Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bugs and feature requests should be made at Bugzilla (How to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported to securitywikimedia.org. Newcomers to the technical village pump are encouraged to read these guidelines prior to posting here. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk.
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An RfC on the Arbitration Committee and how to deal with good-editing sockpuppets. RfC on the conflict of interest guideline, as requested by the Arbitration Committee. RfC on adding a more prominent link to Special:MyContributions for IP editors RfC about allowing watchlisting of user contributions Binding community discussion on the Abortion article titles, as requested by the Arbitration Committee. RfC on the proposed cessation of selective delete (other than history merge fixes) and resulting changes to deletion policies, including the removal of a Revision Deletion criterion. Note: inactive discussions, closed or not, should be archived.
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Asian font for a punctuation character?

I asked this at the Help desk and was recommended to ask here: At Ellipsis – in Japanese and Chinese, the 3-dot leaders “…” (U+2026) appear on the baseline when the text displays in a Western font. In Asian typesetting it should be vertically centered, and in fact the same codepoint in Japanese (& some Chinese) fonts displays properly centered (like 3 midpoints ···). Is there a template or something with a CSS rule to force display of an East Asian font? I know Unicode obviates most font assignments for world scripts, but in this case it makes a difference visually. I considered substituting the midline ellipsis math operator (⋯ U+22EF) but that would be misleading about the correct character to use. So I thought I should ask for opinions. MJ (t • c) 19:27, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

You might try template {{lang}}. It won't force a font, but might trigger your browser to pick the right one. — Edokter (talk) — 22:06, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Edokter – {{lang}} sounds like exactly what I wanted. But then I went to edit the section in Ellipsis and found it already used there. I tried changing {lang|ja} to {lang|hani}, but it made no difference. I guess that’s because the ellipsis is in General Punctuation, not an Asian block of Unicode. MJ (t • c) 02:24, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

In my environment (Japnese Windowx XP, IE8), {{lang|ja|…}} displayes properly vertically centered dots (…), while without the template, the dots appear on the baseline (…). It seems the markup is fine and the problem is that the font your browser is using for Japanese is not the one with vertically centered dots for horizontal ellipsis. --Kusunose 06:38, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Random Sampling of AFDs?

Have a look at Template:Recent changes article requests. I'd like to do the same sort of thing, except transcluding the output onto a single page and generating the list of possible titles from the contents of Category:AfD debates. Is there a way that a template could parse that category list and pick random entries, or would we need a bot to generate such a list (in the form of Template:Recent changes article requests/list, for example)? The idea is similar to that of the "Random Article" link, in that you click and get a set of debates you might not ordinarily see. Perhaps articles from outside your usual areas of interest, or in categories you don't normally review. The age of the debates is a factor as well; unless it's the first or last day of the debate, it's difficult to highlight that the article is still up for deletion (apart from the article itself). So this might get more eyes on articles in the middle few days of their debates. Is this feasible? Or am I overthinking it? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 19:46, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, it wouldn't be possible to fully automate this type of process using only templates. You can get a list of articles at AfD by using something like {{#categorytree:AfD debates|mode=pages|hideroot}}, but it would be formatted into HTML already, and furthermore there isn't a practical way (that I know of) to just pick a few out of the list randomly and transclude them to a page.

However, this would be a trivial task for a bot to do, and as you indicated on my talk page, the bot I run already works with AfD's and is fully aware of the status of all articles that are currently at AfD. I think this is an idea worthy of a bot task, after some discussion and fleshing out of the details. There are probably several different kinds of such lists that could be created simultaneously. In addition to a list of random open AfD's that is updated a few times per day (perhaps about 25 AfD's on the list), I think it would be useful to maintain a list of AfD's that urgently need more attention from potential voters. The bot could assign an "urgency score" to each AfD and then list the top 25 AfD's by score. I'm envisioning the score being comprised of things like:

1. The fewer bolded (non-comment) votes an AfD has, the higher its score
2. The smaller the AfD discussion page is (i.e. in bytes), the higher its score
3. The shorter the time before the AfD is scheduled to be closed, the higher its score
4. The more times an AfD has already been relisted, the higher its score

Any comments, suggested tweaks, or ideas for other lists? —SW— ^babble 20:54, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Much simpler than my idea - I like it. You could also check for stagnant debates, using the time since last edit measurement. The trick is coming up with a metric for everything rolled into one score. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:18, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I've got something preliminary set up at User:Snotbot/AfD's requiring attention. —SW— ^converse 00:03, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I like it. It's self-evident why the debates are listed (most for lack of participation). Does the bot create a report somewhere that shows actual scores? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 19:17, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The bot seems to be gravitating toward the most relisted debates, which probably comes from the scoring criteria - so that's working. I think this'll do just fine. Thanks! UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:26, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

"Forgot my password" from email

I've proposed that the new feature to email generated temporary passwords based on the email address be enabled. Superm401 - Talk 06:33, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I hope that WP does not keep any user passwords! This would be most insecure. See password hash and the sony debacle : PlayStation_Network_outage#Unencrypted_personal_details 21:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.86.189 (talk)

Looking at bugzilla:34386 and bugzilla:13015, I think the new feature will actually send an email containing a forgotten account name. There's nothing there about sending the password. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Em 34386| talks about passwords and then changed to username half way through. And WMF would already have details of passwords stored somewhere or you wouldn't be able to log in.Edinburgh Wanderer 21:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

No, they don't store passwords - they store encryptions of passwords. During the logging-in process, when you enter a password, it's encrypted and this encrypted version is compared against the encrypted password stored in the database. If these match, the password is assumed to match as well: the chances of two different passwords having the same encrypted form are extremely small. There is no actual means of decrypting the encrypted form. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

To be pedantic, "encrypted" is the wrong word there. "Hashed" is the correct term. Anomie⚔ 02:00, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thats not true - a password hash is one way only --you do *not* need a copy of a password to log in. You need the salted, hashed password. 86.7.36.50 (talk) 22:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

That's technically not true either. You need something (not necessarily the original password) that, after the authentication code salts and hashes it, matches the stored password hash. Anomie⚔ 02:00, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry for the unclear wording. I've clarified it. Wikipedia certainly does not store user passwords in plain text. It uses per-user salted double MD5. It currently has a feature to email you your username and a new temporary password if you forget your current password. You also don't have to use the temporary password, in case it is sent maliciously; it expires in 7 days. The proposed feature is to email this information even if you forget your username. Superm401 - Talk 00:22, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggested edit to template and creation of tracking category

{{Rating}} This template accepts values such as {{Rating|9|10}} but not {{Rating|9.1|10}} (as it appears on this revision of Paranoid (album).) Can someone please amend this so that incorrect uses populate a tracking category? I'd be happy to sweep through and fix them. Thanks. Please also respond on my talk if you can to let me know that it's been made. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

From the Template Documentation: For example, if a reviewer awards something a rating of "8.6" (expressed in digits) on a scale of ten, you should write it as "8.6" or "8.6/10.0" in your article. Do not use {{Rating|8.6|10}} as it is inaccurate and misleading. (Emphasis is mine. ) It's not a technical issue. Setting it up so that it can show a fraction of a star is technically complex, and probably not worth it. PuppyOnTheRadio (talk) 08:16, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Koavf isn't asking for the ability to display fractional stars. He's asking for a means to detect such attempts at misuse, I suspect that it would be somewhat along the lines of Category:Pages with incorrect use of RailGauge template which lists attempts to use an unrecognised value in the {{RailGauge}} template. For example, {{RailGauge|1435}} is valid, but {{RailGauge|1430}} is not, and will put the article into that tracking cat. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. But the documentation does not actually state that fractional numbers should not be used, it states only that the template should not be used for ratings that were not originally expressed in "stars". The template code seems to round any fraction to a half, 1.01, 1.5 and 1.99 would all display identically, like this: , , . Before changing the template, which is edit-protected, perhaps someone familiar with its use could edit its unprotected documentation page with more restrictive guidance, to demonstrate that there is a consensus for prohibiting some (or all?) decimals. Koav might not have realised that the template accepts decimals and displays halves. — Richardguk (talk) 15:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a non-issue I think. Reviewers that use stars don't use tenths. The rating in the example should just say "9.1" and shouldn't be using {{rating}} at all (it's actually incorrect now, as the mouseover says 9/10 instead of 9.1/10). As for the tracking category, no opinion, although hopefully it won't be used to round down decimals like on Paranoid. — Bility (talk) 18:44, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Clarification RedRose is exactly right--I'd like a tracking category like the example given, for exactly the reason that Bility points out: no one assigns "9.1 stars" so any time that appears in an article 1.) the template has been misused and 2.) the template incorrectly rounds these values. It should be amended so that it only accepts "X", "X.5", and "X.0" values and if anyone puts in "X.7" then an error tracking category is generated and someone (me) can come along to fix these errors. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:14, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Category I've done the easy part: Category:Pages with incorrect use of Rating template. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

In which case, my couple of edits to the page in question could happily be undone. I might just do that. PuppyOnTheRadio (talk) 00:39, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I have limited access to the site at work, so my ability to test is a little limited, but as far as can work out all that it needs is:

<includeonly>{{#ifexpr:{{{1}}} mod 0.5 = 0|<!-- There is no issue.  Nothing to see here.  Move along -->|[[Category:Pages with incorrect use of Rating template]]}}</includeonly>

to be popped in there. PuppyOnTheRadio (talk)

Another alternative is to not worry too much about the categorisation, but instead set the template up so that if it picks up the catch I've set up there it dislays it as a numerical figure instead, and otherwise as per the current template set-up. PuppyOnTheRadio (talk) 01:01, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It's already implemented in Template:Rating/sandbox, although unfortunately the wiki version of the modulus operator isn't refined enough to use decimals. There are other changes in the sandbox, but I did mention this tracking category in the talk page thread. — Bility (talk) 01:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Really? I could have sworn I've done that in the past with a binary calculator. Stupid parser. An alternative would be {{#ifexpr: {{{1}}}*2 <> floor({{{1}}}*2)..., but either way works. PuppyOnTheRadio (talk) 01:21, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that would work for n.5? I ended up using {{#ifexpr:{{{1}}}-floor{{{1}}}<>0and{{{1}}}-floor{{{1}}}<>.5. — Bility (talk) 01:29, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Of course it would. 0.5 multiplied by 2 = 1. Any other decimal multiplied by 2 would would return another decimal figure. PuppyOnTheRadio (talk) 07:23, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Well in your example of 0.5 (half a star), ​0.5 * 2 <> floor(0.5) * 2​ would return true, meaning it would get categorized as being improperly used even though half stars are valid. At any rate, I've tested the Rating/sandbox version in article space and it correctly adds the category or doesn't as it's written. — Bility (talk) 16:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I left out the end bracket. Should be ​0.5 * 2 <> floor(0.5 * 2)​. (I edited the above bit as well.) PuppyOnTheRadio (talk) 00:57, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Resolved thanks to Tra. PuppyOnTheRadio talk 07:47, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Check out this 4.3 star review. :P — Bility (talk) 22:45, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

#REDIRECT redirects to an older version if not logged in

I've added a paragraph on RGBA LEDs to LED lamp#Technology overview. It's the third one in this section and it starts with "The color rendering of RGB LEDs, however, is worse than one would expect".

This paragraph doesn't show up if I'm (a) not logged in and (b) am going through a redirect, such as LED bulb. Purging helps only until the next time I clear my browser cache.

I see this on two different machines, one on Win7+Firefox3.6.26 and one on WinXP+Firefox3.6.26, and using two different i'net providers, too.

Have I found a MediaWiki bug? --Mkratz (talk) 20:09, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a known problem, see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 96#Parser cache not invalidated for redirect pages. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:34, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I've made one more try to get some ops-side explanations on this, then I think it will be time to update WP:Purge and WP:Redirect, even if it's only to say "we're not sure and no-one is saying". Franamax (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your help; I've just confirmed with LED bulb that the workaround is to purge the redirect page itself. Another redirect, Led lamp, still delivers an at least two weeks-old version to IP editors.

Parsing the "What links here" page for redirects and purging them looks like a nice job for a bot until the ops get around to fix this problem. --Mkratz (talk) 10:47, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Would it be technically possible to add a "purge" link to the "Redirected from" message temporarily? Something like "(Redirected from Foo. Out of date copy? Purge the page)" - where "Purge" is a link that will purge the redirect. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:03, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Looking for Help Gathering Data on Bots

Hello. Some of you might have run into me before...I am doing a research project on bots, bot operators, and technical tools on WP and WM projects. I'm wondering if anyone wants to tackle this problem, which would help me out tremendously. I am looking for stats and data on bots, especially over time. Things like:

• (#) of bot accounts registered over time (by month would be fine) (on English WP)
• (#) of bot edits over time (on English WP)
• (#) of BRFA approved and not approved over time (on English WP only, obviously)
• same trends for bot use on other language versions (which would be a bonus)

I've found some info on these things spread around WP, but nothing that is both up-to-date and reasonably accurate/reliable. I'm not sure if getting this info involves dealing with a data dump (I suspect it does), or if there are simpler ways to do it. If you're interested in investigating this with me, I'd really appreciate the help. Please let me know here or on my talk page.

And if you're a bot operator or Wikimedia developer (or someone who deals with the technical infrastructure of WP) and you'd like to be interviewed, please see my call here.

Thanks! UOJComm (talk) 23:42, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

The folks over at Wikipedia:Database reports should be able to help you out on most counts. Josh Parris 05:15, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

It's very hard to gather meaningful data on bot editing of wikipedia since there are an unknown number of unauthorized ones running from regular user accounts at any time. We just had a messy arb case to get rid of an especially persistent abuser, but there are are constantly new incidents. It's like trying to get statistics on liquor consumption by looking at liquor tax receipts, in a region full of moonshiners. 67.117.145.9 (talk) 21:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for the help. Yes, I don't imagine I will be able to get a fully accurate take on bot activity because of those flying under the radar (or the ones who apparently think they are...could you pass along the link to that ArbCom case?). For my project, just getting data on approved bots will be good enough, though. I will check with the people at database reports. Thanks again! UOJComm (talk) 00:35, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The arb case was WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Betacommand 3. That situation wasn't "under the radar", it was blatant, it just took years of drama to make it (probably temporarily) stop. One issue is there's a bogus "legal" definition of a bot (WP:BOTPOL) that enables a lot of wikilawyering over whether something is a bot or not, with lots of programs and editing just skirting the boundaries and avoiding getting treated as bots (even though that is what they are). So the arb case I linked didn't involve long-running, fully-automatic bots (that might be what you're interested in) but a lot of smaller bursts of automatic editing. 67.117.145.9 (talk) 00:53, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

What would you suggest to improve the definition? Feel free to start a discussion at WT:BOTPOL. Anomie⚔ 20:54, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the link and the comments. If you would like to be interviewed for my project, I'd love to hear your detailed thoughts. Please send me an email (anonymity can be maintained if desired). UOJComm (talk) 22:49, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Racist vandalism back again

Could someone with the appropriate technical skills take a look at WP:AN/I, and try to find out why, despite my best efforts, filter 139 has been missing more of the incoming racist template vandalism? Please be very careful viewing the diffs given there: they cover the content with an invisible image that clickjacks every link to racist sites which may well also contain malware, even in preview mode. -- The Anome (talk) 00:42, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

139 is now deactivated, and only 453 is active, and has been tested on defanged vandal template wikitext. Let's see if it catches the next lot. -- The Anome (talk) 01:35, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Please contact me immediately if you find any vandalism with a similar MO. Elockid ^(Talk) 03:25, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

There are ongoing efforts on Meta to blacklist the affected urls globally, as they have shown up across multiple Wikimedia wikis. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 07:08, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Minor issue with Special:Upload

I've noted a small issue in the Special:Upload for all logos - the summary field includes {{non-free logo}} at the bottom and the licensing options only include "I don't know..." and non-free logo again; thus most logos now are being uploaded with two copyright templates. Minor glitch, but probably easily fixable. Skier Dude (talk) 02:44, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I second this. I probably double licensed about 50 county seals in the past week or two before realizing this was why. Not a big deal, but probably fixable, like Skier Dude said. --Andrew (User:90) (talk) 20:40, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Top most 1000 used words

Where is list of 1000 or 2000 top most used words of english wikipedia? Is it possible to do this list if it no.--Kaiyr (talk) 14:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I would imagine it would follow the "most used words in English" list... --Izno (talk) 16:21, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

It actually would be nice to generate a concordance of words used in Wikipedia, as this would indicate whether Wikipedia deviates from normal language usage. However, I suspect it would be loaded up with technical terms such as template parameter instructions, and the words "redirect" and "disambiguation". bd2412 T 16:42, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

A possible topic for research, I'm sure, but not really appropriate for encyclopedia writers. Just sayin'. --Izno (talk) 18:46, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Sort challenge

In User:Sphilbrick/List of current NCAA Division I women's basketball coaches, the table is set up to be sortable. I have a subheading in the first column so that one can edit a row, without having to edit the whole table. That adds a numbering to the entries, which is fine. However, if I sort on the team column, it sort such that 1 is first, then 10, rather than 2.

I tried adding <span style="display:none;">Air Force Falcons</span> inside the headings, but that didn't seem to help; my guess is that it converts the heading code to numbers, then sorts. I tried adding the span style outside the headings, but then it doesn't render the headings.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:05, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

What numbering? I don't see any numbers and it sorts fine for me. I went through all your revisions and never saw any numbers. Which skin are you using? — Bility (talk) 16:13, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

You only see numbers in the first column because you have "Auto-number headings" enabled at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. It's disabled by default. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I turned on section numbering and tested some invisible spans in the table and it seems to work for me. It look all right on your end? — Bility (talk) 16:31, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter Thanks, I've had autonumbering on for so long, I forgot it wasn't a default.

@Bilty I was trying to imbed the invisible spans in the team entry, as oppose to a new line. I see you added through Bradley, is there an automated way to do this, or is it one at a time? In any event, thanks for identifying the problem.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:52, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

@Bilty Oh and to answer the question directly, rather than implicitly, yes, that seemed to work. Alabama A&M now comes before Alabama Crimson , but that looks like an oddity in the original source (extracted from Wikipedia:WikiProject_College_Basketball/Master_Table)--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:57, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Is the list going to grow? You might want to make a template for these entries in your userspace and use that to cut down on clutter and make it easier to add teams. — Bility (talk) 17:25, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

No, the list is essentially complete (one or two new teams a year show up, but that's pretty minor), although I need to add the sort key to every row, so wondering if that can be done in an organized way rather than one at a time. When you did the first 20 or so, did you do each row manually, or did you have a better technique?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Did them manually by copy/pasting "<span style="display:none;"></span>" then highlighted the team name and Ctrl-dragged it into the span. If you want, I can do the list fairly quickly with some regex. Do you want to keep the span or make a template? — Bility (talk) 23:00, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I also need to add the rest of the headings, plus I need to add a sort key for the name, so they will sort by last name , not first. Let me try dumping it to Excel and trying to fix it myself, first. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 23:31, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I have used {{sortname}} for this purpose; see e.g. first column of table at User:Redrose64#Done, rows for Daniel Kinnear Clark, George Augustus Nokes, and Robert Absalom Thom. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:06, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Signatures

Is there some (working) way to use different font faces in signature? Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 21:07, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes. See this example: Example (talk). Reaper Eternal (talk) 21:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any difference after I removed the font-family part of the code. See: Example (talk). Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 21:13, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

If you see no difference, it's possible that the font (in this case Lucida console) isn't installed on your machine. When this is the case, most browsers will fail gracefully, by displaying a fallback font. The example below <span style="font-family:'Courier new',monospace">Courier new, with monospace as fallback</span> shows how this may be amended: if Courier new isn't installed, it'll try monospace; if that isn't installed either, it'll default to the page style. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:31, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sure, just look further up this page at the technicolor riot. There are two main ways: using <font face="xxx">...</font> or <span style="font-family:xxx;">...</span>, where xxx is the font name. Be careful that use of non-default fonts does not violate WP:ACCESS though. I've spotted the following (colours removed for clarity): arial Calibri Copperplate Gothic Light Courier new, with monospace as fallback papyrus Tahoma Trebuchet MS Trebuchet MS (done another way) --Redrose64 (talk) 21:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 21:36, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

GeoGroup URL bug

There's an unresolved URL encoding issue with {{GeoGroup}}, which requires some attention, please. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:04, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Anyone? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

MiszaBot is down

All MiszaBots have been down for three days now. User:Misza13 has not edited since last May and cannot be reached via email, so if anyone has any other ways to reach him/her, can you please do so? Talk pages and noticeboards are starting to pile up and require manual archiving at this time. --Andrew (User:90) (talk) 22:20, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Also being discussed at Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#Misza13.27s_bots_seem_to_be_down.Edinburgh Wanderer 22:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Some people believe that nightshade.toolserver.org is down, and that's the reason why the archive bot is not running. Sending a ping to 91.198.174.201 gets 'destination host unreachable'. If the nightshade server is going to be down for a while, maybe someone could move the crontab from there to one of the working toolserver machines. EdJohnston (talk) 03:05, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why you say "some people" believe. Nightshade is down and bot operators have been advised afaik to move their cronjobs to willow, which is still operational. As I understand it, the issue has persisted since the extraordinary maintenance on Toolserver on the 16th and 17th, but I might be mistaken on this. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 07:10, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Misza has responded at User talk:Misza13#Re: Bots down & stuff. He indicates he will run his archive bots manually beginning at 16:00 on 21 Feb. until somebody fixes nightshade. (He thinks moving the cron jobs to willow could create further problems). The nightshade machine has been down since Friday 17 Feb. In the toolserver issue report, DaB has stated: "Looks like I disconnected the disc-controller or the disc by accident. Needs someone in the colo to fix this." EdJohnston (talk) 14:23, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Unable to enter text at one site

I wanted to leave a note at talk:Inflation rate world.PNG that the map is in error (It shows the US with 0% inflation, whereas the cited source gives the US's inflation rate as 3%; I didn't check any other countries), but when I twice tried to leave a comment, my heading got erased and I could not (physically) enter any text at all into the text box. Kdammers (talk) 06:02, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

That image is hosted at Wikimedia Commons, which means you will need to use the discussion page there. Here is a direct link where you can enter your comment. --Andrew (User:90) (talk) 06:24, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. It's too bad that's not explained (clearly?) at the talk page itself. Kdammers (talk) 07:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

It could be explained by a check in MediaWiki:Newarticletext like it already does for the file page. Compare the "Create" tab at File:Inflation rate world.PNG and File talk:Inflation rate world.PNG. You can post a suggestion at MediaWiki talk:Newarticletext. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:55, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia search (2012-02-21)

A query made up of two or more words produced no results until 08:45 of the 21st of February 2012 (UTC). It now runs fine in the main namespace, but not in other namespaces, where it produces no results. Happy editing! –pjoef (talk • contribs) 11:23, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Same here, manually searching talk archives produces no results. Searching from an archive box produces a lot of results, but clicking "search" again without changing anything produces again no results.

It looks like "/wiki/Special:Search?" works but "/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&" doesn't. Simply replacing this part of the URL fixes the search. I think it that the "?" and the "&" in the query strings and not placed in the correct places when used the second form.

(by the way, the link in the archive box form uses "&fulltext=Search" twice). --Enric Naval (talk) 12:18, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Changes to Template:Infobox

I don't know if this is the right place, but nothing else came to mind (tell me if I'm wrong), so here goes...

Per this, I'd like to find someone template-savvy who would be willing to sandbox this idea and put the Portal links inside the infoboxes. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 15:41, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I hope you plan on getting a wider consensus. I don't think the few people watching WP:PORTAL should be changing something as far-reaching as infoboxes. — Bility (talk) 15:58, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, it was an RfC, but yes, I understand. Hence I'm asking for someone to sandbox this, just so we have some idea what it will look like. FWIW, I couldn't care less where the Portal links go, but since some people thought it was a good idea I figure there's no harm in testing this. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 16:04, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

For infoboxes using {{infobox}}, simply add the portal to |below=; after gaining consensus. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:38, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Reordering account links at the top of all pages

Moved from WP:HD#Reordering account links at the top of all pages

Is there a script that allows me to reorder the links for my account? In particular, I would like to change the ordering from

Toshio Yamaguchi My talk My preferences My watchlist My contributions Log out My sandbox

to

Toshio Yamaguchi My talk My preferences My watchlist My contributions My sandbox Log out

Is that possible for my own account only? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 18:15, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Your sandbox is last? Mine is third (Redrose64 My talk My sandbox My preferences), so I guess the position isn't set in stone. I have no special code for setting it - it's just the default position when I have the gadget 'Add a "my sandbox" link to the personal toolbar area.' turned on. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:22, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

What skin are you using? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:26, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Add two more parameters to addPortletLink in your common.js so the last part looks like this: 'Go to my sandbox', null, '#pt-logout'); ; also see the gadget code MediaWiki:Gadget-mySandbox.js. — AlexSm 18:28, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) Try this:

$( document ).ready( function() {
  $( 'a', '#pt-mytalk' ).text( 'My talk' );
  $( 'a', '#pt-preferences' ).text( 'My preferences' );
  $( 'a', '#pt-watchlist' ).text( 'My watchlist' );
  $( 'a', '#pt-mycontris' ).text( 'My contributions' );
  $( 'a', '#pt-mysandbox' ).text( 'My sandbox' );
  $( 'a', '#pt-logout' ).text( 'Logout' );
});

Hope this helps. (I'm not a great JS programmer! ;) Also note that pt-mycontris is not a typo.) Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:30, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 3) He's using Safari, I think it might be a browser incompatibility with whatever method they're using to insert the list node. — Bility (talk) 18:31, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Alex' solution works. Now 'Log out' is at the far right side and 'My Sandbox' is directly to the left of it. Thanks very much to all for the help. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 18:34, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Clicking on External Link sets off antivirus alert

I was editing Saint Thyrsus and one of the External Links was to www.saintpatrickdc.org etc. When I clicked on the link it set off my antivirus program (ESET NOD32). This has never happened to me before in years of editing. I deleted 2 instances of this link (I was making the references look better), so it's not on the current article page—you'll have to look at older versions of the article. This is the message from my antivirus program: ESET NOD32 Antivirus - Alert Access denied !

Details:

  Web page:
  http://channel-reward-central.com/?sov=146639&id=aDS-cALL-gsociety-dU2FsdGVkX19hZGw3N0lha39LWvtOGQAqbDuDRYN8yrRyEF6lfa9JNQ

  Description:
  Access to the web page was blocked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
  The web page is on the list of websites with potentially dangerous content.

www.eset.com

--Kenatipo ^speak! 22:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

The domain seems to have been squatted. Reaper Eternal (talk) 22:26, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Reaper. Does Wikipedia do anything about squatted domains? --Kenatipo ^speak! 22:32, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

There's really nothing to be done except remove the offending links per WP:ELNO. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:39, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I found a way of fixing the problem. Instead of a URL that ends, for example, with .htm#thyr, if I change it to .shtml, it appears to take me where I want to go. (I can drop the #thyr because the original didn't take me to that section of the page anyway.) An "everything" Search for www.saintpatrickdc.org yields 463 results, almost all of them Catholic saints. It looks like I've been given a project for Lent. Thanks for your help! --Kenatipo ^speak! 00:45, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I've opened several of the old .htm URLs now and the worst that happens is a "404 page not found" message. My antivirus program may have erred on the side of safety initially, but that's OK with me. --Kenatipo ^speak! 21:02, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

How to add a parameter to a template?

I designed User:Piotrus/TDYK for notifying people about DYKs. I'd like for it to be more specific; I'd like to be able to use a {{subst:User:Piotrus/TDYK|parameter - article's name}}, so that the template would actually mention the name of the article that I specify in the parameter. How can this be done? Perhaps somebody who understands the templates better than me could edit my template and add that functionality to it? In similar vein, I'd like my User:Piotrus/w welcome template to be responsive to a parameter that would specify the name of a WikiProject that the person I am inviting may be interested in joining. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 23:22, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

For example, suppose Template:Testing contains The article name is [[{{{name}}}]]. {{testing|name=Google}} will appear as "The article name is Google". Goodvac (talk) 23:26, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I've modified your template to include this functionality. Goodvac (talk) 23:31, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I can work with that. Can the name= be omitted, so the template would require just {{testing|Google}} ? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 23:34, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you can change {{{name}}} to {{{1}}}. Goodvac (talk) 23:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Javascript for collapse

Where is all the JavaScript for the collapsible boxes on Commons? Specifically, with JavaScript I would like put a hook that executes when the user clicks the box for dropdown. Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks like commons:MediaWiki:Common.js doesn't have the code for WP:NAVFRAME and implements collapsible tables a bit differently so I recommend you to use this: mw:ResourceLoader/Default modules#jQuery.makeCollapsible. — AlexSm 00:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Technical difficulties

I got the "Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties" notice twice a minute ago, but my edits still went through. Was this just a hiccup, or are there things going on? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:12, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

There are constantly things going on, and some may cause an occasional hiccup. Things-going-on log. — Edokter (talk) — 01:25, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Problem displaying wikipedia content in iPad application

I'm seeing Wikipedia mobile content not sized correctly when displayed within iPad apps using UIWebView. It is as though the mobile version has the page width fixed to the size of the iPad device, not the actual view it is displayed in. This is what I'm seeing: [1] This is what I want to see: [2] This used to work correctly. I suspect Wikipedia has become smarter in detecting it is displaying on an iPad and adjusting the frame size assuming it is being displayed with the iPad Safari browser. Is there any way to specify the content width along the lines of http://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jupiter&device-width=320.0 (which doesn't work by the way)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.55.100 (talk) 02:03, 22 February 2012

Changing text layout for shorter lines

I'm looking for a solution for someone which will switch page layout from a 'fluid grid style' design to one which adds a max-width statement, to improve legibility for those with difficulty reading long lines. Is there such a tweak, either in .js or .css that I can recommend? Ocaasi ^{t | c} 05:04, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Add

#bodyContent { width:80% }

to your skin.css and tweak the percentage as necessary. Note that this shortens the width of all pages, including watchlist and contribs pages. You can disable this effect on special pages by prepending .ns-special to the css above (.ns-special #bodyContent...) adding another line of code: .ns-special #bodyContent { width:100% }. Goodvac (talk) 05:25, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 13:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Oops, I made a mistake with the special pages disabling. Modified post. Goodvac (talk) 18:41, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Help:My sandbox

I started Help:My sandbox. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:19, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Search has gone very bad for several hours.

hopiakuta Please do sign your communiqué .~~Thank You, DonFphrnqTaub Persina. 16:30, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Special:NewPages queue

Uhh, any idea how the Special:NewPages queue lost about 11 days worth of articles in the course of about 2 hours? See http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/cgi-bin/patrolgraph.cgi?hours=168 —SW— ^yak 01:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

According to the time frame you have there, the drop occurs about 3 or 4 hours after the Signpost's special report about page patrolling. We were looking at this today, actually, and have concluded that it was a series of inactive patrollers "waking up" and clearing the queue, thought that may be an incorrect assumption.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 01:19, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I suppose the patrol log would reveal the answer, if one was motivated enough to look through it. 11 days of articles is a lot of patrolling for a few patrollers to do though. Kinda makes you wonder if someone just opened up 1000 articles and hit the "patrolled" link without even looking at them. —SW— ^express 16:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I did a little digging and it's not adding up. According to an SQL query on toolserver, only 81 articles were marked as patrolled on February 21st between 19:00 and 20:00 UTC (that's 81 articles in article space only, which were manually marked as patrolled). Yet, the graph shows that the newpages queue lost 6 days worth of articles in that hour. How is that possible? —SW— ^yak 23:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Was this when nightshade was down? See #MiszaBot is down above. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:57, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Nope, my tasks run on willow. And besides, the newpages queue hasn't been in the single-digits since... well, the last time that mediawiki software was updated and the entire queue got wiped out. The only logical explanation I can think of is that there were a bunch of editors who went on a patrolling spree in the middle of the queue, over a few days, and then when the back of the queue caught up to the hole they made in the middle, there was a big discontinuity in the graph (since the tool which creates the graph only looks at how old the last few articles in the queue are). But still, to erase 11+ days worth of articles from the queue is a pretty monumental task, unless you're barely looking at each article, which is not the point of NPP. —SW— ^{spill the beans} 15:20, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I did my own analysis day-by-day around the signpost article. It looks mostly like a lot of stuff patrolled by Sfan00 IMG. — Andrew Garrett • talk 00:16, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

He patrols files, not articles, usually. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Transclusion issue

On WP:TFD, Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 February 16 and Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 February 15 are just showing up as plain links instead of transclusions of those day's logs. Is this just due to template overflow? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 21:18, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep, see Wikipedia:Template limits. At the bottom of the source code is:

NewPP limit report
Preprocessor node count: 57617/1000000
Post-expand include size: 2048000/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 247794/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 3/500"

Goodvac (talk) 21:22, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the habitual TFDers could be persuaded to slow down a bit? --Redrose64 (talk) 21:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

User page

This probably isn't even an issue for VPT, but it seemed like a place I could get a quick answer; I've always used Firefox, where my talk page looks fine with the discussions left-aligned, but in *cough* Internet Explorer the discussions are centred, which looks terrible. Could someone tell me what the difference is that's causing the problem? Thanks. Black Kite (talk) 01:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

In IE, table cells do not inherit the text-align property from the table. And by default, <th> tags are center-aligned. Apply the alignment directly to the cells instead of to the table, and it should work. Anomie⚔ 01:57, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, "text-align:centre" should be "text-align:center". — Edokter (talk) — 01:59, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Also/or: use "|" instead of "!" at the beginning of the last line of table code, to make it a normal left-aligned <td>...</td> element instead of a bold centered <th>...</th>. In any case, having so many unclosed tables and unclosed table cells is taking chances with the wikitext parser! — Richardguk (talk) 02:06, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks all. I think "centre" was my UK auto-correct kicking in! Black Kite (talk) 11:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:GAN not working Bengali Wikipedia

I have created bn:Template:GAN in Bengali Wikipedia,but it is not substituting in Talk page. Please help us. ---- Jayanta Nath ^{(Talk|Contrb)} 05:00, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Try replacing "Talk" on the first line with "আলাপ". – Allen4names 06:06, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Allen, it is working fine.-- - Jayanta Nath ^{(Talk|Contrb)} 08:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Transclude template without adding category

This may be impossible, but is there a way to transclude a template into a page without that page ending up on a category in that template? (Assuming the template is generally designed to have the page added to a category.) PuppyOnTheRadio talk 12:29, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

You would have to add that feature to the template; see Wikipedia:Category suppression. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:32, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Most WikiProject banners have such a feature. If I put {{WikiProject Biography}} on a talk page, that talk page is categorised into Category:WikiProject Biography articles and some others; but if I put {{WikiProject Biography|category=no}}, the categories are suppressed - this is achieved by careful use of {{WPBannerMeta/hooks/cats}} within the project banner.

Outside of the WikiProject banner system, the template {{Category handler}} is used for a similar purpose - see its |nocat= parameter. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Was trying to work out a way to do it without altering a template directly. Dagnabbit! PuppyOnTheRadio talk 03:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Mozilla Wiki structure disappears

Firefox 10.0.2: The wiki structure is disrupted. I can't see tabs and the left panel. Images do not have default look. Is anybody else experiencing the same??? Redtigerxyz ^Talk 16:47, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I can see the left panel in Commons, but the Commons logo on the home page is not visible. Except that everything else looks good in Commons. Redtigerxyz ^Talk 16:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Does this page start with:

The Wikimedia Foundation's 2012 steward election has started. Please vote.

[Hide]

[Help with translations!]

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Jump to: navigation, search

The Wikipedia banner (Welcome to Wikipedia)

Today's featured article | In the News

...

• More than 50,000 articles: Bahasa Melayu · Български · Eesti · Ελληνικά · Simple English · Euskara · Galego · עברית · Hrvatski · Lietuvių · ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ · Slovenčina · Slovenščina · Srpskohrvatski / Српскохрватски · ไทย

Complete list of Wikipedias

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&oldid=473360982"

Hidden categories:

Article Feedback Blacklist

Views

• Main Page
• Talk
• View source
• History
• Watch

... I can't see "The Wikimedia Foundation's 2012 steward election has started" banner anywhere on the page in Mozilla, but can see it in IE. Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:06, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like either the stylesheets aren't loading or you have CSS disabled. Do you have Firefox Web Developer installed? Check Firefox View (you may have to press ALT to show the menus) → PAge style. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

(undent) Error log from WEb Developer:

• Error: jQuery is not defined

Source File: http://bits.wikimedia.org/en.wikipedia.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=skins.vector&only=scripts&skin=vector&* Line: 1

• Error: mw is not defined

Source File: http://bits.wikimedia.org/en.wikipedia.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=site&only=scripts&skin=vector&* Line: 1 Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:16, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Not getting the problem today. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 10:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Redoing the code for Wikipedia's fundraiser pages so their contents are readable on Facebook posts

https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserLandingPage?uselang=en&appeal=Appeal-Sengai

When I post that link on my Facebook page, it should display this preview:

I was born a poor farmer in rural India in 1936. Today I rely on and edit Wikipedia.

I want Wikipedia to be here for all future generations. This is our annual fundraising drive to pay for the servers, small staff and other infrastructure that keeps Wikipedia on the web for free...

But instead, the preview displays the following:

$( document ).ready( function () { // Disable submitting form with return key $( 'form' ).bind( 'keypress', function(e) { var code = ( e.keyCode ? e.keyCode : e.which ); if ( code == 13 ) return false; } ); } ); /* This CSS is responsible for the overall layout of the LP*/ #LP-table {…

What can be done to repair this behavior? Boozerker (talk) 17:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

This script tag is inside a paragraph, which could easily confuse Facebook. I've filed this as bug 34660. Superm401 - Talk 23:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for filing the bug. This is definitely on our radar. We are reworking the entire landing page system for the next fundraiser and hope to fix this and a multitude of other issues in the process. Following bug 34660 is probably the best way to get updates on this. Pgehres (WMF) (talk) 10:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Custom drop down options on special pages

How can I customize personally options found at MediaWiki:Ipbreason-dropdown, MediaWiki:Protect-dropdown, MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown and other drop down lists found on various administrative special pages? For example, how could I make "Repeatedly removing speedy deletion templates from own created pages" appear in the Ipbreason-dropdown list for me without actually adding it to Ipbreason-dropdown? I had it suggested that such customization could be done via javascript or something similar, but I'm not sure if this is even possible, let alone how to do it. Any suggestions? Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 18:29, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I tried throwing together some javascript to add additional reasons to the block form (easy enough), but apparently there is some form sanitation code in the MediaWiki engine that blocks any submitted values that aren't on the block reason. Reaper Eternal (talk) 20:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

You could make it so when you click a custom reason, it pre-fills the 'mw-input-wpReason-other' textbox then changes the reason to Other. That should be useful and will not be detectable by the server. Superm401 - Talk 00:40, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm a dark background kind-a-guy; I set my browser to ANYTHING but white ... so equations, formulas, practically anything notated at wiki appearing as clear-backgrounded image is absolutely unintelligable

My suggestion is that since those browsers who leave their settings with light background would be unaffected by a change from CLEAR to WHITE backgrounds in these script images, why not make EVERY equation/etc white backgrounded?

That way, despite my dark background, I (capital) would be able to read the darn things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.102.65.21 (talk • contribs) 19:23, 23 February 2012

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 97#Transparent PNGs used for math formulas unreadable on black background. In short, if you override Wikipedia's styles for the background color, also override img.tex to specify a background color for math images. Anomie⚔ 20:48, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Alternatively, you can use this script to change the foreground color of all formulae in the current page to any of the supported colors (in the example, it is set to "red"). Helder 21:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you using either the background/foreground color selection in the web browser options or the operating system's High Contrast mode to force the black background? Either way, you would only see a white outline around the black text. If I am not mistaken, Wikipedia will, sooner or later, switch to rendering these formulas in JavaScript using MathJax (so there would be no images involved). I know of no good workaround, as most CSS changes do not affect High Contrast mode.

If you happen to use Internet Explorer as your web browser, you could create an account here, log in, and then go to Special:MyPage/common.css and insert the following code to make the formulas white-on-black. Then press Ctrl-F5 to load the new settings.

img.tex { background-color: white; filter: invert; }

Otherwise, just use the script Helder posted, and put it in Special:MyPage/common.js instead (bypassing your web browser's cache afterward). PleaseStand (talk) 04:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

PS: I've simplified the script a little. Helder 16:21, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Slow wiki?

Is the site really slow for anyone else? It's taking up to 30 seconds for my edits to go through. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 19:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

No, this one went through straight away.--Gilderien Talk|Contribs 20:58, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

It was running slow earlier.Edinburgh Wanderer 21:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Article counter

Hi, what happenned with this tool http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/pages/. Exist another similar tool?--Inefable001 (talk) 05:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Here ya go. --Andrew (User:90) (talk) 06:02, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Basically you can access all of soxred93's tools by replacing the soxred93 part of the URL with tparis. The user that previously operated the tools has retired and TParis now operates them. --Andrew (User:90) (talk) 06:06, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thank you--Inefable001 (talk) 07:26, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

permanent link to an older version, found by time code

Hello, is there a way to transfer this scheme:

• …&action=history&year=2007&month=2

for version history to

• &oldidtime= …

for single versions?

The intention is to link a version of the respective page at a currently interesting point in time (e.g. last page version in february 2007, maybe inclusive more accurate parameters) or, similar to FullURL and #expr, to link a version of the respective page [xy] time ago. --Hæggis (talk) 17:42, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. I can't find anything related to dates at mw:Manual:Parameters to index.php, other than filetimestamp, which only works in File: namespace. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

You can link to a page history only containing the last revision before a given time. See Wikipedia:Complete diff and link guide#Timestamp limits and use limit=1. You cannot link directly to the revision as far as I know. A reader must first click your link and then the single revision in the page history. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Red links not go to edit mode

I'm sure this has been asked before, but how do I keep red links from going directly to edit mode? This is more than useless to me and incredibly annoying. —danhash (talk) 20:16, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

One option is to get yourself blocked. Or you could try this userscript to "fix" the red links:

//red links not go to edit mode
$( function(){
  $( 'a.new' ).each( function(i, aa){
    aa.href = aa.href.replace(/[?&]action=edit/, '')
  })
})

— AlexSm 20:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Later fixed to make it work. — AlexSm 22:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Trying for a block isn't necessary. Log out, and a redlink will then go to a generic information page, something like this. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I am usually logged-in while using Wikipedia (and for good reason—I edit), so logging out does not fix my problem. —danhash (talk) 21:25, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Quite: but nor would being blocked, which is the suggestion that I was responding to. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Alex, I'll try it out. I really don't need more JavaScript than is necessary executing on every page load though; I already have enough user scripts that could/should be MediaWiki functions as it is. If I were a casual user it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but especially when I'm working on long pages from moderately-powered computers it gets pretty ridiculous. If MediaWiki can change it for blocked users there should be an option in preferences for everyone. Is a user script the only current way? If so, I propose an option be added by the devs; should be pretty simple. —danhash (talk) 21:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The code doesn't seem to work. I added semicolons and it still didn't work. Is there a typo anywhere? —danhash (talk) 21:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Try this (slightly modified Alex's version):

$( function() {
    mw.util.$content.find( 'a.new' )
   .each( function(i, aa){
        aa.href = aa.href.replace(/[?&]action=edit/, '')
    })
})

Goodvac (talk) 22:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

It works! What does the "&redlink=1" part of the URL mean though? —danhash (talk) 22:17, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

It just means that url was a redlink. If you want, I can tweak the code to get rid of that part too. Goodvac (talk) 22:20, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I figured as much; I guess what I mean is what is the point i.e. what function does it serve? —danhash (talk) 22:22, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

&redlink=1 tells MediaWiki not to automatically open edit mode if you do not have permissions. I'm not sure if there are any other uses. — AlexSm 22:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's described on mw:Manual:Parameters to index.php#Optional additional data, bottom of that section. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:12, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I can't think of any good reason for the default action for clicking a red link to be an edit window. Most of the time (at least for me) clicking a red link is a way to get information about the page, such as deletion logs or "what links here", not to edit the page. If I want to create the page I'll simply click "create". Can someone add the ability to MediaWiki for red links not to go to edit mode? The JavaScript above is useful when it works, but there are places where red links aren't modified not to go to edit mode; plus, nobody needs more JavaScript than is necessary loading on every page. —danhash (talk) 21:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

If nobody here is interested I'll go ahead and file a feature request. —danhash (talk) 15:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

why won't image load on page?

Hi,

I started the page Fred R. Moore, based on an image from the Commons. (The image seems to have moved over to wikipedia.)

But the image won't load. What am I doing wrong? Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 21:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Switching to the .jpg version seems to work. I'm not sure what's up with the .tif. Chris857 (talk) 21:35, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not moved over to Wikipedia. You can tell that it's still on commons because of the presence of this box below the resolution information. Commons images are accessible on Wikipedia under the same names - the source is transparent. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't get what you mean. When I originally linked it, it was on the Commons. I found it by looking through a list of images on the Commons that hadn't been categorized yet. But now when I click the link, its on wikipedia. I can't seem to get back to the Commons version. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

ok, this link is to the Commons. I went there and got it. But now when I click it, it goes to a wikipedia page. What gives?

MathewTownsend (talk) 21:53, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

never mind, now it's loading. Thanks! MathewTownsend (talk) 21:56, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The link File:FRED R. MOORE - HUMANITARIAN, EDITOR, LEADER, 1857-1943 - NARA - 535620.tif goes to a Wikipedia page which doesn't actually exist. What you see is a replica of the commons page, with the addition of this box and a few other items near the bottom. In that box, if you click the link titled "description page there", you will get to the true image page on Commons. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, but if I just click the link, it goes to a wikipedia page - even though I linked it to the Commons page. Am I supposed to move it over? Other times I've added an image from the Commons, there hasn't been a problem. MathewTownsend (talk) 22:12, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The scaled-down versions of the tif won't load for me either. But the full size tif is a ridiculous 8 Mbytes. Have you tried converting to a PNG? — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 22:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, now it a jpg file on the article page. Thanks to whoever did that. Really, thanks! MathewTownsend (talk) 22:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I thought that I explained... the link goes to something that only looks like a Wikipedia page. It is a "page" that doesn't actually exist. The image is on Commons. Its description page is on Commons, see Help:File page. Those are the proper places. Nothing needs to be moved anywhere. The whole point about having images on commons is that they are available to be shared by all Wikimedia projects, without having to make local copies on all the different Wikipedias, see Wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons. Images on commons are placed in articles, or linked, using exactly the same syntax as for images held on Wikipedia. There is no special technique, nothing that you can do to the image linking code that means "I want this image to come from Wikipedia", or "I want this image to come from Commons". When you make an image link, it looks for an image of that name on Wikipedia and presents that if available. If there isn't one, it looks on commons and if there is one there, returns the image with the same appearance that it would have had it been held on Wikipedia with the exception that the box MediaWiki:Sharedupload-desc-here is contained within the page. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:00, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

User creation

I have a question about User:Masterg and User:Masterg82. The accounts exist but I don't see their creations in the log (Masterg, Mastgerg82) or in the api, although Masterg82 is showing up as having created his account. Could this be from a registration that happened too many years ago? Or is there some other explanation? Just curious. — Bility (talk) 21:40, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. My first thought was that they were created on another Wikipedia, and then SUL'd. But this doesn't seem to be the case - see Masterg and Masterg82. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:16, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

On Special:Listusers, if an entry for a user does not have an attached account creation date, the account was created before the [[new user log was created in September 2005, and also had no edits when the "creation date" feature was added to the special page in January 2009. Graham87 08:02, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Except for Masterg82 and probably others, for some reason. Graham87 08:05, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Inputbox with namespaces is broken

The page Help:Contents uses an inputbox with "namespaces=Help**,Wikipedia**,Template**,Category". According to mw:Extension:InputBox, this means the first three checkboxes should be ticked by default. An IP has noted here that this isn't working - by default, no checkboxes are ticked and only the main namespace is searched. -- John of Reading (talk) 22:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

 Main

 Help

I don't know why but a comparison [3] of produced code for the above inputbox with namespaces=Main**,Help shows that here at en.wikipedia.org a parameter checked="checked" is not made when a namespace has ** after it. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Browsing the code review leads to bug 31158http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31158. This is fixed in MW 1.19, which is deployed on Meta. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 09:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Out of Office Reply to Wikipedia e-mails

I receive a steady stream of e-mails (via the 'E-mail this user' link) on matters which should be dealt with on talk pages. I want to give people who do this a prompt, automatic message about it.

I created a special GMail account and set up an Out of Office AutoReply (GMail is schizophrenic and also calls it a Vacation responder) to give a message saying "if it is a Wikipedia matter, use my talk page".

Seemed to be a good idea - one problem: GMail is sending the AutoReply to the bounce address, wiki<at>wikimedia.org and not to the 'From' address of the sender. Any suggestions?

(Ironically, the first e-mail I received on this new accout was from someone who I had blocked with 'cannot edit own user_talk page' - so the auto message would have been pointless.) — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 22:19, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Problem displaying panoramic images (Android browser)

Hi, in the Android browser (tablet), Wikipedia pages with very wide images, usually panoramas, are scaled so that the whole image fits the width of the screen, resulting in text so small that it is almost illegible. I wondered if there was anything that could be done at the Wikipedia end to stop this happening.* I know that browser compatibility issues are a pain in the neck... 81.159.106.110 (talk) 04:19, 25 February 2012 (UTC) *Or at the browser end, should anyone happen to know!

User last edit

Hi. I'm trying to generate a list of users who are in a particular user group (ie Admins) that also reflects the date/time of their last edit, so as to work out what admin is on the site at any given time. I'm assuming that there is a way to do this using dpl, but that is unfortunately not within the list of my coding skills. Anyone have any options? PuppyOnTheRadio talk 08:32, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

testwiki:MediaWiki:Common.js/usershowidle.js (desc) was an old thing I worked on to do sort-of that. --Splarka (rant) 08:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

See also no:MediaWiki:Gadget-show-sysop-activity.js, which generates a table at no:Wikipedia:Administratorer/Status after enabling the gadget on no:Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. Helder 19:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the options. *.js looks like the best way to tackle this. PuppyOnTheRadio talk 01:12, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a simpler way to become aware of admins who have recently taken any actions. Open up Special:Log and look for deletions, blocks or protections. EdJohnston (talk) 04:24, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

That won't pick up all admin actions: for example, edits to protected pages. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey, did you use one of the options above or are you still looking for something? — Bility (talk) 16:09, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

colour distorted image on Zaculeu

This image File:Zacuelu1.jpg is displaying incorrectly as a thumbnail on the Zaculeu page, with severe colour distortion when using Firefox. The commons file looks fine, and it displays fine on internet explorer and opera. Clicking on the thumbnail produces a normal-looking photo. I remember there being a bunch of photos like this on the page some time ago but can't remember how they got sorted out. Any help greatly appreciated, Simon Burchell (talk) 01:32, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

The article displayed OK for me but the 320x207px thumbnail wasn't displaying when I clicked the link at commons:File:Zacuelu1.jpg until I purged the Commons File page. If you now clear your Firefox cache, does the thumbnail show OK in your browser now? — Richardguk (talk) 02:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like the same problem described in commons:Commons:Village pump/Archive/2011/09#Colour-Distorted images. Anomie⚔ 04:32, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but purging had no effect. Simon Burchell (talk) 10:50, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

For me, it shows just fine in IE7, Chrome, Safari and Opera, but in Firefox 3.6.27 it shows as a monochrome image: black and magenta at all resolutions. It's not a full-colour image from which the green has been removed - there are no reds or blues, just shades taken from a magenta scale like this:

 

All the detail is there, it's the colour that is broken. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:57, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

The image has an embedded color profile ("SFprofT (OpticFilm 7600i).icc") that Firefox may be confused by. Converting the image to default RGB may fix the problem. — Edokter (talk) — 15:14, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for all the feedback. How do I convert the image to default RGB? Simon Burchell (talk) 15:35, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Open the original image in Gimp, then either assign the default RGB profile (to show the original colors), or convert the embedded profile to RGB (to show the intended effect), save the file and reupload to Commons. — Edokter (talk) — 15:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks everyone who replied - I've converted the colour profile in GIMP as suggested and uploaded the corrected version, everything looks fine. All the best, Simon Burchell (talk) 18:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, you might like to work a similar trick with File:Zacuelu3.jpg and File:Zaculeu5.jpg, which also have the overwhelming magenta, but unlike the first one, these do show subtle reds and blues - just no green. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I was in the process of doing just that when I realised someone had already fixed them by uploaded them to slighlty different filenames File:Zacuelu3A.jpg and File:Zaculeu5A.jpg. Simon Burchell (talk) 22:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Asksqltext

Please see the "MediaWiki:Asksqltext — delete or to be updated?" section of WP:AN. Billinghurst and I think that the page should be deleted, but we're not sure what it does/did or what effects (if any) its deletion would have. Nyttend (talk) 03:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Redirects to Wiktionary

Normally, soft redirects to Wiktionary are excluded from being counted as articles by technical services such as the Untagged Uncategorized Articles tool. However, what seems to happen is that if somebody replaces such a redirect with a dicdef article, and then somebody else reverts that back to the redirect again, then the page suddenly does start getting picked up as an uncategorized article, and won't subsequently drop from the list through most normal means. To date, the only workaround that has proven effective at all is to add the redirect to Category:Temporary maintenance holdings, a category I created specifically as a crapcatcher for random oddball situations like this — but that isn't a viable permanent solution to the problem.

The most recent example is loose cannon.

Does anybody know what else can be done to fix the technical issue here, and cause the system to properly revert back to recognizing the page as a Wiktionary redirect again so that it doesn't get picked up by article-scanning tools? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 19:08, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

What if you delete it and restore only the oldest edit? Nyttend (talk) 23:17, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Without knowing how this Untagged Uncategorized Articles tool works, it's unlikely that anyone can guess what the problem is in order to find the solution. You might be best served by asking the author of the tool directly. Anomie⚔ 03:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Commons category template

What's up with {{Commons category}}? It's not displaying properly in this article. Safari 5.1.2. Jsayre64 (talk) 19:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like it really didn't appreciate that bullet point. Chris857 (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Aha… thanks for fixing it. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:20, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Template v .t. e on mobile devices

On my iPhone at least, when viewing a template with "v t e" links, it displays as a vertical three-member list, i.e.:

• v
• t
• e

Guessing this is a bug, would be better if they were each on the same line. LukeSurl ^{t c} 16:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Please discuss at {{navbar}}. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:42, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a problem because there are no mobile cascading style sheets which we can edit, like with Mediawiki:Common.css. Go vote up bug 22659 on Bugzilla if you want to see some work done on it. --Izno (talk) 18:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I've dropped a note on Wikimedia's mobile-l mailing list, asking for a fix. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Apply attribute to table column?

Is it possible to apply an attribute, such as align="right" or cellpadding="5", to a table column?

I think it's possible for rows based on this mediawiki entry: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables#Attributes_on_rows

but I'm not sure about columns

2.24.242.34 (talk) 19:52, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

This is one of those features that's been lacking from HTML right from the start (well, since HTML 3.2 anyway which is when tables were added). The thing is, there's an enclosure for the cells making up a row - this is the <tr>...</tr> element - to which attributes may be applied. There is no enclosure for a single column - the next enclosure outwards from <tr>...</tr> is <table>...</table>; again, attributes may be applied to that, but they affect the whole table. But, certain attributes do have an effect on a whole column - the width is one of them, so if you put style="width:10%;" into the attributes of any cell, that whole column will be forced to that width. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:03, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately COL element is not supported by MediaWiki: mediazilla:986. — AlexSm 20:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Canon PowerShot A

Canon_PowerShot_A (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) Down in the A2200 section, the table is completely messed up, and trying to fix it is giving me a headache. I'm OK with wikitables, but when you throw in rowspans it gets too much for me. Can someone take a stab at fixing this? hbdragon88 (talk) 20:50, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I've undone the edit which caused some of the damage. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:18, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Script that fetches references mentioned in a section I'm editing that aren't currently available?

Let's say I'm editing a section, and there are references cited in it (such as <ref name="example" />), but the ref itself is declared in another section. Anyone know of a script that fetches these automatically while editing a section so I can see the ref's info? Surely this is something that would be fairly popular if it existed or was widely known? I looked through WP:JS and don't see anything there that does this.

Lately I've been using the References Segregator to move all references out of inline and into the References section so that text is less cluttered, and with a script like the one I'm looking for, I wouldn't need to keep a window open of all existing references while editing. Gary King (talk · scripts) 21:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I literally thought of this just in the past hour. I would love such a script/function. —danhash (talk) 22:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I am pretty sure the preview function of WP:WIKED does this. – ukexpat (talk) 22:05, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of wikEd as it's too bloated for my taste. I like some of its components, though, like the one you mentinoed, as well as wikEdDiff in particular.

EDIT: I just checked wikEd, and it doesn't look like it retrieves refs not in the current section, both when editing and previewing a section.

Oh, I just recalled the Ajax Preview script, which essentially does what I'm asking. You click a button while in Preview and it fetches the refs that are currently cited. There are a few things that I'd like to change from the script, such as making it run immediately rather than require a button click, and change the loading symbol to show "Loadinfg..." instead, as well as stopping the script from modifying existing buttons. My own version of the script is at User:Gary King/ajax preview.js, so take your pick. Gary King (talk · scripts) 22:09, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Gary, what does your script do that wikEd's preview does not do? I'd like suggest it on the wikEd page. —danhash (talk) 15:52, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Counters

I used to consult an application site that counted how many hits per month a Wikipedia entry received. The site was http://stats.grok.se/, but is not longer operating. I wondered if a reader of this entry could direct me to another site that could do the same thing. Thank you. Iss246 (talk) 22:49, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

See User talk:Henrik#http://stats.grok.se/. Henrik has not yet responded, but there is a link to an alternative tool at the top of his talk page. PleaseStand (talk) 23:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I visited the page, and found an alternative traffic counter. Iss246 (talk) 00:24, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Changing upload link in the sidebar

== Looking for a MediaWiki page ==

What's the name of the MediaWiki page that contains links on the left side of the page? I've looked through WhatLinksHere for Wikipedia:About, Wikipedia:Contact us, and Wikipedia:Upload, but I can't figure out what it is. Nyttend (talk) 03:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Sidebar. — AlexSm 03:47, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Next question: how does one change its Wikipedia:Upload link so that it points to Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard? I know that we don't fix links in many pages, but it seems rather absurd for one of the site's most prominent links to go to a redirect. Nyttend (talk) 03:58, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I believe it's mw:Manual:$wgUploadNavigationUrl (for example, see server log for Aug 5, 2007 or mediazilla:12044) and you need to ask devs to change it. — AlexSm 04:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

It's set with 'enwiki' => '/wiki/Wikipedia:Upload' in http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

It's customizable per wiki in MediaWiki:Upload-url? C.f. commons:MediaWiki:Upload-url. Lupo 07:15, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

So I created that page now, but the link still goes to Wikipedia:Upload. Is it just a caching issue, or did I do something wrong? Nyttend (talk) 02:30, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

commons:MediaWiki:Upload-url controls the URL for the upload item in the "participate" section in the sidebar; the upload link in the toolbox on Commons is hidden using CSS. The only way to change the upload link in the toolbox (besides poking at it with Javascript) is to have a sysadmin set $wgUploadNavigationUrl in the wiki configuration (as mentioned above), to install an extension that will change it in the BaseTemplateToolbox hook, or otherwise modify the MediaWiki software. Anomie⚔ 02:49, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Stop please. Did anyone actually bother looking at the logs? The redirect is a recent thing while Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard is being tested. If you're happy with the Wizard, move it to WP:Upload, but don't go changing all of the links, of which there are hundreds. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 02:42, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Template rendering bug

A bug reported at Template talk:Lang#Rendering problem late last year, still requires attention. Can someone help, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:51, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Short term: add &#x200E; right after the template. This invisible formatting character says "from here on, L-to-R letters". Without, brakets &txc are handled as belonging to the hebrew, R-to-L text. -DePiep (talk) 12:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Comprehensive blocking of banners, ads, and other intrusive announcements

What does it take to get rid of ALL banners, banner-like messages, ads, text announcements, and other intrusive annoyances? A few days ago when I logged into Wikipedia I saw yet another extraordinarily annoying message at the top of my watchlist page ("Are you interested in encouraging more university professors to use Wikipedia as a teaching tool? Do you enjoy leading, coordinating, and organizing teams? If so, we want you! We are now recruiting for Wikipedia Regional Ambassadors to the multiple regions of the U.S. Click here for more details. [hide]"). Big bold grey text that even after hidden leaves a huge chunk of whitespace at the top of the watchlist until the page is refreshed and that comes back every time you log in. I am tired of this shit. I would rather have external ads on Wikipedia, because those are generally extremely easy to block. The SOPA blackout was about an issue that legitimately affected all Wikipedia users; this banner is not. I don't care who is recruiting for what, what is being voted on, what ArbCom is doing, or anything else that I have ever seen a banner about enough for it to intrude on my screen real estate. Many of these banners are also dynamically loaded with JavaScript so that the page fully loads without them and then they pop up, skewing the whole page that has already loaded and pushing all the content down an inch or more on the screen. Or else they are loaded statically and only dynamically hidden after the page loads. I have WP:Goings-on watchlisted and I would be happy to watchlist any other page that has current important announcements. I would love to have a "Current announcements" link on the left menu that I could click on when I want to see what's new with Wikipedia and the WMF. But I do NOT want any more crap taking up space on my screen, especially when it behaves like it was written by an incompetent script kiddie who once read "HTML for Dummies" in 4th grade. My common.css hides sitenotices and Wikipedia ads. I already had to update the blocking code for Wikipedia ads once when it stopped working. I tried adding CSS to block the new watchlist message, but it ended up blanking most of the page and I don't have the time or patience to troubleshoot it. From all the times that I have searched and searched to find an answer to the question of how I can get rid of these intrusions and annoyances I have not been able to come up with a comprehensive answer. I don't want a userscript to fix this; JavaScript is dynamic, and changing the page after it has loaded is an unacceptable solution. The only acceptable solution is either: 1. CSS code to add to my common.css that blocks ALL such messages permanently i.e. something I don't have to update every time somebody adds a banner in a new place; or 2. preferably just give me an option in preferences to turn this shit off across all WMF sites. Then a page in the Wikipedia: namespace should be created to inform other users how to block these annoyances; I am perfectly willing to create the page myself. Frankly I am surprised that this issue has not been resolved before now. —danhash (talk) 15:37, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

#siteNotice , #watchlist-message, .geonotice{ display: none !important; } would hide both forms of watchlist notice (the ones above, which are watchlist-geonotices, and the ones below, which are plain ol' watchlist notices. I shall leave you to your conclusions as to their merits. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 15:52, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Jarry. What other possibilities for image/text banners/announcements are there? —danhash (talk) 16:47, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I've added #siteNotice to my previous message, which covers the ones that display on every page (including fundraising I think). Can't think of any other notices off the top of my head. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 16:51, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I keep seeing them in more and more places over time. I see them on multiple WMF wikis as well, so maybe it's higher up than administration here. Anybody know who is in charge of annoying users? —danhash (talk) 15:45, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

An article that uses tables with lots of text in individual cells?

Hey,

Does anyone happen to know an article that deals elegantly with table cell fields that have greater than usual amounts of text?

I'm trying to learn advanced table formatting and it would be very helpful if someone could link to an article that deals with this problem: when a table is the best data structure to use, but a few cells need to have large amounts of text in them.

Thanks!

2.24.242.34 (talk) 16:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

How do you mean? Every cell has text? One particular column ("Notes" as a header)? I know that the first is, if not forbidden, then highly discouraged due to web semantics, while the second is commonplace. Or is there something else you're trying to figure out? --Izno (talk) 16:41, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I mean, a table where a particular cell has a great deal of text. For example, a cell in a table that had three hundred words of text. I'm wondering if there's a way to handle this kind of thing elegantly and was looking for examples. Thanks!

Lemonbalmtea (talk) 18:31, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe some page from this list? The template is useed to wrap big sections into a wikitable. Little controlling CSS style involved. -DePiep (talk) 18:41, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

{{Episode list}} places the episode summary in a table-wide cell, and all other info in a multi-cell row above it. See example at Doctor Who (series 5)#List of episodes. If everything was in one row then it would give poor formatting with lots of blank space when the summary often has far more content than the other cells. The summary parameter is documented at {{Episode list}} with "ShortSummary (optional) A short 100-300 word summary of the episode". I find the name ShortSummary a bit ironic in that context but some fans tend to write very long summaries. I guess the name is intended to restrain them. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:36, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Where have all our stewards gone?

Why does this return No user found when that isn't the case?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Steward is a global user right, so they don't show up in the local list. Special:GlobalUsers/steward is the correct link. Goodvac (talk) 18:38, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Then why have the item in the list? Seems misleading.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

That is confusing. Unless there is some historical reason it should stay, perhaps a bug report should be made to remove it from the dropdown on enwiki. On meta it is also a local user right and it works there. Killiondude (talk) 01:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

"Long time passing..." — Richardguk (talk) 03:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC) ("When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?")

To remove it would require huge changes to a configuration setting and the database; it just isn't worth it.Jasper Deng (talk) 04:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

It... would? Wikimedia must have some really messed up configurations... or was that a given? — Isarra (talk) 04:20, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes. It's a relic from the pre-CentralAuth period.Jasper Deng (talk) 05:08, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Given the complexity of this it suggests that good help really is hard to find. PuppyOnTheRadio talk 06:20, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

IP Editing

I don't mean for this to sound like an overly snide comment but if you don't want IP's to edit then you should just mandate that you must have a username to edit. Requiring 3 or more capthas for an IP to make one change is senseless and a pretty strong message that you would rather not have IP's editing content. Every time I try and edit as an IP it takes no less than 3 captchas to do one change. 71.163.243.232 (talk) 00:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, you only have to answer a CAPTCHA if the edit you are making involves an external link. See WP:IP. You may have had to answer 3 if you didn't enter it correctly the first two times. Killiondude (talk) 01:52, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Then something must not be working. It will let you edit a talk page without a captcha but if you make any changes to any pages it has required at least 3 and as many as 5 before I stopped trying. Try and add an infobox or a portal as an IP. 71.163.243.232 (talk) 02:12, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I just used IE's InPrivate Browsing to add an info box to a random page (that could use one) while logged out and it worked with no CAPTCHA (it did not include an external link): [4].

I have also adjusted an external link, including adding one, which did require exactly one CAPTCHA, even though I made a whitespace edit to the article displayed when the CAPTCHA was requested: [5] (I then made a further edit to that page adding {{it}} twice and was not ask for a CAPTCHA even though it was the same line the external links were on.)

Finally I still intend to test adding an infobox with an external link, to exactly test User:71.163.243.232's complaint, but unless I give in and use a sandbox, I might take a while locating a good page to edit. Mark Hurd (talk) 07:07, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I added an infobox person with an external link, admittedly one already on the page, and I was not asked for a CAPTCHA again (same session where I was earlier asked for a CAPTCHA once): [6] Mark Hurd (talk) 07:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know then, every time I try it asks for multiple ones. No big deal though I just wanted to let someone know. 71.163.243.232 (talk) 12:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

After looking at 71.163.243.23's contribs, I tried some tests in the sandbox. No captcha when making an ordinary edit but it did ask me for a captcha when using the "undo" function. On second thought maybe this "feature" should be enabled for logged in users too. (but not for rollback) Might slow down some edit wars :) The last part was semi sarcastic. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 14:22, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Intermittent search problems

Off and on, when I try to search, I get no results. Redlinks just say "there is no article" without the usual list of articles in which the search string or something similar appears, and when I search for articles I know exists, it just says "there is a page named..." without listing anything at all below it. This happens daily, off and on, sometimes alternating between this and "normal" (actually getting results) from search to search with just a few seconds in between. Server load? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I've seen this too. In my case it is normally the first search for something, and I think I've seen more than zero results, but on clicking search again, without changing what namespaces are included, you get the many results expected. Sometimes it seems the first search results do not include fuzzy results. Mark Hurd (talk) 07:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The Search index is not updating properly - spelling mistakes I corrected on 25 Feb are still appearing in searches, whilst hitting refresh generates different selections of results. The usual reason is "a stale version of one of search index slices" whatever that means. Could someone please contact whoever deals with this problem - it is making us WikiGnome's work very difficult. Arjayay (talk) 19:23, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Should be fixed/catching up now, according to rainman-sr —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:44, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I noticed this on Portuguese Wikipedia/ Wikibooks some hours ago. At some point I was getting results in one of the following pages and not on the other:

• https://pt.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Especial:Pesquisar/intitle:js_prefix:User:Ma&limit=3
• https://pt.wikibooks.org/wiki/Especial:Pesquisar/intitle:js_prefix:User:Ma?limit=3

But then it worked again... Helder 23:10, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Mainspace editing problems

I don't seem to be able to preview or view the changes of my edits in the mainspace. I can save pages, but it page hangs and does not get loaded afterward. I do not have the problem in projectspace. It does not seem to matter if I'm logged in or whether I use Chrome or IE8. Any ideas as to what is wrong? —Ost (talk) 15:30, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

This problem went away for me but lingered when I tried to preview or view changes through some toolserver apps. Now it seems to be completely resolved, though I don't know its cause or solution. —Ost (talk) 19:09, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The database has spent a good bit of time in read only mode lately, so that may have been the problem. I have had it happen to me a couple times in the past week or so. --Andrew (User:90) (talk) 19:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Error with WP:AFT v4 on Halo 3 OST

I'm having a visual error pop up and I'm not sure why. On Halo_3_Original_Soundtrack, I'm seeing the WP:AFT version 4 up under the track listing section. Until this time, I have seen that particular box at the bottom of the page beneath the various appendices. Using Fx 10.0.2 on Windows 7. I tried shift refreshing the page as well as purging and then refreshing, and it would not disappear. Am I the only one? Or was this a test condition for the box...? --Izno (talk) 19:21, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like PleaseStand handled it. --Izno (talk) 22:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem was that the second div was left unclosed. There was also a missing {{clear}} after both floating divs. PleaseStand (talk) 23:04, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The missing clear was probably the reason the div was left unclosed, heh... --Izno (talk) 23:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Screen goes blank

Whenever I load a page, it goes completely blank after it finishes loading. Only happens when I'm logged in, works normally when logged out. Did one of you guys break something? If so, can you fix it or suggest a workaround? Kilopi (talk) 23:48, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Try to disable gadgets one by one and then report back here, plus mention your browser. — AlexSm 23:52, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

It was revisionjumper. I'm using Opera. Kilopi (talk) 23:59, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The offending line of code from the German Wikipedia page at de:MediaWiki:Gadget-revisionjumper.js: PleaseStand (talk) 00:04, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

 document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="'+revisionjumperlocation+'/w/index.php?title='
     + 'MediaWiki:Gadget-revisionjumper-config.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript"><\/script>');

Revision jumper has been fixed for all non secure.wikimedia.org users by a german sysop on my request, see [7] Regards, Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 08:11, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Issues arising from rollout of mediawiki 1.19

Could you please record any issues with Wikipedia since the rollout of 1.19 here, so that we can keep them all in one place, please. Thanks in advance,  BarkingFish  00:06, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Any way to get the green back in diffs?

Resolved

I see the new diff system was implamented, possibly in the last few minutes. It's nice being able to see tiny changes better but I really like the old green color of the right column a lot better as it's much easier to read. Any way to get it back? I assume it'd have to be css but if so, then so be it. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 23:12, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

If you want to change only the background color of the right column, add the following code (adapted from MediaWiki:Gadget-ClassicDiff.css, which should be implemented as a gadget soon) to your monobook.css:

td.diff-addedline { background: #CFC; }

Goodvac (talk) 23:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to do anything. Is it the right color? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 01:30, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

My mistake. I've modified the code. Goodvac (talk) 01:52, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks anyway. I'll note it if it changes back. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:46, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The diff color change has been reverted, and the reversion has been synchronized to the Wikimedia servers. The yellow/green coloring should be back now. PleaseStand (talk) 02:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

HistoryNumDiff problem...

Resolved

I assume the change in colors in diffs has broken this somehow. I have HistoryNumDiff enabled in my preferences and now it's showing the changes double, like so:

• (cur | prev) 22:58, 29 February 2012‎ The Bushranger (talk | contribs | block)‎ . . (+234) (+234)‎ . . (→‎Unfounded sanction and possible admin tools abuse: arbchive) (undo)

...I can haz fix plz? Kthx. Just as a note, in the watchlist the HistoryNumDiff displays fine, it's only in page histories where it's redundantly redundant. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:25, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The gadget HistoryNumDiff adds the net diff change to the history. MediaWiki 1.19 has just been rolled out to the English Wikipedia and has this feature built in (see mw:Special:Code/MediaWiki/111800). I would recommend disabling HistoryNumDiff in your gadgets. Goodvac (talk) 23:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Aha, so now we can see total size and change. Nifty. And that did the trick! - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:21, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I've had an issue with this, I have always had HistoryNumDiff unchecked in my preferences, but suddendly today, coninciding with this apparent software change, now it has started appearing without having checked it. When I check the option, the HistoryNumDiff figures appear in duplicate, while unchecked it appears only once; there appears to be no way to get it to sling its hook and shove off. Any suggestions on how to get it to vanish, not to appear once, twice, or once again, but no appearences at all? Kyteto (talk) 01:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.19 automatically includes the net diff change and the total bytes listed in the history. If you want to get rid of the net diff change, add the following to your skin.css:

.action-history .mw-plusminus-pos, .action-history .mw-plusminus-neg, .action-history .mw-plusminus-null { display: none; }

Goodvac (talk) 01:47, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the best thing would be to rewrite HistoryNumDiff to provide a "±" switch between size and dif size. — AlexSm 01:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Well I've pasted that line of code at the location provided, I'll wait and see if it makes a difference, no change so far even with a cleared cache. But doesn't it suggest that there's a deeper flaw, what could be the possible point of 'doubling up' on the figure? And shouldn't the GUI box to switch off feature A...actually switch off feature A, rather than turn on and off a redundant/pointless duplicate? If that how it's supposed to work/is it working like that for other people/am I simply stupid? Kyteto (talk) 03:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Add the code to your common.css. The link above was supposed to "redirect" to your monobook/vector.css file (not sure why it did not happen), your User:Kyteto/skin.css is not executed by MediaWiki. — AlexSm 03:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Please remove the gadget from MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition and then mark this as resolved. — AlexSm 03:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Done. Killiondude (talk) 06:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Function akeytt disappeared

Apparently there was a function named akeytt() in the site javascript, which has disappeared. I had to delete a call to it from one of my user scripts to make things work again. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

User:Animum/easyblock.js is one commonly used script that calls the function, and I suspect that it is the cause of a report that one of my scripts was not working. It took me a while to identify it as a problematic script because it does nothing for non-admins like me. PleaseStand (talk) 02:02, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 33836

The function akeytt is deprecated since MW 1.17 if I remember correctly.

See mw:ResourceLoader/JavaScript Deprecations#wikibits.js and watch bugzilla:33836. Helder 02:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually akeytt has been deprecated a little longer, since 2009. See also mw:RL/MGU#ta[] Tooltip and Accesskeys. Back then this tooltip/accesskey feature has been integrated into core MediaWiki for all wikis to use and to enjoy localization as well.

Since MediaWiki 1.16 (or earlier) we've replaced the deprecated variables (the global ta object and akeytt function) with dummies to avoid scripts from throwing exceptions for undefined variables. After 3 versions they were eventually removed in MediaWiki 1.19. Note that the errors appearing for scripts still using them are not breakages of functionality. The scripts currently referring to ta and akeytt haven't done anything since 2009.

The addPortletLink function takes a parameter for 'tooltip' and 'accesskey' for scripts that add new links and want to use tooltips and/or accesskeys. To modify the default tooltips and accesskeys for portlet links outputted by default (e.g. "What links here", "My preferences", "View history" etc.) change the interface messages in the MediaWiki-namespace (tooltips / accesskeys. Krinkle (talk) 03:27, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit section for old revisions

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 34841

I'm not 100% sure if this is due to MW1.19, but I think it might be. Anyway, when I'm looking at an old revision of a page there are edit section links available, however when I click on one it takes me to editing the same numbered section, but of the current revision, not the old revision that I was looking at (does that make sense?). So, is this a new thing or has it always been like that? Jenks24 (talk) 01:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It's new. It occurs for all sections on all pages I tested but an example can be good anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29&oldid=478913156#Article_counter currently has a section edit link saying http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)&action=edit&section=50. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah, I think the proper behavior is to not have section edit links there. You should file a bug about this at <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org>. If you need any help filing a bug, let me know. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:52, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Filed a bug. Use "Enable tracking bugs on Bugzilla ..." in Gadgets to get it to get better tracking here. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 04:06, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Mark. Jenks24 (talk) 10:39, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

See also bug 33671. Helder 12:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

HTML validation

We are now up to four endemic HTML validation errors per page. See W3C markup validation for User:Gadget850/blank for the validation of a blank page.

• ​there is no attribute "class"​
• ​end tag for "ul" which is not finished​; two instances
• ​value of attribute "dir" cannot be "auto"; must be one of "ltr", "rtl"​

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Please file a bug about this: <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/>. I'd offer to do it for you, but I don't want to mess up any details. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 02:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the second bullet (about <ul>) is covered by bugzilla:24500, bugzilla:25366, and bugzilla:23026.

Roan thinks the other two are probably also issues with not using HTML5 yet, but you can file bugs if you'd like. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:17, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

This is indeed just a note in the validation report. The HTML5 standard does allow it, and afaik browsers never had a problem with it. These empty portlets are also (albeit being invisible anyway) additionally hidden through CSS so screenreaders shouldn't have an issue with them either (note that this is not new in MediaWiki 1.19). Krinkle (talk) 03:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You are right: these error are not detected if Doctype is set to HTML5. But three different errors are shown. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:52, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Setting MediaWiki to HTML5 does a bit more than only changing the doctype, but that still leaves one minor error result of Mediawiki in HTML5. The meta is actually only a marker, I think it will be removed in 1.20. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

FYI: MediaWiki offers a Special:BlankPage by default =) Helder 12:27, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I seem to recall a very similar problem just over a year ago (1.17), but at the time there were three errors: the <html class=> and the two </ul>. I remember commenting that you couldn't use a class= attribute until some classes had been defined, and that classes can't be defined earlier that the <head>...</head> section, which is always enclosed by <html>...</html> and so any classes are invisible to the <html> tag.. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It's valid in HTML5 though. It also does have a function, it's used by a javascript that (in theory) will actually run before the body might be in the dom model. Anyway that is something that have to be further tested, but the ResourceLoader is complicated enough, i'm not touching it ever :D —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Watchlist time (in the box area) shows UTC

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 34835

While the times in the list itself is fine, the part in the box (following "in the last 72 hours, as of") shows UTC time now. I have to hope this is a bug, not a feature. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:46, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that looks like a bug. Please file a bug in Bugzilla: <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org>. If you need any help, let me know. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:04, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Filed a bug. Use "Enable tracking bugs on Bugzilla ..." in Gadgets to get it to get better tracking here. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 03:26, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Bug fixed. Will deploy later on Hashar (talk) 12:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I have deployed the bug fix. Please note that on enwiki UTC is intentional, see the MediaWiki:Wlnote. Any sysop can replace it with the default MediaWiki message by just deleting that article. Unlikely I will come back here, so please follow up on bug 34835http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34835 Hashar (talk) 12:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Didn't it always show UTC time? But I've taken Hashar's suggestion and deleted the message to use the MediaWiki default that uses the users local time. Anomie⚔ 23:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Broken script

Resolved

User:Anomie/linkclassifier.css, at least, is no longer working since the change. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:54, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

"No longer working" isn't very descriptive. What exactly isn't working? Where are you importing this? What browser are you using? What behavior do you expect? --MZMcBride (talk) 03:06, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I had used using('mw.util', ...) instead of using('mediawiki.util', ...). Script is fixed now. Anomie⚔ 03:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I didn't give more details because "everything" wasn't working and "normal" was the expected behavior. ;) But it's fixed now. :) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Any way to remove characters added / removed from Contributions pages?

It's super unsightly and makes the article titles, the far more important item, form a ragged edge. Especially for lists of my own contributions, I do not care how much I added or removed; I wanted to be reminded of what pages I've been looking at lately. Is there a way to hide them just from Contributions pages? Or, at the very least, align them in their own columns, and return to aligning all the titles (perhaps with a "minor" marker) together? SnowFire (talk) 03:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, might be a reasonable idea for a JavaScript gadget (under "Gadgets" section of Special:Preferences). Requests for new gadgets go... somewhere. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals or Wikipedia_talk:Gadget is where requests go according to MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 03:29, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You can also add the code .mw-special-Contributions .mw-plusminus-pos, .mw-special-Contributions .mw-plusminus-neg, .mw-special-Contributions .mw-plusminus-null { display: none; } to your skin.css page to hide them, though the dots around the count and a space appear where it would be. - Purplewowies (talk) 03:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

That works. Thanks a lot. Truthkeeper (talk) 04:11, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, not that familiar with skin.css or the required format. Do I need to create a file called skin.css (in addition to monobook.js), or should it be monobook.css (which is what appeared when I clicked the link above)? Also, does the CSS code need to spread across several lines, or entered on one line?

Like SnowFire, I don't like the bytes changed disturbing the alignment of the article names. Could they be moved to the end of the line? Astronaut (talk) 11:47, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The link Special:MyPage/skin.css is to a special page that should redirect within a second or two, and for you it ends up at User:Astronaut/monobook.css, because you have MonoBook set as current skin in My preferences → Appearance. You can put the code in Special:MyPage/common.css (which for you should redirect to User:Astronaut/common.css), and it should then continue to work should you decide to change skin.

Yes, it can go all on one line, or you can use a few line breaks instead of some or more of the spaces:

.mw-special-Contributions .mw-plusminus-pos,
.mw-special-Contributions .mw-plusminus-neg,
.mw-special-Contributions .mw-plusminus-null {
  display: none;
}

--Redrose64 (talk) 14:18, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Missing toolbar buttons?

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 31511

Is anyone having issues with the older toolbar? When I go to the edit window, sometimes some of the buttons are missing. The only button that has appeared every time is the "cite" button (which, when I'm having this problem, is often the only button to come up). This just started happening tonight. I'm using IE8. - Purplewowies (talk) 03:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

IE8 "developer tool" shows some errors in MediaWiki:RefToolbarLegacy.js (on the line document.getElementById('citeselect').appendChild) so that might be the reason. — AlexSm 04:02, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

This is a known issue. Use "Enable tracking bugs on Bugzilla ..." in Gadgets to get it to get better tracking here. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 04:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

So... is there a way to fix this other than refreshing a couple times? - Purplewowies (talk) 18:18, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

There is currently no fix, other than disabling the ref toolbar, or refreshing till it works. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Revert button on move page feature doesn't work

Firstly, I don't really like the new namespace selector in the move page function. I don't see the benefit of it and it'll confuse newer users who don't know what a namespace is. However a more serious issue is that the revert button in the move page feature doesn't work at all; it produces a "No such target page" error message. I just tried it at User:Graham87/test, but it also didn't work at User:Malcolm Farmer, where I was trying to use the move page feature to import old edits from the Nostalgia Wikipedia. Graham87 05:59, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The change was necessary to fix bug 29454 and the reasons are explained on rev:110209.

See also bug 34848. Helder 13:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Since you have admin flag at least you could remove the link from MediaWiki:Movepage-moved until someone suggests a solution. — AlexSm 15:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Y Done. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 15:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Contributions lists for truncated IP addresses don't work anymore

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 34849

The contributions lists for truncated IP addresses used in old versions of Wikipedia's software (e.g. 62.253.64.xxx, which made this edit that I just imported to Malcolm Farmer's user page), and 11.105, which is used as an example at User:0, do not come up with any contributions. This is also true in the former case at the Nostalgia Wikipedia. Interestingly, the deleted contribs lists for these addresses come up fine. Graham87 05:59, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Popups (which I assume work via AJAX API calls) provide the full list, which is suggestive of a problem with Special:Contributions itself rather than the underlying functionality. But that would be weird in a sense, because you'd have thought it was a problem handling "unusual" usernames in general. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 10:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Filed in bugzilla —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Incredible slowness

Resolved

Is it always going to be 5 times slower than the old software or will the speed eventually increase? DrKiernan (talk) 10:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? It's not being any slower for me. But yes, it's only something to worry about if it lasts. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 10:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'll assume it's an coincidental issue for the moment. DrKiernan (talk) 13:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit conflicts: Not the new text at all

Hey all. I was wondering if someone could replicate an edit conflict I just had, where I swear the intervening edit didn't display on the page at all, so when I copied my addition from the bottom box to the top, I obliterated it. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 10:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Can't replicate, but a very similar thing happened to me a few days ago. Ended up making a right old mess what with edit conflicts. Astronaut (talk) 11:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

When I get an edit conflict, I don't attempt to amend the upper window; instead I mark and copy my new post, back out and edit the section again, paste in my new text and save (as I advised to somebody else on 26 January 2012). --Redrose64 (talk) 14:01, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, well either way it's clearly defective to have diffs that claim to display one thing but actually display another (thanks for restoring the other edit I managed to lose, btw). - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]}

Editing old revisions: Wrong "changes"

Resolved

When editing an old revision (such as this) and checking the changes to the current revision via "Show changes", what is shown is the changes to the old revision, not to the current revision as claimed. Huon (talk) 15:25, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

== Unexpected results using [Show changes] ==

Profile

• Chrome 16.0.912.63 m
• Monobook

Upon logging in for today's session, I noticed a number of stylistic changes while editing... most are welcome. When editing an article from an older page-version however, the [Show changes] button no longer shows the live-dif. Is this something that can be tweaked?  -- WikHead (talk) 13:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it was deliberate change or not but for now you can use my script User:Js/ajaxPreview that still shows changes compared to the current version. — AlexSm 16:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Fixed (reverted to old behavior) and deployed live: bugzilla:34849. — AlexSm 20:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Short Pages report's talk page link

Resolved

The changes to the Short Pages report are quite awesome IMHO. But I do have one, in comparison minor, complaint. The report has lost it's header. The header, among other things, gave a link to the report's talk page. Now, there's no way to get from the report to its talk page. An example of how this header used to look can be seen on some of the other special reports like Special:DoubleRedirects. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:39, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure where the "header" was before but right now ?uselang=qqx points the the message MediaWiki:Shortpages-summary. — AlexSm 15:45, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

So, in theory, if I create a new "header" at the link you gave, it should display at the top of the report? That would work out nice enough, I would think. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

And a quick test shows that it does indeed work. I'll get on constructing at least a basic header for the report. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:56, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

And I have added a similar new header for the Long Pages report, which appears to have been updated similarly to the Short Pages report. - TexasAndroid (talk) 16:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Was the old header the rather generic one from Mediawiki:perfcached? Anomie⚔ 23:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Code for top of pages? (Css/JavaScript)

Does anyone know how to get rid of all the notations at the top of the page on monobook? ("my talk", "my preferences", etc.). I certainly don't mind them, but this latest revision, like all "improvements", has made Wikipedia even slower and more absurdly difficult to navigate for me. It seems to have to do with these notations, since they're always the ones moving while the page is loading. Is there some kind of code I can enter into Custom CSS and/or Custom JavaScript to get rid of as much as possible without getting read of the text/pictures of every individual article? I already have something for the logo, and getting rid of everything else while keeping article content would be fantastic. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 05:36, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The following CSS will remove the top links:

#p-personal { display: none; }

If you want to remove everything, except the "article", "talk", "edit", etc. tabs and the page content, use the following:

#column-one, #p-personal { visibility: hidden; }
#p-cactions { visibility: visible; }

Goodvac (talk) 06:25, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. What about the bottom? On many pages, I get that horizonal scrollbar appearing for a second (or two), and then disppearing, thus taking up more time. How do I get rid of that? (can I?) All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 06:55, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean. The browser's scrollbar?
FYI, since you aren't blocking #column-one, you will need only #p-personal { display: none; }. Goodvac (talk) 07:02, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, most people have a vertical scrollbar on the right side of their pages, and then a horizontal one at the bottom (when necessary). "Scrollbar" may not be the right word. Something in the coding on Wikipedia is causing the bottom scrollbar to appear and then disappear every time I open a page (i.e. even when this scrollbar is not necessary, which is most of the time, unlike the vertical scrollbar). I guess the fact that I'm using Internet Explorer '06 is what's causing all this. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 07:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Well that certainly won't help. I'm predicting that IE6 will officially be dropped in about a year time. It's already down to 3% html requests, when it's below 1%, official support will end. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:21, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Unable to access scripts

I am unable to edit any page with the scripts I have installed. Whenever I edit a page, the scripts box on the side just remains empty. I have tried blanking and re-creating my scripts page and bypassing my cache, but still I just get an empty scripts box on the side menu. Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 06:47, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

document.write is not longer working

Please be advised that document.write is no longer working as of Mediawiki 1.19. Please switch all your scripts and monobooks (if you use vector I don't care about you :P) to the new mw.loader.load. Example:

from document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="' + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Voice of All/adminnolupin/monobook.js' + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');

to mw.loader.load('//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Voice of All/adminnolupin/monobook.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');

If you don't dare change it yourself for fear of breaking it or are not an admin, please reply to this thread and somebody will fix it. Regards, Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 07:39, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• Thank you for fixing this in my monobook. Keegan (talk) 07:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Is this why none of my imported scripts are working? (see my question above) Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 08:30, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand. Can someone help me? Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 08:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

igloo works fine and so should the other scripts you're using. Are you using any gadgets? Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 09:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Just Twinkle. But even when I disable it, scripts still won't work. Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 09:42, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Just for your information, the usage of document.write has been ill-advised for over 5 years now. The reason for that was that it would break in async loading. Since we are now loading more parts async then before, this will bring up a lot of issues where people were still using it. This is not a bug. The bug is people after 5 years still going against advice and now finding out. It was not working before, but now more people are being confronted with it not working. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Nobody here is saying that it's a bug, and I am aware that it has been deprecated for a while :) For anybody interested, see bugzilla:34482 and m:Wikimedia Forum#document.write() not only discouraged, it doesn't work. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 09:54, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

So what exactly would I have to write on my monobook page to get the scripts working for me again? Does ImportScript no longer work? Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 11:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Well the problem is not what you had in your monobook.js page. The problem is what the scripts that you were properly loading right there, were doing. One or more of those scripts was/is broken, and the only thing you can do is either find the problem in them (which i guess is not an option), or disabling/removing them until they are fixed by their authors or a kind 3rd person. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:14, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

User contributions dropdown menu

Has thewre been a change in the user contributions dropdown menu? I had this installed, so that I could see user contributions from the top tool bar rather than the side of the page. But this morning, the button had disappeared. I checked my preferences, and installed the "change page and user options" gadget. This reinstalled the buttons; but now, when I click on User:Contributions, I get redirected to Fundraising! Please restore the old functionality. RolandR (talk) 08:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

And Page:History takes me to History. I can't work like this! RolandR (talk) 08:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Could you post here the exact text of this gadget? I can't seem to find what this gadget is. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 09:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the text, but it's the gadget documented at User:Haza-w/Drop-down_menus. I've now disabled it; but I only added it this morning because the original dropdown buttons and functionality had disappeared overnight. RolandR (talk) 09:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Numbers

After every edit on the contributions page there is a number for example (+67)‎ or (-18)‎. What do these numbers mean? Pass a Method talk 10:34, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The difference between the sizes of the revisions, e.g. (+67) means that that revision is 67 bytes longer than the previous one. ― A. di M.​  10:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Color doesn't change for links when I visit them; is this an update-related problem?

Moved from WP:RD/C.

When I open a page (in a new tab) in IE 8.0.7601.17514 by middleclicking on an external link from a Wikipedia article, the link typically changes from blue to purple. Suddenly, this color change is not happening: it's just as blue after clicking as it is before. What could be causing this problem? I made some changes earlier today, but several hours after I finished making those changes, the blue/purple issue had not yet arisen. I'm strongly inclined to think that I changed something without meaning to change it. I've not had any updates come through for my Windows 7 system in the last few days. Nyttend (talk) 05:47, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like you've switched off browser history, or activated private browsing mode. If the browser is being told not to remember which pages you've viewed, then it won't change the link colour to identify visited links. AJCham 08:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I thought that private browsing was only a matter for individual tabs; how does one activate private browsing mode for the entire browser? I forgot to specify that the problem has persisted even after I restarted the computer, so it's definitely not the result of making an error that affects just the specific browser window. Additionally, when I click the tab to bring up the new window, it presents me with a list of closed tabs that I can bring up, just like normal, so I don't think that I've entirely turned off the browser history. Among other things, the "Delete browser history upon exit" button is not checked. Nevertheless, can you tell me how to disable it, so I can disable it and re-enable it? Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 13:01, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I just remembered something else that might play in. I'm somewhat red-green colorblind, and at least in my case, this means that I simply can't see red or green very well. As a result, I often can't tell the difference between blue and purple, because if the red influence isn't very strong, I simply don't see it at all. Is there a way that I could have told it to reduce the strength of the purple color that will appear when I click the links? I dimly remember from a basic HTML class that it's possible for a website admin to specify the color that will appear when a link is clicked; did MW1.19 contain a change of this sort? Nyttend (talk) 13:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Ugg, it's even more complicated than I realised. At Amos Sawyer, the links to Prince Johnson, Charles Taylor, and Bloomington, Indiana appear in their proper shade of purple; I visited all of them yesterday or the day before. However, even after I visit Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's article, its link is still blue in Sawyer's article. Nyttend (talk) 13:46, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The reason I've moved this over here is that it may be an upgrade-related problem; I visited a lot of links before 2300 UTC yesterday, and they're displaying fine, while links that I've visited since that time are displaying as if I'd not visited them. Nyttend (talk) 14:18, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Odd article headers

Hi folks, just wondering if someone could help me out with a small problem, namely that all of my article headers are being displayed with tags around them, in this manner: <span dir="auto">Dextrocardia</span> - what's going on, please? :-S SalopianJames (talk) 14:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Do you have the StumbleUpon toolbar installed by any chance? Ucucha (talk) 14:54, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I did indeed, and that's fixed it - many thanks! :-) SalopianJames (talk) 14:59, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

A user at Wikipedia:Help desk#HTML tags in page titles reported a fix which apparently didn't require complete removal of StumbleUpon: there's a checkbox in options under "Search & Tagging" that says "Highlight recommended results." Uncheck that, and the problem is fixed. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Help collecting problem reports for MediaWiki 1.19

Last night, we rolled out MediaWiki 1.19 to all the Wikipedias. I'd like help collecting problem reports. If you can enter problem reports in Bugzilla, please do. Otherwise, leave a message on meta's "Problem reports" page. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 14:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Changes to file redlinks in 1.19?

File:Just an example.jpg

(link with colon, for comparison)

Was there a change to the handling of file redlinks introduced in the recent software update to 1.19? If I remember correctly, a click on a file redlink used to go to the edit page of the (missing) file page. While that was in many respects not very useful (we don't want people to edit file description pages of nonexisting files), at least it had one advantage: it showed the user the file's deletion log.

Now suddenly clicking on a file redlink leads to the upload page, Wikipedia:Upload. This is just horrible, for several reasons:

1. If there is a file redlink, in the huge majority of cases it is because there used to be a file and it was deleted. If a file was deleted, we usually don't want editors to just re-upload it. Even if there was a case for the deletion to be overturned, what we'd want the editor to do is to ask for it to be restored, not to make a new upload.
2. The upload link doesn't actually go to Special:Upload, but to Wikipedia:Upload. That's the page with the entry to the upload guide. (Right now it's a redirect to the experimental Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard; otherwise it used to be the page that's currently at Wikipedia:Upload/old). The redlink comes with a parameter "?wpDestFile=....", apparently assuming the filename will be preloaded into the upload form. However, unlike the bare Special:Upload, neither the old Wikipedia:Upload nor the current Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard have any use for this parameter. Nothing in the system helps to make sure the re-uploaded file will get the correct filename to turn the redlink into a functioning file link again.
3. Even worse, neither of the two wizards nor indeed the plain Special:Upload show the user the one, most important piece of information they need to be given: the deletion log. They are thus left entirely in the dark as to why the file is gone.

Thus, in effect, we are inviting people to wildly re-upload files that we just deleted, contrary to our deletion and undeletion policies and processes. We are encouraging them to do that under any new random filename. And we aren't even telling them why we deleted a file in the first place.

Can we please, please get some solution restored that directs these redlinks to something that makes sense? What would make sense is a page that shows the deletion log, possibly with instructions on how to ask for a file to be restored and an overview of our deletion policies or something. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:30, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I think that has been that way for years? At least judging by when I created User:Amalthea/File Redlinks.js to fix that for me ... Amalthea 16:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Strange. No, I can't remember ever having been sent to an upload page. It was always either the bare file page address (as in //en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Just_an_example.jpg), or the file page in edit mode (as in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Just_an_example.jpg&action=edit). I seem to remember the former was what you got from a red file-insertion link ([[File:Just an example.jpg]]), the latter from a colon'ed bare text link ([[:File:Just an example.jpg]]). But in any case, the edit-the-file-page solution isn't optimal either, is it? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:42, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It certainly went to the upload page when I did this edit at 13:53 UTC yesterday. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:45, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

This issue has a somewhat complicated history which can be seen in bugzilla:23140. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:08, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Ugh. That bugzilla is confusing. So there was something called "$wgUploadMissingFileUrl" which allowed us to do something more useful. What is the effect of this latest change now? I find that hard to read. Is "$wgUploadMissingFileUrl" still around, could we use it, and have we ever used it? Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Colons in links

Um, what is with the links on this page being prefixed by all the colons (::::::)? Chris857 (talk) 16:21, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

To answer myself, it looks like AnomieBOT has gone mad. Chris857 (talk) 16:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Bot task shut down at User:AnomieBOT/shutoff/AccidentalLangLinkFixer. I've removed the multiple colon prefixes on this page. — Richardguk (talk) 16:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Doubly fixed now. It was a combination of two things:

1. bug 34865http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34865, resulting in the API returning no interwiki prefixes.
2. AnomieBOT's code didn't specifically test for "no interwiki prefixes exist" (since that shouldn't ever happen here), and the GIGO result was that it would end up matching the ":" at the beginning of links using the colon trick.

The bug is fixed, and AnomieBOT's code has been adjusted to match nothing if no interwiki links exist. Please don't hesitate to stop the bot again if any other problems come up. Anomie⚔ 20:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Unable to edit refs

Since the latest changes to MediaWiki, I am unable to edit any refs. If I try to edit a page, instead of the detailed citation, I just see a grey button labelled "ref". There is no way to display or edit the ref itself. Without this, I am totally unable to edit -- please advise and help me! RolandR (talk) 20:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Which browser/page are you using/editing?--Gilderien Talk|Contribs 20:47, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm using Firefox 10, and I was trying to edit Dror Adani, but I have the same problem whatever page I try to edit. I've posted a screenshot here. RolandR (talk) 20:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Warning: don't click on the above link, you'll get some nasty popups. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you have a non-compatible reference-manipulating script in User:RolandR/vector.js. Try disabling the scripts. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Which ones? How? Everything was fine yesterday, so it would appear to be a bug with the latest software upgrade. RolandR (talk) 20:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

If a user script is non-compatible with the latest software upgrade then the fix will probably be to modify the user script. Try to log out and see if the problems stops. If it does then log in again and isolate the problem. You could for example start by blanking User:RolandR/vector.js. If this makes references work then gradually bring back the scripts until the problem occurs again. Your screenshot is from Beersheba#Antiquity which works fine for me. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, I've done that, and it seems that WikiEd is the culprit. If I disable it, I can again edit refs. But it's a pain editing without it; what should I do to try to get this fixed? RolandR (talk) 21:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Report at User talk:Cacycle/wikEd and wait. — AlexSm 22:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You have a lot of scripts installed. As mentioned in the comment immediately preceding your latest one, you should remove all scripts then slowly add them one by one until you find out which one is causing the problem. One of your scripts is causing JavaScript conflicts. You could also check Firefox's Error Console to see if there are any errors that might give you clues as to what script is causing the problem. Gary King (talk · scripts) 22:01, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I've done that, and established that WikiEd is causing the problem. Currently reporting it on the WikiEd bug report page. RolandR (talk) 22:16, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

And I've received an answer. My WikiEd settings had somehow been changed (presumably by the upgrade, as I changed nothing overnight), and I've now restored full functionality. RolandR (talk) 22:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

ESC cancels out all edits

I'll keep this brief since I just lost my last message. In IE8, ESC cancels all wiki edits. I just lost a lot of work after I hit something that popped up a window. I hit ESC one too many times, and I lost all my edits. This is not an issue on Firefox, but I sometimes edit on a computer that cannot have anything besides the approved software bundle. Any workarounds besides save early, save often or working on a separate text editor? Cheers. Encycloshave (talk) 21:25, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Hit "Preview" when you want to "Save" so that your latest edits are saved, but not submitted as an edit yet. This is a problem with IE specifically; many people complain about it but it still exists in IE, I guess. Gary King (talk · scripts) 21:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Could also try this code (→ your common.js). — AlexSm 22:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

$('#wpTextbox1').keydown( function(e){ //prevent ESC
  if( e.which == 27 ) e.preventDefault() 
})

popups and Twinkle have disappeared ...

... in Firefox (my preferred browser).

Twinkle has also disappeared in Opera, but popups works fine there.

Both are working fine in IE9 and Chrome.

Using Monobook skin (appears to be the same for Vector, but haven't checked all possibilities yet).

--NSH001 (talk) 22:01, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

To pick up the latest scripts you must bypass your browser cache in Firefox - Ctrl+F5. -- John of Reading (talk) 22:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that fixed it (Sometimes it pays to check the obvious! I gave up this morning, when I saw what a total disaster Wikipedia was ...). --NSH001 (talk) 22:25, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup category population

Can someone explain why Category:All articles with trivia sections is empty, but there are over 200 articles in the by-month subcats of Category:Articles with trivia sections? Shouldn't the former include all of the articles in the latter? Nikkimaria (talk) 23:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it should. In {{trivia}}, the code {{DMCA|Articles with trivia sections|from|{{{date|}}}}} should be changed to {{DMCA|Articles with trivia sections|from|{{{date|}}}|All articles with trivia sections}}. The bolded part is parameter 4 of {{DMCA}}. Goodvac (talk) 23:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It was added back when the category was created, and was removed at the beginning of the year. — Bility (talk) 23:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I've notified Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) of this thread. Goodvac (talk) 23:47, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

File Subpages

Just wondering, is there a reason why the File namespace doesn't allow subpages?--Octify27 (talk) 00:28, 2 March 2012 (UTC)