – 2804:F1...96:C2CF (talk) 23:21, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Fixed. Izno (talk) 23:31, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah, it was vandalism... of course it was (not even the first time). I went looking up the complete wrong tree thinking it was a template change, should have read Template:FAQ more carefully (or I guess just noticed there is a 'view' and an 'edit' button). Thank you for fixing it. – 2804:F1...96:C2CF (talk) 00:02, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

How to temporarily turn off a style?

At IUCN Red List endangered species (Animalia), most of the list text is in italics using {{columns-list|style=font-style:italic; as they are scientific names, but some text should not be, "(Kootenai River subpopulation)" for example. How do I change that back to roman text without messing up the existing pattern? Thank you.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Use {{noitalic}}, like this. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:31, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe on another day I'd have figured that out, but for today I appreciate you pointing out the obvious. Thanks. SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:53, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

No problem. We're all here to help each other. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:10, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Is user_touched a thing?

According to mw:Manual:User_table#user_touched, there's a user.user_touched, but as far as I can tell, it's always NULL. What's the actual status of this field? RoySmith (talk) 22:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The manual says it's the last time the user logged in. That's private data. Fields like this are redacted from the Toolforge replicas, so they appear null. – SD0001 (talk) 22:57, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense. Is there a list somewhere of redacted fields? It would be really nice if was visible in the "Database tables" menu of Quarry :-) RoySmith (talk) 23:01, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@RoySmith Here's the code that controls what gets copied to the toolforge replicas:

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/plugins/gitiles/operations/puppet/+/9e7303f945a7f665a50d6d745f40092a370c096c/modules/role/templates/labsdb/maintain-views.yaml

So for the user table:

user:
source: user
view: >
select user_id, user_name, user_real_name, NULL as user_password, NULL as user_newpassword,
NULL as user_email, NULL as user_options, NULL as user_touched, NULL as user_token,
NULL as user_email_authenticated, NULL as user_email_token, NULL as user_email_token_expires,
user_registration, NULL as user_newpass_time, user_editcount, NULL as user_password_expires

86.23.109.101 (talk) 23:38, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

We redact user_touched but not user_real_name??? RoySmith (talk) 23:45, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

If I'm understanding mw:Manual:$wgDefaultUserOptions correctly, it's an optional field for users to configure (and one that seems to be disabled on English Wikipedia), to be displayed in place of their user name, so by design it's intended to be known openly (and could be just another alias). isaacl (talk) 01:26, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

It is not possible to set user_real_name on Wikimedia wikis, so there is no need to redact it. It is disabled as to not encourage people to disclose more information than needed. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:12, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

It used to be the last time the user logged in. I'm pretty sure that is no longer true. I think now it is last time you changed your preferences. Bawolff (talk) 15:29, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Internet Archive / Wayback Machine

The site is coming back online in parts. Services may work, stop, restart, this is expected. Each day more lights come on. See "The world’s largest internet archive is under siege — and fighting back", The Washington Post, 18 October 2024 -- GreenC 15:42, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Retiring IPCheck

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this, but is it time to retire IPCheck? I certainly applaud SQL's efforts over the years, but they're essentially inactive, the code base as been frozen for years, and newer things like the built-in IP Information tool and bullseye have come along. But we've still got IPCheck built into the interface at the bottom of IP contributions pages. RoySmith (talk) 17:39, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

It can be discussed at Template talk:Anontools. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:07, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Why so many edits in January and February 2024?

Wikistats says enwiki averages about 5 million edits/month, but we had 8.5 million in January and 9.4 million in February 2024 before going back down to the usual monthly average. Anybody know where those extra 10 million edits came from? A bot, I assume? Levivich (talk) 04:47, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

My guess is Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Cewbot 12/Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Qwerfjkl (bot) 26. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 05:07, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah ha, revising the wikiproject banners on six million article talk pages. Thanks! Levivich (talk) 05:51, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

unexpected blank line output in modul/template code.

BTW this is from sinhala wiki project and noone capable of technical help in there hence im here.

In this template "si:සැකිල්ල:Country with of" when you give {{Country with of|LK}}, it finds LK from si:Module:Country/data and get country name translation "ශ්‍රී ලංකාව" and inside si:Module:Country it goes through si:Template:ConvertToAe to get "ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ" (which means "of sri lanka").

But;
When used in template si:සැකිල්ල:Asia topic Test;

• Note: i added a custom suffix for now to make the error clear
  

As {{#if:{{{LK|♦}}}|[[{{{LK|{{{1|{{{prefix|}}}}}}{{Country with of|LK|of=yes|article={{{article|yes}}}}}{{{2|{{{suffix|Gems}}}}}}}}}|{{ඉංග්‍රීසි පදය සිංහලට|Sri Lanka}}]]}}

The output is;
[[ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ
Gems|ශ්‍රී ලංකාව]]

With the second half going to next line. Just before the suffix. So its something wrong with either සැකිල්ල:Country with of, Module:Country/data, Module:Country or maybe Template:ConvertToAe.

Can anyone help in this matter? VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 11:55, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@VihirLak007 Template:ConvertToAe has a new line between the end of the template code and the <noinclude> before the doccumentation. The <noinclude> needs to be on the same line as the end of the template, or a new line gets added to the template output. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 12:47, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Wow!!! Thank you so much for your time. Really grateful. VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 12:50, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Fixing Lua errors

List of members of the International Ice Hockey Federation has multiple Lua (programming language) errors: "too many expensive function calls." Could anyone fix it, or know where else to seek a resolution? These errors are beyond my knowledge. Thanks. Flibirigit (talk) 11:13, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The culprit is probably {{IIHFteams}}, which is called many times and has a ton of #if and #ifexist calls in it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:48, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

If you "Show preview", at the top you will see a message saying "It should have less than 500 calls, there are now 604 calls." These seem to come mostly from the {{IIHF}} templates. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:01, 23 October 2024 (UTC).

It does look as if some of these are redundant, so this might not be a hard fix. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:04, 23 October 2024 (UTC).

I have no clue how to fix it. I did not create the problem, I just saw that it exists. Are you able to he a hero and repair it? Flibirigit (talk) 14:06, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm working on a fix and will come back. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:27, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The code of {{IIHFteams}} had two ifexist tests for each linked article but only one of the tests were executed in each call so this could not be used to reduce the expensive parser function count. Instead I fixed it by skipping the tests for a list of countries which currently have all the tested articles.[24] If an article is later deleted then we just get a red link where there was unlinked text before, no biggie. List of members of the International Ice Hockey Federation now uses 435 of the 500 allowed expensive parser functions. Each country which isn't on the list uses six calls so there is currently room for ten more countries. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:02, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, @PrimeHunter:. I would never had figured that out. Flibirigit (talk) 15:29, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Help in modifying a module and a template.

BTW this is for Sinhala wiki project.
In English both situations "Sri Lanka" and "economy of Sri Lanka" has the country name without difference. But in Sinhala language we don't have a "of" separately. So its like "ශ්‍රී ලංකාව" and "ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ Economy".

In this navbox template සැකිල්ල:Asia topic Test,
when its used on another page as "{{Asia topic Test|Economy}}, it will lead every link to "country name + economy" as intended. But when its just "{{Asia topic Test}}", the countries links to its "of version", like "ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ(of Sri Lanka) and not "ශ්‍රී ලංකාව(Sri Lanka)".

Is there a way to modify the module or template so when a prefix or a suffix isn't assigned through the navbox template, the country links stay same (eg:ශ්‍රී ලංකාව) and not in its "of version" (eg:ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ)

Below are modules and template connected:

• සැකිල්ල:Asia topic Test - navbox temlpate
• si:සැකිල්ල:Country with of - template invoking module:country
• si:Module:Country/data - has the local word for every country code (LK = ශ්‍රී ලංකාව)
• si:Module:Country - get local word from "Country/data" and send through "ConvertToAe" if of=yes
• si:Template:ConvertToAe - convert ශ්‍රී ලංකාව to ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ

Need this help since it links to half of potential pages for sinhala wikipedia. VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 17:06, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

for now im using "{{#if|}}" for a output which do work as i want. if theres an easy way to do it through the module or the template itself, please suggest VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 18:12, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Bug with some anchors on mobile?

On an Android phone, Chrome browser I get odd behaviour following some anchor links. Eg MOS:OPEN doesn't take me to the right part of the page, it is about three screens too far below. Another example is the "Skip to current candidates" button at c:COM:FPC usually takes me the halfway down the third candidate. I would report this on Phabricator but I am not sure if it is a known issue with MediaWiki or perhaps my browser's fault. Commander Keane (talk) 01:55, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Try this mobile site link if you are trying to reproduce the COM:FPC button issue. Commander Keane (talk) 01:59, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

It's a problem which can happen when pages have collapsible content. Maybe your browser first takes you to the right position on the MOS:OPEN page but then the "Manual of Style (MoS)" box at the start collapses some parts. This shortens the page above your position so the content scrolls up while your browser remains the same length from the start. In my desktop browsers I can click the address bar and press enter after the page has loaded fully and done it's collapsing. Then the browser takes me to the right position without reloading the page and causing the same problem again. I don't know whether Android can do this. And in my normal browser Firefox on Windows 10 I rarely have the issue at all. I guess it either waits until the collapsing is done, or it automatically readjusts the position after the collapsing. I don't know whether our code could do more to avoid such issues but I assume there is already a Phabricator request about it. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:53, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Talk page dates, readability

Tlak page dates under monobook are not great contrat. Unfortunately under dark mode they are for me unreadable. Is this a widely seen (or unseen) issue? Is there a fix for one, other orp both of these issues, either at a system or user level? ext-discussiontools-init-timestamplink seems to be the applicable class.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 13:36, 23 October 2024 (UTC).

As you said monobook, I'm assuming you are using our gadget for dark mode, correct? If so, that can be locally customized, drop a request over at Wikipedia talk:Dark mode (gadget). Besides volunteers, User:Volker E. (WMF) may still work on requests there. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:41, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

For that class having bad contrast outside of that gadget running in monobook, I'm not seeing a bug open on that, please open one using this form. Including some screenshots may be helpful! — xaosflux ^Talk 13:47, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 11:51, 24 October 2024 (UTC).

Please help checking potential new article matches with Wikidata items by playing a game

Hi all. Would you have a bit of time to play a Wikidata game to match new Wikipedia articles against Wikidata items?

Pi bot automatically matches new biography articles with Wikidata where it can, and creates new items where there are no potential matches. The middle ground is more tricky, though, so it loads them into a game for checking by humans and waits for those to be checked before creating new items (to minimize duplicate items). A bit of a backlog has built up, though, and there are ~12,000 potential matches in the game. So if you have a bit of time, please do have a go! Matches will be directly saved as Wikidata edits by your account (using oauth). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:07, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

At it! Myrealnamm's Alternate Account (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Harv errors are so much fun...

The Sally Hemings article has 3 Harv errors. 3 referenced works with {{harvnb}} templates are throwing these errors. I know part of the issue is that all 3 cited works were erroneously placed in a "Further reading" section but since there is already a named "References" section that particular name can't be used for these harv cites. So. Someone please show me how to fix this here. Please don't fix it in the article yourself - explain it to me here and I'll go do it and then I'll be able to fix this issue myself the next time I come across it. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 17:17, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

@Shearonink: Change "Primary Sources" to "Sources", and move the three errant works into "Sources". I would have "Sources" as a Level 2 header (two equals signs before and after) instead of a Level 3 (three equals signs). DuncanHill (talk) 17:20, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Thankyou thankyou thankyou. I just couldn't figure out how to fix it. Yay for the Pump and DuncanHill! - Shearonink (talk) 17:30, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

My pleasure. DuncanHill (talk) 17:46, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Need help : Wikipedia:Content translation tool

Resolved

 – Reported states issue is solved. Possibly was a off-by-one issue with group adding. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:48, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I have exceeded the 500 contribution mark but I cannot activate the French to English translator of the articles. Is there a special procedure to follow? Kind regards Monsieur Patillo (talk) 23:24, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

You do need to turn it on in your preferences. If you have try again, if it fails let us know exactly what you are seeing. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:31, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Good evening. It seems to work, thank you! Kind regards. Monsieur Patillo (talk) 23:55, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Workaround for Safari bug with small caps?

• H<span style="font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;">ELLO</span>. renders as HELLO.
• H<span class="smallcaps" style="font-variant-caps: all-small-caps;">ELLO</span>. renders as HELLO.

In the second version, which is used in {{LORD}} (which renders as LORD), Safari 17.6 on MacOS creates extraneous whitespace after the end of the word. The first version is fine. Is there a good reason not to switch to the first one in templates like {{LORD}} and {{Kangxi radical}}? —Kusma (talk) 14:12, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

In particular, is there any browser where the first version breaks? —Kusma (talk) 05:52, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm viewing this on the Firefox app and I get the same results – first is good, second has extra whitespace. jlwoodwa (talk) 19:05, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I have implemented this in {{LORD}}; @Remsense, do you think something similar can be done for Module:Kangxi radical? —Kusma (talk) 14:47, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping! I'll look into implementing this ASAP. Remsense ‥ 论 23:26, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

 Done Remsense ‥ 论 06:43, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Looks great, thanks! —Kusma (talk) 09:07, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Template_talk:Yes#Converting_to_templatestyles

You guys are invited to join at Template_talk:Yes#Converting_to_templatestyles to weigh in your opinion. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {u - t? - _uselessc} 10:47, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Blank image

Anyone else see this as a blank image[25]? If I expand it I see the image, but the preview is blank. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:38, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

• Yes, all the previews/thumbnails are blank for me, in both Firefox and Edge. Black Kite (talk) 14:41, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Any idea how long this has been happening? It could be related to phab:T265549, but that was back in June. Interestingly, the only version where the thumbnail works is a version that was reverted due to "rendering bugs". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:35, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there like a 1 MB limit? The only version that's visible is smaller than that. 1.28 MB is huge for an SVG, though a lot of it seems to be whitespace, embedded fonts, and repeated styles. Nardog (talk) 17:43, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nardog I fixed it. I believe the problem was there was an empty ViewBox attribute, which apparently browsers know to ignore by librsvg was getting hung up on. I also removed the embedded fonts since they appeared to be generating errors in the browser, but I believe that's an unrelated issue. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:58, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Oddly your first revision works for me, but not the second. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:06, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bypass your cache. Nardog (talk) 10:20, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah should have thought of that first, it's working correctly. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:10, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

'Wikidata item' link is moving, finally.

Hello everyone, I previously wrote on the 27th September to advise that the Wikidata item sitelink will change places in the sidebar menu, moving from the General section into the In Other Projects section. The scheduled rollout date of 04.10.2024 was delayed due to a necessary request for Mobile/MinervaNeue skin. I am happy to inform that the global rollout can now proceed and will occur later today, 22.10.2024 at 15:00 UTC-2. Please let us know if you notice any problems or bugs after this change. There should be no need for null-edits or purging cache for the changes to occur. Kind regards, -Danny Benjafield (WMDE) 11:29, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm disappointed with this regression. I suppose many Wikipedians frequently use the "Wikidata item" hyperlink, which has been on the right side near the top for a long while. I was disappointed to see that has been moved, almost hidden away, closer to the bottom of the side bar. Now I have to scroll to see if there is an associated Wikidata item to an article. This is an essential tool for multilingual editing of Wikipedia. Is it possible to get it back near the top? Why has ut been moved?

A related question: The "contributions" button is super-useful, but has also been hidden away in a sub-menu at the top of the page for a long time now. I miss it. However, the "user" page sits there big and shining, easy to click. I almost never visit my user page, but the contributions page however is super-useful for editors to be able to continue our work on refining articles, which I guess is why most of us are here. My hypothesis is that these two changes have made Wikipedia less productive. Is there any thought that goes into the placement of these buttons? Surely, looking at some usage metrics before moving buttons would be helpful to make the user interface more useful? Sauer202 (talk) 08:35, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

If we take "many editors" to mean "a large plurality or majority of active editors", then it has to be made clear that a supermajority of editors have never used Wikidata for anything. If any available data shows otherwise, I will apologize deeply. Your hypothesis seems untenable, since user space is more efficiently allocated for most editors: I'm more particular, but use of space is not value neutral: prominence has a cost even if it's not pushing anything else off the page. Remsense ‥ 论 09:10, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I use Wikidata all the time, and I think putting the link in "other projects" is the most logical and is still easily accessible — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:37, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Likewise. Remsense ‥ 论 09:38, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Without Wikidata readily accessible the amount of new articles will decrease. Why do we want to make it more cumbersome for article creators on Wikipedia? When the majoriity of readers never use the sidebar anyway, why do we care about them? The article contents is what is most important on the project. The link is not easily accessible when I have to scroll to the bottom of the sidebar to see if the Wikidata item EVEN EXISTS. All the other buttons I never use. Do we have any usage metric at all for the individual buttons? Why was this button "finally" moved? Finally according to who? Sauer202 (talk) 15:11, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

So place is at a premium.. While many of the other buttons are useful, none are near as useful as "Wikidata item"

• Who downloads QR codes to Wikipedia when we can use URL links?
• Who "Downloads as PDF"? Even so, this functionality is already integrated in all browsers, both on mobile and PC?
• Why do we have "Printable version" of a page in 2024 (soon 2025), do many people print Wikipedia articles on paper nowadays? (did someone even do that at any time? The print may be outdated once it's out of the printer!)
• Why do we have an own button to edit interlanguage links when that is one of the many features already covered by Wikidata? It is also accessible under the "Languages" bar and icon at the top, which would be the first logical place to look for anyone.
• What the heck is "Related changes"? I could not deciper anything meaningful from it (not saying it is not useful, but I hold it is less so than "Wikidata item").
• How often is "Cite this page" used? Could better be hidden in a sub-menu, if you ask me. It appears to just be different types of citation formats used academically, but how often do academics cite Wikipedia anyway?

It might be random why we have the buttons we have, and at the place they are, but the impression I get assuming they were placed deliberately is that the person(s) who decided it have a printer at home, they are not very good with computers, and they most certainly do not actively edit Wikipedia multilingually. Sauer202 (talk) 16:23, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

So you may be right about some of those other links. But the Wikidata link has not been removed, and it is now in a more consistent location, so that is a good move. Please be aware that your usage will match other people's. I use Related changes all the time, so don't touch it :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:34, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

How to block part of page from Wikipedia search engine

Please see: Template:Table help. It is a box list of table help pages at the top of the 9 main table help pages:

• Help:Table.

It has a search form ("Search all") to search those 9 pages, and other help pages with "table" in the title.

But I don't want the search results to show all the table help page titles (which it does). Because that causes there to be no room for the actual search results from elsewhere on the page. It almost makes the "Search all" form useless. Here it is below. Try it to see what I mean.

Template:Navbox. Are navboxes blocked from search results? If so, how? Is it classes like these?: hlist or list, etc.. I don't see anything in Help:Searching about any of this. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:35, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: I'm not sure what you mean. The page name will always be shown and linked in search results. A part of the page content is also shown for me. Example search on rowspan: [26] Is your concern that some of the results only show the context of "table" in the page content and not "rowspan"? You could avoid that with intitle:/table/i:

Search on rowspan: [27]. I don't think you can prevent it from bolding "table" in the page name.

I wasn't aware of issues with navboxes but you are right that something is going on. For example "solinas" finds no templates but insource:"solinas" finds three navboxes, and all of them have "solinas" in the rendered content. It also fails for group names in navboxes. "By integer sequence" finds nothing. insource:"By integer sequence" finds {{Prime number classes}}. I wondered whether it's deliberate since navbox hits in articles would rarely be helpful for a searcher (especially on mobile where the navbox isn't shown), but then I tried a mainspace search and 19 articles with {{Prime number classes}} show up on "By integer sequence". However, there are also many articles which don't show up, e.g. Quartan prime. I noticed a possible pattern: If the navbox is expanded by default then it does not show up, the opposite of what I would have guessed if there was a connection. I tested it on a navbox which is collapsed on its template page and {{Davis Cup}} does indeed show up on "World Groups play-offs". This is weird. Maybe somebody tried to hide navboxes in general but accidentally made code which only hides expanded navboxes. If they are hidden deliberately then it would be nice if template space was excluded from the hiding. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:55, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

PrimeHunter. Thanks! It looks like this works:

<inputbox>
id=style-searchbox
width=18
break=no
type=fulltext
searchbuttonlabel=Search all
searchfilter=intitle:/table/i
namespaces=Help
</inputbox>

I added it to Template:Table help. I did a search for a common word ("sandbox") and the results are much better.

I wish there was a way to limit the results to stuff found in the pages listed in the template. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:14, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: It's annoying that MediaWiki's search doesn't have linkedfrom: (phab:T253642). hastemplate:"Table help" will only search pages which transclude {{Table help}}. Then you don't need intitle. You could also make a new template for the purpose and add it to exactly the wanted pages. It doesn't have to display anything but its template page should explain the purpose. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:12, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter The issue with navboxes could be due to Phab:T73562? In https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/CirrusSearch/+/164404 They marked elements with .autocollapse selectors as excluded from search indexing, but content marked as autocollapsed can either be expanded or collapsed dependent upon how many items are on the page. The articles that show up in the "by interger sequence" search use |state=collapsed in their template calls, so they use .collapsed instead, which for some reason is not excluded from indexing.

@Timeshifter Alternately you could make sure all the pages you want to search are in Category:Wikipedia tables, then use the incategory: search parameter. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 13:43, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Thanks again. Combining the 2 works perfectly! I added it to the template. Search for "sandbox". Compare options and results:

• User:Timeshifter/Sandbox276

hastemplate:"Table help"
intitle:/table/i

<inputbox>
id=style-searchbox
width=18
break=no
type=fulltext
searchbuttonlabel=Search all
searchfilter=hastemplate:"Table help" intitle:/table/i
namespaces=Help
</inputbox>

This prevents getting results from minor table help found in help pages not dedicated to tables. That minor table help is not as good, or as vetted. See:

• Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Table help

--Timeshifter (talk) 22:05, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Contribs not working

The Special:Contributions page is not showing any contributions. Who am I? / Talk to me! / What have I done? 12:25, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Browser: Duckduckgo Who am I? / Talk to me! / What have I done? 12:25, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Just to be clear, Special:Contributions/Anonymous1261 isn't showing any contributions? There were some server issues not long ago, so maybe give it another go now? — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 12:31, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Still not working Who am I? / Talk to me! / What have I done? 12:32, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Try this link - also check in filters/ "Search for contributions" - you may have turned on a filter that is excluding all results. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:39, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

There were some server issues earlier today, might have impacted this. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 14:09, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Something's definitely changed in contributions (WP:THURSDAY). The <li> tag for each entry no longer has any classes, it used to have several, including mw-contributions-current if the edit concerned is the most recent for the page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:26, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

The issue you describe is phab:T378132. Izno (talk) 22:35, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Mapframe seems to be glitching out with raw GeoJSON data

I created raw GeoJSON data for the mapframe in the article Lithodes aotearoa, and it doesn't seem to be cooperating. I see no logical or semantic issue with the map data itself, and I think the way I've used the 'maplink' template in the article is correct. I've been looking at the map data for 'Bristol West (UK Parliament constituency)' for comparison, and despite being structured exactly as mine is, it demonstrably works as intended (even if I transclude it within my own maplink template). I'm extremely confused; for the life of me, I can't figure out any difference here. It seems like I should be drawing a 4-sided polygon off the coast of North Island, but instead it just points to Null Island during the preview and then to Ceará, Brazil once the page is live. It doesn't even draw the polygon on the mapframe. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 00:55, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Through testing I found out it's your second values (178...) that aren't correct. If I am reading the GeoJSON standard correctly[28], then the problem is that that second value is limited to a value between or equal to -90 and 90 degrees and you used a value higher than 90.

Now if I use my brain for a second: You just swapped your latitude and longitude values around. That's the issue. – 2804:F1...DE:554A (talk) 01:43, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

I have swapped the values in your data(diff), it seems to be where you wanted it now if I try using it in the page (in preview). – 2804:F1...DE:554A (talk) 01:55, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

@2804:F14:80F1:A901:999E:CEEF:24DE:554A: Oooooh, that makes so much sense. Hugely appreciated! TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 02:25, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Seeking proper forum to start RfC to resolve dispute re most appropriate graph/chart format

I'm seeking the most proper forum for starting an RfC to resolve an ongoing dispute between charts of a more broadly accepted format (example: ) and charts of a relatively less experienced editor (example: ). The newer user is in good faith peppering various articles with what I think are unencyclopedically simplistic charts, sometimes bordering on cherry-picking, even replacing comprehensive charts with their simplistic charts. I can't seem to find the appropriate "Wikipedia:Wikiproject ___". Can an experienced editor please point me toward the most appropriate page to start an RfC? Thanks in advance. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:02, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
(Note that I'm referring to SVG etc. charts generated outside Wikipedia; I am not talking about the ~inflexible charts/graphs that Wikipedia generates internally.) —RCraig09 (talk) 18:02, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, if you've already tried to resolve it directly I'd just skip the RFC and go straight to ANI, if your two examples are representative of the issue. Izno (talk) 20:01, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Has a discussion occurred somewhere? Article talk or user talk? That needs to happen before ANI. Johnuniq (talk) 00:06, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Some discussion has occurred, for example here and here. I think User:Superb Owl is editing in good faith, and that ANI is probably premature. However, I think Superb Owl is enthusiastically favoring a personal graphical preference over Wikipedia standards and consensus. I'm still looking for a place to find a consensus that conclusively convinces Superb Owl how Wikipedia operates. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:15, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

User:RCraig09 has not convinced me that his preferred chart format is in any way due to a Wikipedia guideline (which I have asked about here and here) but just personal preference. He complained about maintaining his chart the last time I requested an update and so I took it on myself to replace it with an updated version after the September data release and remove the redundancies with another chart on the same articles that already covers Fiscal years 2020-2023. Also both the links shared by RCraig point to the same discussion, just fyi. Superb Owl (talk) 17:44, 24 October 2024 (UTC) Fixing link to second Talk Page discussion. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:56, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

It is not about Wikipedia guidelines; it's about editor consensus arrived at in many discussions over years. It is not my "personal preference"; yours is your personal preference, which as we discussed is different from most Google images and Wikimedia charts. The linked edit comment is not my "complaint". And the substituted chart is not only simplistic, but (short-term) cherry-picked. In the absence of advice from seasoned editors here, within a day or two I will simply find a reasonable place to initiate what looks like must be a formal RfC. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:05, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@RCraig09, have you read through Wikipedia:Dispute resolution? There are options like third opinion, dispute resolution noticeboard and Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Commander Keane (talk) 03:19, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to @Commander Keane: Your point is well taken, but this is such a graphics-specific issue and possibly topic-specific (immigration) that a targeted RfC is probably best. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:50, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@RCraig09: I think the new charts extension is coming soon, see mw:Extension:Chart/Project/Updates which could change the game. Wikipedia:Graphs_and_charts#Accuracy is the closest thing to a guideline I could find and on its talk page there is an 11 year old RfC, maybe you could start there? I don't know if it is topic specific, if someone cherry picked (accidentally or otherwise) File:Chunnel_traffic.svg freight stats from 1994 to 2006 it would indicate a massive growth trend which is misleading. Also if you updated the Chunnel graph with up-to-date data data for just passengers and simplified the graph by removing the other 3 lines it would be bad. Commander Keane (talk) 05:16, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to all contributors. In the absence of a suitable "Wikipedia:Wikiproject ___", I've just opened a formal RfC at Talk:Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States#Request_for_comment_on_chart_content_and_form. OK to archive.

Resolved

—RCraig09 (talk) 03:20, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikidata interlanguage links not automatically updating after page moves

With two page moves, which I performed in the past two hours or so (Office of the Council of State (Thailand) to Office of the Council of State and 2024 Thai school bus fire to 2024 Thailand school bus fire), the Wikidata items have not been automatically updated. Not sure where the cause of the issue lies? --Paul_012 (talk) 08:52, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Redlinks that are actually two (or more) links

In my recent quest to fix certain punctuation spacing errors throughout the project, I have coincidentally stumbled upon an inordinate number of situations where a link will occur along the lines of: "Bob speaks English, Spanish, and French"; or "Bob received degrees from Princeton University and the University of Texas". Now, obviously, we are not going to have an article on the combined topics of either redlink, but I am wondering if it is possible to generate a list of redlinks that are in fact combinations of what would be two (or more) blue links. BD2412 T 20:16, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Media Viewer can't be disabled - gear is gone

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T378400

The gear symbol that you click on to disable Media Viewer has disappeared from all the pages I tested. Is that intentional and if so where do I file a complaint? Media Viewer forces me to go through dozens of clicks in order to get to what I need every time I go to an image page and is a colossal headache as I do this daily. Logging in to save the setting isn't an option for my situation for various reasons (i.e. for daily use of image pages separate from logging in to post this message) and even if it was it shouldn't be required

Please note that the Wikipedia help pages still tell you to use the gear as they always have. Auenwald (talk) 22:47, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

@Auenwald: There's a direct setting at Preferences → Appearance, it's "Enable Media Viewer". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:22, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Read my message again. I said logging in isn't an option. Auenwald (talk) 23:25, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Left side of table at Seaborgium is cut off on vertical mobile view

From Seaborgium (permanent link)

In vertical mobile view in Safari on iOS, I discovered a side table in the article Seaborgium that is cut off on the left-hand side, making the leftmost column impossible to read. This table is built using the {{Isotopes summary}} template system. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 01:14, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Should be fixed. Izno (talk) 01:31, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

How do I get rid of something I don't care about?

In my notifications, I got one telling me that a page I visited has data connected to Wikidata, where some relevant stuff can help or whatever. I do not care one single bit about that stuff. How do I stop these notifications and how can I delete a notification that I marked as read? Is Wikipedia tracking me? Nearly but not perfect (talk) 00:58, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo Izno (talk) 01:32, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Bug in "birth date and age" template?

The Walton Empey article has this template in the infobox:

{{birth date and age|df=yes|1934|10|26}}

which renders as "26 October 1934 (age 89)" for me here in Ireland where it's 27 October 2024. But his age should be shown as 90, not 89, unless I'm missing something. (Am wondering if it's due to the clocks changing (here in Europe at least)).--A bit iffy (talk)` A bit iffy (talk) 12:38, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

@A bit iffy: Template calculations are cached to improve performance. I have purged the page to force the calculation to be done from scratch, and it is now displaying "age 90". -- John of Reading (talk) 12:43, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. A bit iffy (talk) 13:16, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Mexican peso N$ in Template:Dollar sign

The article on Mexican peso uses the symbol $ or Mex$ in the lede. The template output for Mexican peso is N$ which I haven't encountered before. Is this something to be rectified or there's some rationale for N$? Dora the Axe-plorer (explore) 11:48, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Looks like, when they introduced the nuevo peso in 1993, they used "N$" as the symbol to differentiate it from the old peso that had used "$". But it also seems they may have dropped the N in 1996 or so once they got rid of all the old pesos. Special:Diff/307360806 that changed the template's output from Mex$ to N$ has no edit summary to indicate why it was changed, the user hasn't edited since 2010, and I don't see any contemporary discussion about it. Anomie⚔ 13:46, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Check the notablity of this article and after approval then delete the speedy delete template

Hello dear Wikipedians. This article (Najmeddin Shariati) was created once before in an unprincipled manner and without citing reliable references. For this reason, it was deleted under the title of not notablity and fame with the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. But this time I created it with basic editing and citing more than 20 reliable references from official Iranian news agencies (Because this person is Iranian) that independently covered the news of this person. Please review this article and its references and after approval, delete the speedy deletion template. This person's article is available in Persian Wikipedia, and its notablity and  fame was confirmed by the administrators and editors of Persian Wikipedia according to the reliable sources mentioned in it. If you think this is a stub article. Add the stub template to it and let it stay. The final decision is yours. very thanks 4ipid (talk) 19:51, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

@4ipid, I do not see how any of that is part of a technical question or concern. Please feel free to request assistance at WP:VPM or elsewhere, perhaps WP:Peer review. Izno (talk) 21:55, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

What happened to the display of diffs in the article history?

In the Article History, "Compare selected revisions" brings up the Diff page. It used to be in two columns (as shown at Help:Diff#how it looks). Now for me in the last few days it has started showing just one column with the changes shown only by color. I don't like this, how can I change it back? I didn't change any preferences or anything. I fooled around with my preferences but nothing helped.

Help. Herostratus (talk) 00:49, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like you turned on the "Inline" toggle above the diff. Nardog (talk) 02:16, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Server lag

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T378320

All day long my bots have been complaining

Login failed (3) : Server has reported lag above the configured max_lag value of 5 value after 5 attempt(s). Last reported lag was - Waiting for 10.64.32.13: 33996.650783 seconds lagged

Any idea what is going on? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:23, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I reported the same problem earlier Special:Diff/1253816940/1253822334, then deleted it because the problem resolved, and now its back. It appears to be Enwiki specific with lag times of 6+ hours (normal should be 0-10 seconds). It looks like a DDOS or misconfig or something. The immediate solution is to simply remove &maxlag from your API requests. -- GreenC 04:39, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

This is also causing my bot which updates the case table at WP:SPI to go down starting around 18:40 Oct 27: CRITICAL: Exiting due to uncaught exception MaxlagTimeoutError: Maximum retries attempted due to maxlag without success. Is there a phab ticket for this yet? Mz7 (talk) 05:42, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Should be better now that I removed a broken replica from the calculations. Taavi (talk!) 06:08, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@Taavi: Nice, looks good! [29] Waiting for 10.64.16.89: 0.378559 seconds lagged. Was just about to open a phab ticket when I noticed things were working now. :D Thanks so much! Mz7 (talk) 06:15, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

importer identification

Monkbot has been accused of making this edit at de:Reichman University. Monkbot does not, cannot, make interwiki edits. In that diff, the edit attribution is 'en>Monkbot'. That form of edit attribution indicates, as I understand it, that the edit was an import from en.wiki of text last edited by Monkbot. Since Monkbot did not do the import, is there a way to determine who or what did the import?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:22, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Special:Log shows the import log entry. Anomie⚔ 13:49, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:59, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

"View logs for this page" at top of page histories includes the import log. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:28, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Conditions for WP:MOVEOVERREDIRECT

Hi friends, do we know if there are any additional conditions to allow a WP:MOVEOVERREDIRECT, beyond the stated "single line in the page history"? In the last 24 hours I've tried to move three articles: two from draftspace to mainspace, and one within mainspace. All moves were to usurp redirects that only had one single line in their respective page history, however they all resulted in an error.

The functionality seems pretty inconsistent, wondering if there is any rhyme or reason RachelTensions (talk) 17:17, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@RachelTensions: You probably need the Wikipedia:Page mover user right. Per WP:Page mover#delete-redirect, if that page is a single revision redirect with a different target, the delete-redirect right may be used to eliminate the need for round-robin page moves by allowing page movers to delete the redirect, regardless of the redirect's target. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:06, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah ok that makes sense, single line in the page history and the redirect must already be pointing to the article attempting to be moved. Re-reading WP:MOVEOVERREDIRECT I must've overlooked that. Thank you! RachelTensions (talk) 18:13, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It states there is a redirect to the old title with a single line in the page history. Was that the case for the moves you attempted, or were the redirects you were trying to overwrite pointing elsewhere? Anomie⚔ 18:11, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

This template must be substituted.

Hello! When looking at Template:Single-purpose account, the page doesn't actually show what the template looks like, it just shows: This template must be substituted.

I looked at other templates that should be substituted and they show up as you'd expect them to. Even the (very similar) Template:AfD new user.

I assume there must be a way around that so we can show what the template outputs on the Template: page while still producing the warning elsewhere. Polygnotus (talk) 14:10, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

@Polygnotus  Fixed here. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:09, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Changing the name and title of article

Hello dear Wikipedians, I request the users who have access to change the name and title of the article to change the title of the article Najmeddin Shariati (TV presenter) to Najmeddin Shariati. Because there is no other person with this name and there is no existing article with this name. thanks 4ipid (talk) 09:29, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

 Done - You can make such requests at Wikipedia:Requested moves. William Avery (talk) 09:39, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Note: this page was deleted as "Duplication of draftspace submission by editor with a paid COI". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:11, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Template parameters question

Sorry if this has no value, but I've recently (yesterday?) discovered that things like {{AIV|=p}} transclude into (which is just {{p}}). Upon some investigation I've found that it appears to be that a |= parameter replaces all {{{|safesubst:}}} instances in the template being transcluded with the provided parameter (that's why it expanded as the emoji template).
Why does this happen? Is this documented anywhere/does it have an use? I've had trouble searching. – 2804:F1...F0:9FE8 (talk) 19:47, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

{{{x|y}}} means "the value of parameter x, otherwise 'y'". Therefore {{{|safesubst:}}} means "the value of the parameter with a blank name, otherwise 'safesubst:', and |=p is setting the value of the parameter with the blank name to "p". This is why you should use safesubst<noinclude />: instead to break up the substitution. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:55, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I guess the noinclude thing is mentioned at Help:Substitution#Recursive substitution? Thank you for the detailed response. – 2804:F1...F0:9FE8 (talk) 20:32, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-44

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

• Later in November, the Charts extension will be deployed to the test wikis in order to help identify and fix any issue. A security review is underway to then enable deployment to pilot wikis for broader testing. You can read the October project update and see the latest documentation and examples on Beta Wikipedia.
• View all 32 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, Pediapress.com, an external service that creates books from Wikipedia, can now use Wikimedia Maps to include existing pre-rendered infobox map images in their printed books on Wikipedia. [30]

Updates for technical contributors

• Wikis can use the Guided Tour extension to help newcomers understand how to edit. The Guided Tours extension now works with dark mode. Guided Tour maintainers can check their tours to see that nothing looks odd. They can also set emitTransitionOnStep to true to fix an old bug. They can use the new flag allowAutomaticBack to avoid back-buttons they don't want. [31]
• Administrators in the Wikimedia projects who use the Nuke Extension will notice that mass deletions done with this tool have the "Nuke" tag. This change will make reviewing and analyzing deletions performed with the tool easier. [32]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 20:53, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Change user name to camelCaps?

My username Thisisnotatest is pronounced incorrectly by screen readers. Is there any way for me to change it to ThisIsNotATest, capitalizing each word "This Is Not A Test" so it will be pronounced correctly? Thisisnotatest (talk) 07:29, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:CHU. You can request whatever name doesn't already exist, which you can check at Special:CentralAuth. I might suggest spaces, which I suspect will be more likely to be pronounced correctly.... Izno (talk) 07:35, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I say what the admin says, read Changing Username. Should give info on changing your username. The Master of Hedgehogs ^{(converse) (hedgehogs)} 16:02, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Many screen readers, including the two most common ones for Windows, JAWS and NVDA pronounce each capitalised word in a CamelCase phrase separately. Screen reader users get used to all sorts of things being mispronounced; I don't think a single username on a website is that high a priority (I'd give it practically a 0 out of 10, honestly). Graham87 (talk) 02:48, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Not notified of reversion on Wikimedia Commons

I have my global settings to give me a web notification on edit reversions, as well as to show notifications cross-wiki. Indeed, I received a notification for a reversion on Wikipedia on October 1, 2024. However, an edit of mine on Wikimedia Commons was reverted on October 25, and I did not receive a notification. Would this be a bug I need to report on Phabricator or have notifications stopped being sent since October 21, my last notification? The number of notifications are the same on both platforms, which implies that particular cross-wiki setting is working. Thisisnotatest (talk) 08:15, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Was it [33]? Is it listed at commons:Special:Notifications? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:20, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

It was, and I see the notification is there, but I wasn't getting cross-wiki notifications and I rarely go to the commons site so I missed it. After some investigation, it appears to be related to my surfing Wikipedia with JavaScript off. But I also get some email notifications and that didn't happen. Thisisnotatest (talk) 06:52, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@Thisisnotatest: If you disable JavaScript then many things will not work as intended. Is there an Email checkmark for "Edit revert" at commons:Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo? If so then what does the top say under "Send me:"? PrimeHunter (talk) 10:39, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Yes, there is a checkmark. And the Send me reads A daily summary of notifications. Thisisnotatest (talk) 06:53, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Gadget/js to force me to ping

I want a gadget or custom js that forces me to ping at least one person everytime I reply to a message.

This is because I reply on help desks and patrol newcomer comments a lot and I feel they really need a notification from me as they are new. But I keep forgetting.

In its simplest form the script would check for the "@" symbol anywhere in my reply and if missing prompt me to add one. Of course the option to dismiss would be great. More complicated forms could use regex to check for at least one userpage link.

I would need it for en.wiki, commons and meta. Let me know if it's possible. I am mainly on a mobile device, using mobile and desktop interfaces interchangeably, if that makes a difference. Commander Keane (talk) 11:11, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Request to Move Draft for AfC Review

Hello, I'd like assistance moving my draft from my user sandbox (User:Abuibrahim100/sandbox) to Draft:Admas Pee for AfC review. My account isn’t autoconfirmed yet, so I’m unable to move it myself. Thank you for your help!

Abuibrahim100 (talk) 19:25, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

@Abuibrahim100 Your sandbox is already is the queue for review. There's no need to move it to Draft:Admas Pee yourself -- the reviewer will do that for you if necessary. That being said, your draft cannot be approved in its current state because it needs citations to significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article. All the sources cited are either to companies writing about themselves (which is not independent) or to Wikipedia articles (which are not considered reliable sources since anyone can edit them). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:08, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Recent changes on mobile

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T378142

On mobile - Starting a few days ago, When I go to “recent changes” on my watchlist tab and click on an article, I no longer get sent to a page with the changes highlighted Instead, I just see the current version (without changes highlighted) and must take the additional step of clicking the history button to see the changes highlighted. Is this intentional, or has something glitched? Blueboar (talk) 16:42, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh I thought that was just me (Sony mobile using most recent chrome on Android) Red Fiona (talk) 17:17, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I’m on an iPhone… so it’s something that has changed at the WP side of things… not our devices. Blueboar (talk) 18:03, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I think I see what happened here. If you can report this on Phab I can point the relevant people to it. 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 20:55, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I can not report it on Phab, because I have no clue what Phab is. Sorry. Blueboar (talk) 11:53, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

@Blueboar: Phab, or phab:, is Phabricator, which is where all MediaWiki bug reports and feature requests are filed. A ticket has already been raised (by Danbloch at 21:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)) - it's phab:T378142, as shown at the top right of this section. It's public, so is available to read without logging in there, but Phab doesn't accept anon editing so you need to log in to Phab if you want to comment. Fortunately, this is easy: there's a "Log in" button at the top of the page, and also a "log in to comment" button after the last post; your login and password are the same as for Wikipedia. If you do comment, you're added as a subscriber, and you get an email every time somebody else comments or updates the status. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:07, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Not only on "Recent changes", but also on the mobile version of "Watchlist". And this also happens at the mobile "Watchlist" of Wikivoyage. --FredTC (talk) 10:28, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

So… is this going to be fixed? Or is it an intentional change in the way our watchlist works? Blueboar (talk) 12:51, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

It has been fixed already, it will be deployed here this week. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:05, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I can't speak for anyone else but it's working for me now. Thank you. Red Fiona (talk) 01:18, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

For me it is also back to normal. FredTC (talk) 01:22, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Script to highlight new users

Is there a script to specifically highlight new user (non-EC)? I know there are ones for highlighting by usergroup, but I'm looking just to highlight new users. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

mw-reverted tag is slowly showing

Hello everyone,

I'm noticing that the reverted tag is showing up slowly. When an edit is reverted, the edit has the "reverted" tag. However, I'm noticing that today it takes some time for it to show up. For example, I reverted two of an IP's edits, but the reverted tag is still not showing up. It will after a couple of minutes. Does anyone know why this is happening? Myrealnamm (💬pros · 📜cons) 22:23, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

(I think this is a MediaWiki issue. I have to go.) Myrealnamm (💬pros · 📜cons) 22:26, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@Myrealnamm: A delay is normal. See mw:Manual:Reverts#Reverted tag. I don't know whether the delay is currently longer than usual but a couple of minutes doesn't sound bad. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:51, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter It's been 30 minutes since Special:Diff/1254153601 and the "reverted" tag is still not showing. Where should I take this? Myrealnamm's Alternate Account (talk) 17:58, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Just want to report I am having the same exact issue; I cannot see the reverted tag anywhere, and it's pretty annoying... win8x (talking | spying) 20:51, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

@Win8x It will come up in ~45 minutes from the time of the revert. Perhaps the “job queue” for this tag is getting “backlogged”, if that’s how it works? Myrealnamm (💬pros · 📜cons) 20:55, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Wow. Yeah. For someone who likes to revert vandalism in Recent Changes this isn't quite useful 😅 win8x (talking | spying) 20:58, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Well as soon as I complain about it, it looks fine again. Nice! win8x (talking | spying) 21:20, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

The issue was https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T378385, fwiw. KHarlan (WMF) (talk) 16:00, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I use this CSS rule to make the "Reverted" tag stand out a bit:

/* mark edits tagged as reverted */
span.mw-tag-marker-mw-reverted {
  text-decoration: wavy red underline;
}

If you want to try it out, it goes in your CSS. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:19, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

How's that going to help when the tag itself isn't showing up quickly enough? Nardog (talk) 00:01, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I find that it helps me to notice them when they *do* show up. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:03, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with the OP then. Nardog (talk) 00:21, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not forcing you to use it, nor am I saying anything along the lines of "your problem is that you have not done this". I offered the CSS rule not as a solution but as a potential visual aid for those who might find it useful - clearly the OP (see below) was interested enough to try it. Others may have done too, I don't know. But you're the only one who complained. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:59, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

@Redrose64 I'm trying it, it's not working, am I doing something wrong? User:Myrealnamm/common.css Myrealnamm (💬pros · 📜cons) 00:06, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

@Myrealnamm You have a typo in your css file. It should be span not spam. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 00:16, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Myrealnamm (💬pros · 📜cons) 00:17, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Well spam is usually reverted 😅. – 2804:F1...88:7F3B (talk) 01:04, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

"⚠️(insecure)" when installing AutoEd

I was trying to install AutoEd, specifically this preset using Enterprisey's script installer, however, it says "⚠️(insecure)" right beside the install button. Should I still install it? — ‎‎‎hhypeboyh 💬 • ✏️ 22:43, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

That script imports many additional scripts, including at least one personal user script of a retired user who would no longer maintains said personal script. I wouldn't use it for that reason, but I don't immediately see any thing malicious in it. The primary maintainer is listed as @Plastikspork:. (Perhaps Plastikspork can work on deprecating that load-in from retired user User:Jerome_Frank_Disciple). — xaosflux ^Talk 22:52, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

The specific technical reason script-installer is declaring the script insecure is that it can be edited by admins rather than interface admins as a result of being in the project namespace rather than the MediaWiki namespace. And I, back when I was still an admin, was the one responsible for adding someone's personal script to the mix - the script in question is so trivial it hardly needs "maintenance" so that's not really an issue. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:21, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

The general risk is that that account could be compromised, and with the account being unused this could be unnoticed, and then used to insert malicious code which would be executed by others who imported the prior codes. Just like with any imported script, you need to trust everyone who may modify the script. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:01, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Might be trivial, but some maintenance might be in order if it can do this:

[[:File:IL CONSOLE USA IN VISITA ALL’UNIVERSITÀ DI PAVIA (28250236188).jpg]] → [[:File:IL CONSOLE USA IN VISITA ALL'UNIVERSITÀ DI PAVIA (28250236188).jpg]]

File:IL CONSOLE USA IN VISITA ALL’UNIVERSITÀ DI PAVIA (28250236188).jpg → File:IL CONSOLE USA IN VISITA ALL'UNIVERSITÀ DI PAVIA (28250236188).jpg

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:15, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I started a new version in Wikipedia:AutoEd/curlyfixer.js and will work on making it not change curlies inside of file links. Thanks for the suggestion! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk)

Are articles moved from userspace to mainspace not indexed?

So, recently I created FoodPharmer in my userspace and later moved to the mainspace. I keep noticing that search engines (Google, Bing) do not show this if you search "FoodPharmer Wikipedia" or "Revant Himatsingka Wikipedia". But the DYK page on him created 4 days after moving the page and his picture uploaded 8 days after (yesterday) shows up in the search results. This makes me wonder, is the article not showing up because it was initially in userspace (not-indexed)? —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:35, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@CX Zoom Newly created articles are not indexed in search engines for 90 days, or until they have been patrolled. See Wikipedia:Controlling search engine indexing#Indexing of articles ("mainspace") 86.23.109.101 (talk) 16:43, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah, makes sense now. Thank you very much! —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:57, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Adding article input to Template:Welcome cookie

Hello all,

When using Twinkle to welcome new users, I am unable to add an article input to the Welcome Cookie Template like I can for some of the other welcome templates (e.g., "I noticed your contributions to Article")- it would be great if I could do this so I don't have to leave a separate message. Let me know if I am making any sense.

Thank you!

JuxtaposedJacob (talk) | :) | he/him | 06:50, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That template is protected, however you may discuss improvements to it and propose edit request on its talk page here: Template talk:Welcome cookie. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:14, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Notices not working

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T378261

So when I click on Notices a little popup show up and tells my notifications. According to it I have 7 new notifications.

But if I press on it says I have no notifications. If I click on all notices it shows an error message: 7ab4ef4a-e38b-462a-ab56-edfdc2d62732] 2024-10-27 04:43:21: Fatal exception of type "InvalidArgumentException"

I am not sure what is going on, does anyone have any idea's? User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 04:55, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I've also noticed that the hexadecimal changes every time I reload the page, although I don't know if that means anything. Procyon117 (talk) 14:32, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

This has been fixed, but the fix may take some days to arrive here. – Ammarpad (talk) 16:20, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

it is working for me now. Thank you to whoever fixed it!!! User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 06:49, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

It worked once, now it is not showing them on the popup window.

They do show up when I click All notifications. User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 06:55, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Weird. I have this problem, but they don't work when I click "all notifications". (If you reply to this, ping me - I still get those, for some reason.) -- asilvering (talk) 16:44, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Same now for me too. Procyon117 (talk) 16:46, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Same problem for me the notifications icon shows I have alerts, but when I click on it I get the error message: [2b363018-cbbb-45da-8f73-056cf4cbd0de] 2024-10-31 12:53:02: Fatal exception of type "InvalidArgumentException". and the icon greys out. A temporary work around is to go to Commons and click on your notifications from other wikis. Then they can be read, but only on Commons once, then they disappear from Commons. Mysterious! Netherzone (talk) 12:56, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I've found that I can read them if they get over 30 notifs or so. So now I'm banking a truly stupid number of notifications so that I can at least tell what discussions the most recent ones are for. -- asilvering (talk) 14:43, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Don't let it get too high. If the counter reaches 99 and more notifs come in, the icon doesn't show 100, 101 etc. but 99+ and the only way to find out how many you really have is to delete some until it drops to 99 or lower. Unread notifs get automatically deleted after a while, I think that it's about 16 months. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:24, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Mine are working for now. Hope that they will start working for you guys too! User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 20:17, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Wokrking now BombCraft8 ^{(talk) (contributions)} 23:26, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Working now for me too. Procyon117 (talk) 02:47, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

same happens with me but 4 notices BombCraft8 ^{(talk) (contributions)} 15:01, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Problem with my alerts bell

Hello, when I click on my alerts bell at the top, it says "There are no notifications", even thought I can see there are. When I then click on "all notifications", I get the following: "[5aff3dcb-50f3-4b16-9566-60ba693bfa63] 2024-10-27 21:50:42: Fatal exception of type "InvalidArgumentException". Any help would be appreciated. Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 21:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Sounds just like my problem, just the other notification system.

I have been unable to test that one since I have no new Alerts. It does show my previous Alerts.

Hope that the fix gets released soon @Ammarpad.

User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 03:53, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there a technical page to report this?

I'm experiencing it as well. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 17:33, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Overlapping IP range blocks?

How do overlapping range blocks work? For example, with these two:

51.191.128.0/17 blocked (block-evasion) on 2024-10-31T14:55:40Z by JBW until 2025-02-21T19:11:00Z. anononly: False, account creation blocked: False
51.191.0.0/16 blocked (block-evasion) on 2023-11-27T22:25:01Z by JBW until 2025-01-21T19:11:00Z. anononly: False, account creation blocked: False

An edit from 51.191.128.1 would (if I've done the math right) be in both ranges. In this particular case, both blocks have the same effect, but what if one was a hard block and the other a soft block? Which would apply? RoySmith (talk) 03:14, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

The union of the blocks applies - you have to be able to edit through both blocks in order for the edit to be allowed. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:22, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Edit filter graph links broken

Hey all. This was raised at Wikipedia:Edit_filter_noticeboard#graph_links_broken, but it appears the edit filter graphs, seen at [34], are not currently working and display an internal error. Would anyone happen to have an idea what happened to it? One idea that was raised over at EFN was that the log table may have been messed up by protected variables being introduced, but I'm not sure if that's the case or it's something else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EggRoll97 (talk • contribs) 03:26, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@EggRoll97: I'm about to get on a flight, but a quick look at the tool's error logs shows:

Filters: 'raise errorclass(errno, errval): ProgrammingError: (1146, u"Table \'enwiki_p.abuse_filter_log\' doesn\'t exist")'

And a check of the replicas does indeed confirm enwiki_p.abuse_filter_log does not exist. Courtesy ping to the tool's maintainer Danilo.mac — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 04:15, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The abuse_filter_log table was deliberately removed from the wiki replicas in gerrit:1077360, pointing to two Phabricator tasks I don't have access to. It's likely to remain broken unless Danilo.mac puts in an amount of effort that's basically rewriting the tool from scratch. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:30, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Hmm oddly enough, the graphs for dewiki still work: https://ptwikis.toolforge.org/Filters:dewiki XXBlackburnXx (talk) 17:44, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

An update, dewiki no longer works either. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 04:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I can not do anything while the abuse_filter_log tables are inaccessible. They were removed from replicas databases because some data in those tables are restricted, se T375751. Danilo.mac (talk) 19:49, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:HD § Red Links are All blue now

 You are invited to join the discussion at WP:HD § Red Links are All blue now. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:10, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps someone who hangs out at VPT could take a look at this HD discussion. The OP seems to be experiencing the same issue described here, but it's not clear whether the problem is on the OP's side or Wikipedia's side. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:12, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Script for parameter change

is there a script to change parameter mane on every wiki article in a wiki project (si.wikipedia.org). The change i want to do is; replace "deadurl" or "dead-url" with "url-status" on all wiki articles using the cite web template. Or can someone fix the module so it happen automatically? si:Module:Citation/CS1 VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 05:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@VihirLak007 I would recommend running WP:AWB or WP:JWB.

For JWB, once you have it up and running, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ahecht/Scripts/Replace_dead-url.json&action=raw&ctype=application/json and save it as a .json file on your computer. In JWB, on the Setup tab, click "Import" and choose the file you saved. In the "Load" drop-down, choose "Replace dead-url". Then click on the Generate button, make sure Wiki Search is checked with insource:/dead\-?url *= */ in the search box, and hit the Generate button. When it's done, click outside the Generate box to close it. Then go to the "Edit" tab and click "Start" to start going through all the pages.

Once you're done, you can go to this page to see the remaining pages that need to be manually fixed. You may need to wait a few minutes first as there can be some lag between when you edit pages and when the search results catch up. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:11, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Ahecht Thanks! All went well. VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 19:00, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Searching for pages by category and talk page content

Does anyone know how you would search for all of the pages in a certain category whose associated talk page contains a certain string in its source? So, for instance, what search would return all of the pages in Category:Princesses in Greek mythology which contain "WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome" in their talk page's source? – Michael Aurel (talk) 07:18, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Can be done in PetScan. Put that category name in "Categories", then go to "Templates&links" tab, put that template name there with " Use talk pages instead" checked. – SD0001 (talk) 08:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:35, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

It would be great to have this feature in MediaWiki itself. I created phab:T378868 to track it. – SD0001 (talk) 04:42, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I have notifications but it shows that there are no notifications

Occasionally when I check my notifications, the popup that appears will display "There are no notifications." even when at least one notification is present. Here is a picture:

I'm using the latest version of Safari. I encounter this problem randomly whenever I check notifications. ‹hamster717🐉› ^{(discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠)} 03:33, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

This issue has been fixed. See #Notices not working. Please check again. – Ammarpad (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 11:56, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

It happened again ‹hamster717🐉› ^{(discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠)} 03:32, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

It's a new issue (but same error message). A fix would be deployed next week. – Ammarpad (talk) 19:56, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-45

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

• Stewards can now make global account blocks cause global autoblocks. This will assist stewards in preventing abuse from users who have been globally blocked. This includes preventing globally blocked temporary accounts from exiting their session or switching browsers to make subsequent edits for 24 hours. Previously, temporary accounts could exit their current session or switch browsers to continue editing. This is an anti-abuse tool improvement for the Temporary Accounts project. You can read more about the progress on key features for temporary accounts. [35]
• Wikis that have the CampaignEvents extension enabled can now use the Collaboration List feature. This list provides a new, easy way for contributors to learn about WikiProjects on their wikis. Thanks to the Campaign team for this work that is part of the 2024/25 annual plan. If you are interested in bringing the CampaignEvents extension to your wiki, you can follow these steps or you can reach out to User:Udehb-WMF for help.
• The text color for red links will be slightly changed later this week to improve their contrast in light mode. [36]
• View all 32 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, on multilingual wikis, users can now hide translations from the WhatLinksHere special page.

Updates for technical contributors

• XML data dumps have been temporarily paused whilst a bug is investigated. [37]

In depth

• Temporary Accounts have been deployed to six wikis; thanks to the Trust and Safety Product team for this work, you can read about the deployment plans. Beginning next week, Temporary Accounts will also be enabled on seven other projects. If you are active on these wikis and need help migrating your tools, please reach out to User:Udehb-WMF for assistance.
• The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New languages supported in translatewiki or in MediaWiki; New keyboard input methods for some languages; details about recent and upcoming meetings, and more.

Meetings and events

• MediaWiki Users and Developers Conference Fall 2024 is happening in Vienna, Austria and online from 4 to 6 November 2024. The conference will feature discussions around the usage of MediaWiki software by and within companies in different industries and will inspire and onboard new users.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 20:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Persistent snackbar

I'm on Firefox 131.0.3 on Android 14. I have User:SD0001/find-archived-section enabled in my gadgets (and also mw:Extension:DiscussionTools in my Beta features, which has no effect on mobile).

As of recently (probably last Thursday), the snackbar popup I get from an archived / missing section link has stopped unpopping-up until I navigate away from the page.

Can anyone replicate / report to phab? Folly Mox (talk) 11:59, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

For clarity, my other snackbars (e.g. "Redirected from Wikipedia:vpt") pop away normally. It's just the archived section one that persists. Folly Mox (talk) 13:03, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

@Folly Mox: User:SD0001/find-archived-section makes a message starting with "Looks like the discussion". Your screenshot is from a newer MediaWiki feature which starts with "This topic". The box goes away when I tap it outside the link in iOS on an iPhone, e.g. at User talk:Citation bot#Bot does nothing. Are you saying the tap doesn't work for you, or did you expect the box to disappear by itself? I don't have an Android device for testing. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:53, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

That popup is generated by DiscussionTools, not the gadget. You can dismiss a popup on Minerva by tapping it (around a link if it includes one). Nardog (talk) 00:26, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

You can also accidentally dismiss it by clicking the space between the lines of a multi-line link, which I've managed to do multiple times :c. – 2804:F1...9E:DCD8 (talk) 00:35, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That's the DiscussionTools notification. It's supposed to stick around until you interact with it. Could you confirm whether it's dismissed if you directly tap on it? (If it is, it's working as-intended. If not, that's a bug we should fix.) DLynch (WMF) (talk) 02:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay everyone; yesterday was exhausting. After constructing a test case, I can confirm that the snackbar disappears properly when tapped. I feel like the persistence is new behaviour(?) but understand why such a message would be intentionally left around until interacted with.

Perhaps removing the snackbar once e.g. the editing interface is opened might make more sense: it does look like a bug in the screenshots I posted (to me, anyway).

And apologies for throwing the find-archived-section gadget under the bus: I wasn't previously aware that Mediawiki had incorporated the same functionality until reviewing the documentation for my OP above.

I guess I was also wrong about DiscussionTools having no effect in Minerva: I don't see the "people in conversation" or "subscribe to thread", but upon reflection I suppose the linkable timestamps that point straight to a comment supplanting the prior requirement of diff hunting must be part of the extension as well. Folly Mox (talk) 12:58, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Mobile editing and the reply tool don't reload the page when editing and then the popup remains. I don't know whether something could be done to make it disappear automatically on those actions. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

mw:Help:SourceEditor is pretty uninformative on this point, but maybe one of the devs who frequent this venue knows which hook triggers the opening of the edit interface and can add a snackbar disappear function there? Folly Mox (talk) 17:49, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The reply tool check in the background for the arrival of new comments. In this part it may be possible to dismiss the snackbar. 176.4.242.5 (talk) 19:26, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Or at least hide it until it can be dismissed at cancelling or submission and the reload that is connected with either. 176.4.242.5 (talk) 19:30, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

"Thank" link missing

Recently the "Thank" link is missing from page histories and diffs. Safari 18.1.--AntientNestor (talk) 14:10, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

It works for me in Firefox. You have to be logged in. Are you sure your login is working when they are missing? Please post an example link. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:27, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter:You're right—working in Firefox, which would be a workaround. Still missing from Safari, though.--AntientNestor (talk) 15:53, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

It is present for me in Version 18.0.1 (19619.1.26.111.11, 19619) and in iOS's Safari 18.1 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:01, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible to find out a list of articles and redirects for Climate change in .... ?

Hi all

I'd like to spend a significant amount of time writing and working with experts on creating Climate change in NAME OF COUNTRY / STATE etc articles. First I would like to understand which do and don't exist. I tried making a simple list of all the countries to see redlinks however it seems that one or more users created a significant number of redirects so this doesn't work. I've been using List of sovereign states to create a list, but I'm sure there are other options like islands, states within countries etc. Is it possible to do a query or is there another way to find:

1. A list of existing articles for Climate Change in ...
2. A list of redirects for Climate change in ...
3. A way to have a live list of missing Climate change in NAME OF COUNTRY articles since simple redlinks don't work because of the redirects that have been created (I guess I could make a table of redlinks with comments on which are redirects as a basic version)

Many thanks

John Cummings (talk) 11:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

You may be interested in User:BrandonXLF/GreenRedirects. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:37, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

PrimeHunter thanks so much :) you always know the right answer! I can create a manual to update page from this now I think, if you or anyone else has any ideas about creating an automated page please let em know. Thanks again. John Cummings (talk) 12:57, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter, @John Cummings You can also use the CSS code at the bottom of User:Ahecht/Scripts/RedirectID to add a icon next to redirects (similar to the icon next to external links). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:10, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi Ahecht can I check something, does this redirect icon only appear for users who have installed this or does it appear for all users? John Cummings (talk) 23:33, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

@John Cummings For both my CSS and BrandonXLF's CSS users would have to have it installed. You could use WP:TemplateStyles to apply User:Ahecht/Scripts/Redirect_icon.css or User:BrandonXLF/GreenRedirects.css to a page for everyone, even logged out editors, but using it to style an entire mainspace page seems contrary to the usage guidelines. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:17, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Redirects are in italics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:AllPages?from=Climate+change+in&to=&namespace=0. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

{{Is redirect}} can test for redirects in wikitext. 500 calls are allowed in a page with no other expensive parser functions. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:22, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

PrimeHunter thanks again, super helpful. One final question, do you know if there is a template I could use to tell if a page includes a specific word or phrase? I would love a way to tell if articles for countries mention climate change. I know this is probably a very niche use case but I'm wondering if there is template that might do this for another reason. John Cummings (talk) 19:31, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

It's a search modifier, not a template, but WP:INSOURCE is close to what you're asking for. jlwoodwa (talk) 02:09, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion to improve search bar results

Would it be possible to have redirects show up at the same level of importance as they would if the article was at that title? This is a little weird to explain but basically from my level of understanding search bar results are currently sorted roughly by how likely a user is to need that article. For example when you type Apollo in looking for the Apollo missions the first relevant result is Apollo 11, then 13, then others. This makes a lot of sense to me but I want to know if it's possible to include redirects into this.

Right now redirects only show up in the search bar below all the possible exact match results until fully typed exactly. For example if you start typing "New York Times" into the search bar it puts a bunch of court cases involving the NYT before the newspaper right up until you type the final S, at which point the newspaper goes to the top like it should have been. This is not intuitive for readers and if "New York Times" showed up at the level of importance that "The New York Times" did, it would be better for navigation. Another example is the Edvard Munch painting The Scream. It's really iconic and notable but a reader could very easily forget the "the" and just type "scream", at which point they would have to remember exactly "Scream (painting)" before they get the one they want because there are a bunch of other less important articles that do start with exactly "scream". This is terrible for navigation, obviously. But if "Scream (painting)" showed up in the search results where it would if the article was called that, that would fix the issue.

I have no idea how this would be implemented or even if it's possible. Please let me know if this is even a feasible idea. Ladtrack (talk) 19:04, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Redirects vary greatly in relevance. Science Times also redirects to The New York Times but isn't mentioned there. The redirect currently has seven views in the last 30 days.[38] I don't think it should inherit the importance of the newspaper and rank high when you start typing "science". PrimeHunter (talk) 21:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

there are in principle two kinds of redirecting, the orthographic and the semantic one. The semantic redirect has one extraneous property. It can point to a part of the article, that is some semantically dependent section. An orthographic redirect is about different writing of the lemma,so it will never point to only a part of the article. So both kinds of redirects can be differentiated by the presence or absence of the "#" separator in the target. And if you need to set a semantic redirect to a whole article, then add the separator without a section name. 2A02:3035:B07:530:180:786A:E014:DDFD (talk) 13:12, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I fear that weighting all redirects equally to the main article title would do more harm than good. Many popular articles have lots of redirects, and in particular redirects that start with different letters than the main title. If there are ten really popular articles with redirects starting xyz... then they could dominate the completion suggestions. If you typed bro into the search box, you might be disappointed to see the top suggestions being Youtube, Barack Obama, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, France, Brooklyn, Autism, HTTP cookie, Malcolm X, and Brooklyn Dodgers. (The relevant redirects are: Broadcast yourself, Brock Obama, Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, Bronx Bombers, Bro-C'hall, —, Broad Autism Phenotype, Browser cookie, Brother Malcolm, and —).

The common factor in your two examples are that they start with The. I think "ignoring common completion prefixes" might be a better approach. (It was #4 on our list of most promising tasks for working with an outside consultant in 2018.) Obvious ways to attempt this would be to ignore stop words (the, a, an, of, etc.), though we don't have stop word lists for all the languages we'd want to support, and it wouldn't catch wiki-specific common title prefixes like List of. Automatically finding candidates is possible, but I'd be afraid of blindly trusting them since, for example, Maria might be a very common prefix, since it is a very common name cross-culturally. You could also compare titles to existing redirects (The New York Times vs New York Times) for common ignorable prefixes, though there may not be enough data on smaller wikis. Implementation details require more thought, like preventing the "prefix" from being the whole title (The The) or everything up to a paren (To Be or Not to Be (book))—how do you know when to stop in those cases? What happens when a prefix-stripped title matches another title (The Dog vs Dog)? Do you require prefixes to be whole words (then you miss naj- in Polish, but you don't want to strip The off the front of Theater or Theodore)? If you automatically find el, la and los in Spanish, how do you make sure you get las? If you have à, le, la, and les, in French, should you add au and aux, and if so, how do you know? What do we do in Chinese or Japanese? Etc., etc., etc. Language is always complicated.

So, this is something that is on the Search Team's radar, but not currently near the top of our priority list. (Unfortunately we have a lot of infrastructure and query service work that needs our attention.) TJones (WMF) (talk) 19:50, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thanks so much for the detailed reply. That's a great issue that I hadn't considered. Ignoring common prefixes isn't perfect (there are examples like Facebook, Inc. → Meta Platforms or Marquis de Lafayette → Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette that I think also need to be fixed) but given I have no idea how to solve the problem you've pointed out I would settle for ignoring prefixes.

I do think there are some feasible ways around the other issues, though. The obvious question would be, does the change have to roll out for every language at once? Starting with one and then adding more seems a lot easier. That way a lot of the rules can be placed manually; I'll go through possible solutions to each of these issues, and while I'm sure some of them won't work and there will be many more issues, this seems like a surmountable challenge to me.

Okay, one at a time:

• Manually include wiki-specific prefixes like List of
• Manually exclude anything that will obviously cause problems like Maria
• Like you said, specifically rely on existing redirects and don't remove prefixes unless it matches an existing redirect (The (band) for this example, the book has no redirects and could be excluded). Remember, while this isn't perfect and a lot of redirects will be missing, any improvement is good for navigation.
• Even though the title is stripped internally for navigation purposes, display the actual article title in the dropdown menu so people can differentiate; this is already done for redirects, so someone typing dog could easily see The Dog and realize it's not what they're looking for.
• Do not strip off whole words in the English Wikipedia, in Polish Wikipedia naj- can be marked to be stripped off from the word itself without it affecting anything in other languages
• For cases like las, au, and aux, again ensure that it must be matched with an existing redirect. I don't know nearly enough about Chinese or Japanese to even venture at a solution, but I'm sure one could be found, and while that is being worked on it could be implemented in other language Wikipedias.

Ladtrack (talk) 05:48, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone else have this possible bug?

When editing on mobile, I've noticed what I think is a bug, but I haven't posted to Phabricator, because I'm not entirely sure, so I wanted to hear others input. When I edit on my phone (which is a OnePlus phone runnning on Android, if that matters) in the browser Google (don't have the app, did not test with it and only tested Google), whether in visual or source editing I can't highlight a word or phrase that has the red wavy line underneath. If I try, the screen freezes and I get booted from Google. When I reenter, it's as though I never tried to edit in the first place. Doesn't occur on my computer editing with Google however.

Does anyone else have this bug? Its not like I can't just edit on computer, but I wanted to bring this to someone's attention, so it can be fixed in the future.Thank you in advance for replies. 90.133.232.139 (talk) 21:36, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

All redlinks showing up as blue in Vector 2022 and Minerva when using older browsers

Hi! Recently, all redlinks (such as this one) have started showing up as blue. This only seems to happen when using the Vector 2022 or Minerva skins on Firefox 77/Chrome 87 and below (haven't checked other browsers), and doesn't affect the original Vector.

Redlink color

	Vector	Vector 2022	Minerva
Firefox 78	Red	Red	Red
Firefox 77	Red	Blue	Blue
Chrome 88	Red	Red	Red
Chrome 87	Red	Blue	Blue

I saw the thread linked from a previous section on this page, but this issue appears to be different from T315347 which seems to have been a 2020 issue affecting mobile users, while the current problem just started happening recently and affects the desktop site. 2A00:807:E7:D39B:AD41:2CD8:279A:980F (talk) 11:11, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Red links have the CSS class new and get their color from loading a CSS rule from outside the page itself. CSS in Vector 2022:

@media screen {
  a:where(.new:not([role="button"])):visited {
    color: var(--color-destructive--visited,#9f5555);
  }
}

It's simpler in Vector legacy (sometimes just called Vector):

@media screen {
  a.new:visited {
    color: #a55858;
  }
}

If you know how to add a CSS rule to the viewed page in your browser, can you say whether one or both works? PrimeHunter (talk) 11:45, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

You may have to add !important to the color line to override existing rules:

@media screen {
  a:where(.new:not([role="button"])):visited {
    color: var(--color-destructive--visited,#9f5555) !important;
  }
}

@media screen {
  a.new:visited {
    color: #a55858 !important;
  }
}

PrimeHunter (talk) 11:54, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

The Firefox 77/78 and Chrome 87/88 dividing points line up with the introduction of the :where() CSS selector, which Vector 2022 and Minerva both use. Anomie⚔ 13:17, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

The question is, why is the user running those browser versions? Windows 7 (which is EOL) and up should be able to run Chrome 109 and Firefox 115. What OS are you using? Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 13:41, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm actually using Firefox 66 on Estobuntu 14.04 (which I know is really outdated, but I'm currently working on figuring out how to install a newer OS). I used this site to check what browser versions the issue happened on. I'll just use the original Vector skin as a workaround until I can install a newer browser. 2A00:807:E5:D017:AD41:2CD8:279A:980F (talk) 00:50, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

If you have to run the old browsers for some reason then you can create an account and save the last CSS version in your CSS to automatically load it on all English Wikipedia pages when you are logged in. Or save it in meta:Special:MyPage/global.css to load in all Wikipedia languages and Wikimedia wikis when you are logged in. Your account automatically works at all of them and keeps you logged in. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:40, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Which means the rule will not work for browsers from before that time.

MediaWiki does support some pretty old browsers, but skins are neither core nor does the level of support provided by core for old browsers require more than "you can read the page" for some value of "reasonable". See also mw:Compatibility. Izno (talk) 15:45, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

AfD Statistics for User down today

Voting matrix Stats for users not updating today. Thanks in advance for any info on this. — Maile (talk) 21:09, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Never mind. It seems to be working OK now. — Maile (talk) 00:53, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Being logout again

This happened awhile ago, cleared up, and has now started happening again. Anyone know what's going on? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:26, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

This sounds like phab:T372702 (though I don't think anyone else reported it clearing up for a bit); the latest update there (from about two weeks ago) is that the devs are having a hard time telling what the cause is, but added some additional logging to help track down the issue. 129.170.197.163 (talk) 02:24, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks I'll keep an eye on the phab ticket. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:30, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Script to add unrefernced tag

Is there any script to run through WP:AWB or WP:JWB to add the unreferenced tag to articles that has no references? VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 20:17, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Anyone? VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 06:19, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Doing this is prone to false positives (since not all references are inline and/or correctly formatted, and there’s a number of special cases), and therefore should be done cautiously instead of blindly running through them. There have been bots that have flagged these in the past but they have had community-wide approval.  novov talk edits 12:54, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Oh right. Yeah its better to go through each article in this matter. VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 12:59, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Graphs of categories

Is there a way to create a graph that shows how many pages are in a category (y-axis) over time (x-axis)? It would be particularly useful for error tracking categories. Failing that, a text-based way to monitor category population changes. -- GreenC 02:40, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, there's User:MusikBot/CategoryCounter — Qwerfjkltalk 13:30, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

"Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues" .. oh forgot about that. Maybe no graph option. Unless it was like an ascii bar graph:

Jan: ------|-------
Feb: ---|--
Mar: -------|----
Apr: -----|----
May: --|-
Jun: ----|---
Jul: --|-------------
Aug: ------------|---
Sep: ---|---
Oct: ---------|-
Nov: ------|--

▅▆▂▃▂▂▂▅▂▂▅▇▂▂▂▃▆▆▆▅▃▂▂▂▁▂▂▆▁▃

Source-- GreenC 14:15, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

User:MusikBot/CategoryCounter might work in 1-3 months. The team behind Mw:Extension:Chart is pushing for an deployment soon, see phab:T372081. Template:Articles lacking sources chart/data has to move to the Data namespace on Wikimedia commons, and you also need a new page, again in the data namespace on commons, that decides how the graph looks. Snævar (talk) 14:54, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. -- GreenC 15:37, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

There's also User:SDZeroBot/Category counter which I just finished setting up. Raw counts only, no graphs for now. (I noticed that the MusikBot task, apart from being disabled, stores the counts on-wiki which seems like an unsuitable place for large-scale storage, and it also requires an admin to enable new categories for counting.) – SD0001 (talk) 18:10, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

User:SD0001 this works for my purposes. Thank you! You could also store the data on Commons, in JSON, and it would be available to Lua templates on all 300+ wikis, which might make graphic presentation possible. The only limit is JSON file size so it probably would require a new file every year, with monthly and yearly totals included in the JSON for scaled views. Example JSON. Example module that reads it (here). -- GreenC 06:45, 9 November 2024 (UTC)