Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bugs and feature requests should be made at the BugZilla.

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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Interwiki/interlanguage links not changing to secure

Why isn't {{sec link auto}} behavior by default? Its incredibly annoying when you're using a secure connection, that whenever you click on an interwiki/interlanguage link, you get taken to the insecure connection. For example:

• Wikinews (without sec link auto)
• Template:Sec link auto

I don't really see the convenience in not making it default to a secure link if you're currently using a secure connection.Smallman12q (talk) 19:25, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

because {{sec link auto}} is a rarther new template, introduced because the bugzilla bugticket to actually SOLVE this issue has been stale for over 3 years. Much of this has to do with the parsercache btw. To introduce this feature, would mean that the entire set of pages of the Foundation has to be stored in two modes in the cache. Once with normal links, once with secure links. That requires an investment in resources. There are clientside scripts btw that can help with this. One is a greasemonkey script, the other is a script on en.wp but I can't find it right now. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:15, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I did use the greasemonkey script a while back. But greasemonkey only works on firefox, and not IE which is what most windows computer have. I do realize that the pages would have to be stored in 2 seperate caches...why doesn't the wikimedia foundation instead use javascript. It wouldn't be difficult to create a javascript solution...or perhaps offer a gadget to solve it.Smallman12q (talk) 20:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict... Hehe, I see Smallman and I have the same idea.)

As far as I know and can see from my testing: Only pages that have been visited by a user on the secure server are cached with an extra copy. This already happens when we use {{sec link auto}}. And that copy is probably as usual just cached for a week. The number of users on the secure server is low, so the number of pages cached by them probably won't be that high.

I have tested the other script: User:Anakin101/alwayssecurewikipedia.js. It works splendidly. (But it lacks handling of some rare kinds of links.)

TheDJ: You said "clientside", that gave an idea: We could make it so all users on the secure server automatically load that script. So we could make this entirely clientside, no need to change the MediaWiki software. And that wouldn't cause any extra caching. The script should of course first be copied to an official location and updated/checked by some of you javascript experts. (I don't know enough javascript to understand that script.) And it would be nice if the script understood some kind of escape marking (a <span> with some class) so we could prevent the script from auto-changing some links, since sometimes we want to on purpose show normal links to users on the secure server.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:52, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes I was thinking something similar. Though I think it would be best to test that on the English Wikipedia first. I also wonder what happens when Greasemonkey and the Anakin script are both active..... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:53, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

So is anything going to be done?Smallman12q (talk) 20:00, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki_talk:Common.js#Always_secure_Wikipedia —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the link.Smallman12q (talk) 17:26, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Common.js/secure.js is now automatically loaded when you use the English Wikipedia from the secure server. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

So is there a need now for {{sec link auto}}? Should that template be marked obsolete?Smallman12q (talk) 23:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

First we should wait a while and see how well the new javascript fix works. Secondly, not all users have javascript enabled, since many schools, workplaces and libraries etc have javascript disabled on their computers (since many of the ways to hack browsers need javascript), and it is often exactly those users that need to use the secure server. So we should probably continue to use {{sec link auto}} on the main page (sections "Wikipedia's sister projects" and "Wikipedia languages") and the few system messages where we are using it now.

But for most other places it from now on is mostly overkill to use {{sec link auto}}. I will update its documentation and Wikipedia:Secure server so they explain that.

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:55, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, every change that needs to be made to a page adds execution time to the script (much more than just "looking" at the url in the page). As such every link that is fixed with sec link auto, won't have to be fixed with the script and that will make usage of the site simpler. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:55, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

But using {{sec link auto}} has other costs as well the human time cost (very high) and an increased in page rendering time since the wikiparser isn't typically efficient. And don't forget the whole thing is a workaround until the dev fix the bug (i.e. implement the script server side). — Dispenser 21:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

testing templates (continued)

for anyone interested in commenting bugzilla:22135. I would have posted this the previous discussion here, but the discussion has already been archived.

PrefixIndex transclusions seem a bit funny

I noticed at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bwilkins 2 that {{Special:Prefixindex/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bwilkins}} doesn't seem to bold the circular link (i.e., there is a link to the Bwilkins 2 RfA within the Bwilkins 2 RfA, but it shows up as a regular link instead of as bold). This is different than what normally happens (e.g., [[Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)]] on this page yields Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) instead of Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)). Anyone know why? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:59, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK, if you are referring to the list of previous RfAs, this is what's meant to happen - it's because of the template. You can see any previous RfA (2nd/3rd) where the link to the page in the list is not bolded. If you meant a different link, lemme know. Ale_Jrb^talk 00:04, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure...I just don't get why the link to Bwilkins 2 is not bolded on its own page. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:09, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

It's because you're including a link to a special page. When transcluded, Special:Prefixindex returns a list of pages with that index (i.e. all pages starting with Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bwilkins) - but these aren't normal links, and don't bold themselves on the page they're on. Ale_Jrb^talk 00:13, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, ok. I had just assumed Special:PrefixIndex worked like transcluded templates (navboxes, etc.) but I guess it's Special. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The secret is in the title :P Happy‑melon 10:58, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

NY Times content

The New York Magazine is reporting that the New York Times is going to cease providing free content and will install a "metered" payment system. Please see Wikipedia:Using WebCite for information on how to archive NY Times articles in Wikipedia before they disappear behind a paywall.--Blargh29 (talk) 22:36, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course NYTimes articles are still valid references whether they are online or not. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:20, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. So long as references contain enough information to check the reference elsewhere (other news sites carrying the NYT story, microfilm archives, etc.), it is still perfectly valid. Also, it's not clear if this will apply to the historical archives or only very recent content. There aren't many pre-1900 newspaper archives available publicly on the internet, so I've actually gotten more use out of them in that regard than for current reportage. — Gavia immer (talk) 04:28, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Just because the references are still valid doesn't mean that we ought to let them WP:LINKROT to oblivion. Also, bare NY Times URLs will become all but useless.--Blargh29 (talk) 08:09, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed about the linkrot. However, if they use the same system they're using for their archival articles, you'll still be able to see a summary of the article (and its title) at the URL of an article behind the paywall.--Father Goose (talk) 09:26, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Imagemap causing page rendering problems - How does this simple change cause such a huge problem?

Apologies in advance if this had already been covered before, but I just noticed that a small change can cause hundreds characters and sections to display text like: "?uniq216fca307a11cbc6-nowiki-00000015-qinu?" in otherwise normal pages. The problem happens in both IE and Firefox so I don't think it's browser dependent.

As an example: look at this old version of a help page. All of the sections below Easy template problem appear to be effected, with their titles turning to all lowercase letters, with section editing disabled, and with massive deletion of data in some of the sections. For example, look at how short this section is (with its new lowercase title) despite the fact that a long conversation is still visible in edit mode - compared to the correct version (note - no changes to this section, but now everything is visible and the title is propercase again). You can see the offending code which was added by someone over the last 6 months in my last edit which seemed to fix the problem. (strange part is that this code is in a section which was added long before my affected conversation took place)

What's really scary is that this data is so completely deleted that if the missing sections included a link to another WP page when you go to the "what links here" section on that other page it won't even know that the hidden text in the Help article has a link there. Perhaps that's unclear - and I could go on and on about how strange this seems, but I want to start the topic first so that the experts can calm me down if this is no big deal.  7  04:11, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The "uniq...quinu" strings are strip markers: placeholders that the parser inserts to say "more complicated content will go here". Exposing strip markers, which is what is happening here, occurs when badly-formed code in MediaWiki causes the parser to be reset, and lose its memory of which strip marker corresponsds to which piece of special content. There is an open bug about exposing strip markers which you could post this to, if you can work out precisely what caused the error. Happy‑melon 10:27, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Happy-mellon - seems that it was just the imagemap code (perhaps in conjunction with some of the other tags) which caused the problem. Can you point me to an appropriate buglist and I'll mention my findings there. Thanks again.  7  23:41, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Server time

I have no idea where to ask this question so I thought I would try here.

As far as understand the server time is set to the time at its geographical location (ie Florida?). Now isn't this a little geocentric?? WP is global so does it not make sense to set the time as GMT, or better still the time of the international date line. Here in New Zealand we are one of the first countries to see the Sun consequently, I cannot create date related pages with with MY date!! I have fallen foul of a bot on occasion because of this difference. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 06:48, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm assuming you already have your timezone set in Special:Preferences - this will at least help your logs and talk page signatures show in your local timezone. But I am having trouble where you are being blocked in creating date related pages. Can you give an example of something you are currently being blocked from doing? Thanks.  7  07:16, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

It was a while ago and it was a maint category if I recall correctly. I was not block as such but I think my edit was modified. My Preferences is set to +12.00hrs. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:49, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The servers areset to UTC, which is similar to GMT. Wikipedia has servers all over the world, so they cannot all be set to their local time. Graham87 10:51, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Edittools: a proposal to improve the order of the Latin characters

Editors may like to have their say on this proposal to rationalise the rather long list of Latin characters (the one that now starts with Á á Ć ć É é Í í Ĺ ĺ Ń ń ...).

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 07:36, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

reccomended javascript debuggers?

I am trying to debug a monobook script (JavaScript) using Firebug - not having the best of luck. Are there any other reccomended javascript debuggers for Firefox?

thanks, Harry DarkStarHarry (talk) 14:51, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Firebug is one of the best. You could also try Venkman, which is also good and comes directly from Mozilla. Gary King (talk) 18:32, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Need help with some template code

I've tried to add support for a ref parameter (as is used in the other citation templates) to {{cite thesis}}. However, my code does not appear to work:
{{#if {{{ref|}}}|id="{{anchorencode:{{{ref}}}}}"}}
Could someone take a look at it and fix it if possible? Thanks. Kaldari (talk) 18:05, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

A colon after the #if would help. Algebraist 18:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Yay! Thank you! Kaldari (talk) 18:05, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Help fixing archive

So I recently archived a big list of links from the WP:DERM:MA talk page to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Dermatology_task_force/Missing_articles/Archive_1#Required_Redirects; however, the archived discussion has a "content" index at the beginning. How do I remove that? Thanks in advance! ---kilbad (talk) 18:24, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Fixed Gary King (talk) 18:30, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorting tables with ordinal numbers

At a current FLC, it has been brought to light that ordinal rankings such as 1st, 2nd, 19th, 24th don't sort properly in standard tables like this one. Instead of sorting in descending order of rank as 1st/2nd/19th/24th, it sorts as 19th/1st/24th/2nd, as shown here: Template:Awards table2 |- | 2001||First entry|| || style="background: #FFE3E3; color: black; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="no table-no2 notheme"|1st|| |- | 2002||Second entry|| || style="background: #FFE3E3; color: black; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="no table-no2 notheme"|2nd|| |- | 2019||Nineteenth entry || || style="background: #FFE3E3; color: black; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="no table-no2 notheme"|19th|| |- | 2024||Twenty-fourth entry|| || style="background: #FFE3E3; color: black; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="no table-no2 notheme"|24th||

|}

Is there an elegant way to solve this? Any help appreciated,  Skomorokh  18:46, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

You need to use a sort template like {{ntsh}}.—NMajdan•talk 19:19, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Like this:

Template:Awards table2 |- | 2001||First entry|| || 1st|| |- | 2002||Second entry|| || 2nd|| |- | 2019||Nineteenth entry || || 19th|| |- | 2024||Twenty-fourth entry|| || 24th||

|}

Although it doesn't appear to work with the {{nom}} template, so you may just have to format those cells individually.—NMajdan•talk 19:23, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, looks like you can put the sort template inside the {{nom}} template like this: {{nom|{{ntsh|19}}19th}}

Template:Awards table2 |- | 2001||First entry|| || style="background: #FFE3E3; color: black; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="no table-no2 notheme"|1st|| |- | 2002||Second entry|| || style="background: #FFE3E3; color: black; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="no table-no2 notheme"|2nd|| |- | 2019||Nineteenth entry || || style="background: #FFE3E3; color: black; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="no table-no2 notheme"|19th|| |- | 2024||Twenty-fourth entry|| || style="background: #FFE3E3; color: black; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="no table-no2 notheme"|24th||

|}

Hope that helps.—NMajdan•talk 19:27, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

To avoid duplicating the number, you can use something like {{nts|19}}th. Svick (talk) 19:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Haha. Yeah. Didn't even think of that. That would be cleaner.—NMajdan•talk 19:37, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the workaround chaps, very helpful. It would seem preferable though, given the likelihood that charts will become more common, for there to be tables or templates that "understood" ordinal sorting, as in "table class:ordinal" or similar setting. Mahalo,  Skomorokh  23:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

wikEd^beta

Test wikEd^beta! Featuring powerful template and reference hiding and the new image preview, powered by a real wikicode parser, and with WYSIWYG table editing soon to be rolling out! Experience next generation editing today while others still wait for the main release after the upcoming Firefox 3.6 release.*

Simply disable wikEd as a gadget in your preferences, add "importScript('User:Cacycle/wikEd_dev.js');" to your skin.js page, push Shift-Reload, and enjoy. And leave your comments on the wikEd discussion page. Don't forget to try the button...

(*The Firefox 3.5 bug 519076 slows the addition of long highlighted texts somewhat down. wikEd does not work under Internet Explorer or Opera. Also, I just noticed that 'new section' editing has a bug...) Cacycle (talk) 23:13, January 19, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming the problems, they have been driving me nuts all day! – ukexpat (talk) 02:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Bot to automatically fix some URLs?

Sometime in the past six months, one Hong Kong newspaper changed their content management system URLs slightly without bothering to leave behind redirects, so all the old links to them are broken. I'm thinking this could be fixed automatically by a bot, but I don't know if anyone already has/runs a bot which could do something along these lines.

Basically links in the old format

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/archive_news_detail.asp?pp_cat=&art_id=35072&sid=&con_type=1&archive_d_str=19970806

Become:

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=&art_id=35072&sid=&con_type=1&d_str=19970806&sear_year=1997

I.e. archive_news_detail.asp becomes news_detail.asp, archive_d_str becomes d_str, and you need a new parameter sear_year which is just the first four characters from d_str. See here for an example of me doing it manually. Any pointers? Thanks, cab (talk) 06:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot requests page may be helpful. Josh Parris 07:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

If there are no other takers I could do this. Rjwilmsi 11:55, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Alt Gr not working as it should

This may be a problem at my side, not something wrong with Wikipedia, but some solution is still welcome. When I try to sign manually, I get ´~´~´~´~ instead of ~~~~. Similarly, I get ´{~} instead of {} This only started today, I have never had this before. I am using an Azerty keyboard, Belgian layout, and Firefox 3.0., and everything works as it should in e.g. Microsft Word. Any ideas? Fram (talk) 12:30, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

What happens if you log out and edit Wikipedia? What happens in Firefox outside Wikipedia? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks like you might have your keyboard layout set so as to have dead keys accessed via Alt Gr. For example "Belgian Extended". If you're in Windows then this can be a per-application setting. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 13:58, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. Logged-out editing doesn't help. Firefox editing outside Wikipedia (e.g. Google search) gives the same result, so it is not a Wikipedia problem. I'll experiment some more with my keyboard and language settings, probably inadvertently changed them somehow. Fram (talk) 14:09, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Allright, changed default language, restarted, problem now solved. Thanks! Fram (talk) 14:29, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Missing Page Size tool

Resolved

I am copying this from my talk page as it seems like somethiung that people here may know more about than I do. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 13:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

For some unexplained reason the "Page size" tool has disappeared from my left-hand toolbox. It reappears as a deadlink when I am in edit mode, like now, but otherwise it has vanished. Can you advise me how to get it back? I find it a pretty essential tool. Sorry to trouble you. Brianboulton (talk) 10:55, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

It's still there and working for me, and it's in your monobook.js. Maybe you switched from the old monobook to the vector skin recently? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 13:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Brian reports the issue has resolved itself now. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Tools for analysing user contributions

Hi, I'm in the process of redesigning my user page. I am aware that there are some tools that analyse contributions by a user. In the mid-term I may want to request the admin tool box once I hit 10K edits later this year. It would be nice to be able to lay out on my user page some analysis of what I have done beyond what is there already. The important analytical dimensions I can think of are:

• to which articles and accompanying talk pages have made most edits or the most substantial edits,
• what proportion of my edits are in mainspace, article talk space, user talk space etc.
• under which projects do the greater proportion of my edits fall.

What tools would people recommend for these purposes? Are there any others you can recommend for things I haven't thought of. Thanks--Peter cohen (talk) 23:16, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

• http://toolserver.org/%7Esoxred93/count/index.php?name=Peter_cohen&lang=en&wiki=wikipedia –xeno^talk 23:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

• • Oo that looks good, thanks. ANy tools that record more articles?--Peter cohen (talk) 00:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

• • • Ah I've now spotted how to do that. Thanks.--Peter cohen (talk) 00:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Move-tool Rdr option

The move-tool page includes an option to suppress creation of a Rdr for the moved page, or of one for each of the two being moved. Usually an article worth moving has a talk page, but the main-namespace page that will take over the moved page's title is unlikely to initially need any talk. I've responded to this situation in various ways. The full range of choices that occurs to me is:

1. Leave all three boxes checked, and delete the talk-page Rdr that results.
2. Uncheck create-Rdr (wincing at the red-tinged warning msg saying you're recreating a de-facto "deleted" page), and create the new Dab page, new primary-topic article, or presumably needed Rdr, thus starting the history of the new main-namespace page.  * 
3. Uncheck move-talk-page, then separately move the talk page, copying the same "reason for move" and unchecking create-Rdr
4. Leave all three boxes checked, and immediately edit the talk-pg Rdr to convert it to a soft Rdr
5. Leave all three boxes checked, and count on someone, when talk on the talk-pg commences, to edit it to start with a soft Rdr.

* ^{Note re point 2 above -- the No-Move-tool-Rdr option}
BTW, once the new main-namespace page is created, its edit history shows no sign of a deletion, but its public-logs page does show e.g.

moved Outgroup to Outgroup (cladistics) [without redirect]

If (per option 2) the talk page is left uncreated, the first edit page of a session that (if saved) will create it has a similar red-tinged warning msg (only similar, bcz "Talk:" appropriately appears in both this one's links). The same msg appears (along with "There is no revision history for this page.") on its history page, which can be reached by editing a URL, or by using Pop-up tools from the edit page; a third route is via pop-ups, from a link (other than one on a page's tabs) to the main-namespace page, by hovering "talk" on the pop-up menu and clicking "history" when the talk-page's menu pops up.

Note that only the last 2 avoid breaking any existing links from other talk pages, in ways whose repair probably require (brief or extensive) consultation of edit histories.
On reflection, i'm inclined to think that immediate soft Rdr is the right approach (soft-Rdr only-when-needed will not occur to many discussion-starting editors, especially the non-signing IPs who often initiate on a page's talk; hard Rdr as talk page content -- for a main-namespace page that was only briefly a Rdr -- violates the principle of least astonishment, and in fact can create complete frustration on the part of the user: Rdr'n to an article is often unsurprising & the "Rdr'd from..." notice can go unnoticed without harm; in contrast, Rdr'n to a talk page that is only tenuously and perhaps cryptically related to a corresponding un-Rdr'd main-namespace page can be "indistinguishable from [evil] magic", and very off-putting to a non wiki-editor.
I came to VPT intending to suggest changing the move to so that creation of main-namespace and talk Rdrs become separable from each other. If others support my new insight abt soft Rdrs, i suggest that the move tool at least to have a red-tinged message drawing attention to something like WP:Soft redirect, whenever a combined main-namespace/talk page move is requested.
It might in fact be a good idea, whenever a talk page is moved (even separately) without explicit suppression of Rdr (ands without explicit request for a "hard" Rdr), for the move tool to leave behind a soft Rdr rather than a plain "hard" one.
--Jerzy•t 23:17, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Tl;dr, just leave the redirects behind. They're cheap. –xeno^talk 23:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

• Color this
  X UNRESOLVED
  -- tho i've probably already given too much detail, and will simply reiterate: Tk pgs should discuss their accompanying articles & Rdr'g to discussions of other articles considered harmful.
  --Jerzy•t 18:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  

I'm not trying to be difficult, but I still don't understand the problem. Redirects to articles have the talk pages of the redirect redirected to the talk page of the article. So? –xeno^talk 18:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

problem with clicking on PDF file

Clicking on File:Apollo 11 Tapes Report.pdf and then "open PDF" brings up Adobe Reader with a blank page and an error message. If I enter "File:Apollo 11 Tapes Report.pdf" into the search box it works. Is this a bug? Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 00:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah something is wrong with the document or the conversion process. When I download it, the text is blurry. I don't understand what you mean by "searching" for the file though as it would just bring you back to that page. Gary King (talk) 02:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

If I enter "File:Apollo 11 Tapes Report.pdf" in the Search/Go box and click "Go" it works as it should. If I click on it from there and click "open PDF" it works and the text is clear. The error is when clicking on File:Apollo 11 Tapes Report.pdf and then "open PDF". Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 02:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I went to the file via the search box as you said, downloaded the file, and the text still appears blurred. I don't understand why that method would return a different result, anyway. Gary King (talk) 02:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Looking at it on File:Apollo 11 Tapes Report.pdf, the text looks blurred, but not so much when downloaded. The problem, however, is that (foe me at least) it doesn't show anything when clicking on File:Apollo 11 Tapes Report.pdf and then "open PDF" - just a blank page and an Adobe Reader error message. Do you get the error message? (It might only be me.) Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 02:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Did you click http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Apollo_11_Tapes_Report.pdf? It is not blurred. Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 02:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Bubba, I did not get an error message but that's most likely because I am using a different computer setup than you are (I'm on a Mac and using Preview.app to read PDF files). Anyway, when I open the PDF file directly from the link above, the text is still blurred. No error message though. Gary King (talk) 02:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Clicking on the link above works. I have the problem with Firefox but not with IE. The Beta version of WP has no effect on the problem. Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 02:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

If clicking on that link gives you a readable PDF file then something is wrong with your setup, as that is the exact same link that your browser goes to if you try to download the PDF from File:Apollo 11 Tapes Report.pdf. Gary King (talk) 02:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I have the problem with Firefox and I am using some sort of add-on for PDFs in it. Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 03:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Hm, using Firefox, and it looks pretty clear to me. Woogee (talk) 22:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Then the problem is most likely with the Firefox PDF add-onm I have. Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 22:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

That's possible, I don't have that add-on. Woogee (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Special Page Problem

There's a major problem I've noticed. If this doesn't belong here, please move it to where it does belong. Anyway, whenever you type a special page that doesn't exist, it always says "Return to Main Page". Now, the problem here is that it always says that, no matter what page you were on before (so if you were on the page Wikipedia, for example, it would still say "Return to Main Page"). Please fix this as soon as possible. Thank you. --Hadger 04:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The question is whether or not the wiki software keeps track of what page you were just viewing. Typically this is done by adding an extra parameter to the URL. There's also the JavaScript method, but that's not always reliable as some people have JavaScript disabled, etc. I don't think this feature exists in the software and will be implemented any time soon, which is why it just suggests that you return to the Main Page. If you really want, you can just use your browser's back button to return to where you were. Gary King (talk) 05:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The login screen offers the correct "return to" link. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 13:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

That's because the Login/register link explicitly contains the "returnto=" option. You would have to add that to each and every special page link. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

If the feature already exists in the software, then yeah it could be done for Special links, too. Depending on how those links are constructed, it doesn't have to be added to each one, of course; it'd just have to be added to the function creating the links. If that's the case, then this could be a legitimate suggestion to be added to MediaWiki's Bugzilla. Gary King (talk) 17:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

TOC keeps collapsing

This probably has some simple answer, but recently my TOCs keep showing up as collapsed by default instead of open by default. Is this something that I've done? I've asked around and most others aren't seeing it. Gigs (talk) 05:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

If you collapse a TOC, then they will all appear collapsed afterward. If you expand one again, then they will all be expanded once again. If you tried that and they no longer stay expanded, then try clearing your browser's cache and cookies. Gary King (talk) 05:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Need help with a table

I created a table that works fine in my Sandbox, but when I go to put it on the article it's intended for, it screws up. The problem is that I want to keep a background color in the table (a soft pastel green), and also have a dark green border. But when I save it to the article, it surrounds everything below the table with the dark green border, and fills the whole lower part of the article with the light pastel green color. I've tried to do everything I could think of, and have been working on it for hours, all to know avail. Does anyone who knows about table design have time to look at this? I would be so grateful! Here is my Sandbox (to see how it's supposed to look): User:Saukkomies/My Sandbox

And here is the article where it isn't working right: House burning of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture

You'll see the table when you get there, you can't miss it. It's entitled: Periodization table of Neolithic cultures that practiced house burning Thanks! --Saukkomies ^talk 06:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem is in your original code, so it's actually "broken" in both your sandbox and the article. I fixed it. Gary King (talk) 08:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks so much Gary! I deeply appreciate your help. :) --Saukkomies ^talk 01:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Extra line added when transcluding a template that begins with a line enclosed in curly braces

For some reason, an extra line is added immediately before {{NYinttop}} wherever it's used. Similarly, this revision of {{Jcttop}} did the same thing until I came up with a workaround this morning. This is probably a MediaWiki bug, but does anyone know of a workaround that can be used to eliminate the extra line in the meantime? (As a side note, the presence of the extra line is only noticeable when the template is preceded by another blank line separating the template from a paragraph; however, I'd appreciate a better workaround than removing that line.) – TMF 12:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Well known problem. It's not really a bug as a line with a template and a newline character would, well, have a template and a newline character. Any two newline characters in a row creates a new paragraph in MediaWiki. So this is really just expected behavior. You'll just have to remove one of the newlines to "fix" this. If the software were to fix this for you, then it would have to "trim" the text, which could return undesired results since sometimes people WANT newlines but then cannot create them, and therefore the software instead acts the way it is now. Gary King (talk) 17:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

But the template doesn't have a new line in it, which is the issue here. The only new line in {{NYinttop}} is where the documentation is, and since that's enclosed in "noinclude" tags, that shouldn't be transcluded. – TMF 17:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

It looks like you fixed it with your edit. Gary King (talk) 17:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

For {{Jcttop}} yes, for {{NYinttop}} no. See List of county routes in Erie County, New York (225–256) (which is a horrible article, but that's beside the point), where two new lines are present before both uses of NYinttop, even though there's only one new line preceding the template in the article and no new lines in the template. – TMF 18:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you may be referring to the bug or feature documented here: Meta:Help:Newlines and spaces#Automatic newline at the start: "Templates starting with *, #, :, ; or {| automatically get a newline at the start" (and similarly at Help:Newlines and spaces#Automatic newline at the start: "Templates starting with *, #, or : automatically get a newline at the start"). In which case, obscuring the start character(s) with a dummy template may help. — Richardguk (talk) 18:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that would definitely explain it. How would I go about obscuring the start character in this case? – TMF 18:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

One way to sidestep the bug/feature would be to use <table><tr><td>...</td></tr></table> HTML syntax instead of wikitable syntax, as this is not senstive to line breaks in the code.

Looking more closely at {{Jcttop}}, I think the problem may be related to the optional "The entire route is in..." text preceding the table as plain text. So the template can begin with text (inline or paragraphed depending on where the template is placed) or a block element (the table), according to the arguments sent to it. One simplification would be to move the text to follow (rather than precede) the table. But this might be too complicated given that you are using multi-part templates to build the table. Another option might be to incorporate the text into an optional row prior to the table heading (taking care to make it span the appropriate number of columns), so that the template generates only tabular output.

The template currently includes the code: ...<LINEBREAK>{|{}}| class="wikitable"... This seems to translate to if the optional text applies, end it with a linebreak and the opening brace of a wikitable-start; otherwise just have the opening brace of a wikitable-start; then close the pair of braces from the opening #if; then add a pipe to turn the table brace (from either the true or false part of the long #if) into wikitable markup "{|"; then apply the 'wikitable' class.... It's not clear to me why the {| wikitable markup has been split across the closing pair of braces rather than falling entirely within or (more simply) following the initial conditional code. Maybe changing the code to ...|}}<LINEBREAK>{| class="wikitable"... would clarify things.

I won't pretend to understand all that is happening here, but those are the options I would consider.

— Richardguk (talk) 19:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, {{jcttop}} is fine, it's {{NYinttop}} that has the issue at the moment since all the latter template is is a call to {{jcttop}} with state=NY specified. – TMF 21:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Experimenting with Special:ExpandTemplates, it does seems as though the template-within-a-template is leading the bug/feature to add a double linebreak rather than a single linebreak before the table. Given that, the only other option I can think of would be to copy (or subst) the relevant code from {{Jcttop}} into {{NYinttop}} and amend it there instead of double-transcluding it. — Richardguk (talk) 22:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

This is Template:Bug. Happy‑melon 00:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Great, a bug that's been open for two years with no fix in sight. *sigh* @Richardguk: I think what I'll just do instead is call {{jctint}} where the extra line is an issue, i.e. where {{NYinttop}} is used following prose and not starting a section (where the presence of the extra line doesn't matter). It's a shame that this is for all intents and purposes an unresolvable issue, but I appreciate everyone's help anyway. – TMF 01:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

E-mail User gone from Toolbox?

I can't seem to find "E-mail User" on the toolbox (or anywhere) on the left side of the page on user pages and user talk pages in which I know they have e-mail enabled. I can always use Special:Email but I'm confused as to why I cannot find it in the toolbox where it always has been. There's no reason that I shouldn't be seeing it as I'm an admin and definitely not blocked and I haven't heard anything about a developer changing the coding to remove the Email User link. Thanks, Valley2city^‽ 15:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm still seeing it (at least, I saw it on your page!) in Firefox... ╟─TreasuryTag►directorate─╢ 16:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The "E-mail user" link on your user page works for me, too. First thing first: try blanking your monobook.js page, then do a hard refresh as explained on that page, to see if that fixes it for you. Gary King (talk) 17:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe it's a Google Chrome thing. As a Dell Tech is currently working on my laptop I'm on another computer and it worked for one refresh in Firefox and then disappeared and it did not work in IE. There possibly is something in my monobook as I have a lot of administrative and other tools run from it. I'll take a look and see if I can figure out if anything is wrong. Thanks. Valley2city^‽ 18:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Transcluded related changes feed breaks section headers

At Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom, the transcluded feed of related changes started distrupting the headers for all the sections on the page: [1] . This had been working fine before, but today the page headers went wacky and the only thing that has been able to restore them is removing that transcluded feed. Halp! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.26.235.126 (talk) 19:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

This is know problem bugzilla:16129 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

"nowiki" inside "pre" problem

Why this code:

<span style="white-space:nowrap;"><nowiki>[[File:{{PAGENAME}}|thumb|Legenda]]</span></nowiki>

inside <pre></pre> result in this:

<span style="white-space:nowrap;">[[File:{{PAGENAME}}|thumb|Legenda]]</span>

See for example this in edit view:

<span style="white-space:nowrap;">[[File:{{PAGENAME}}|thumb|Legenda]]</span>

It's not the same. Isn't something wrong? Mosca (talk) 23:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what you're trying to achieve, but how about using one of the following instead of "pre"? - Pointillist (talk) 23:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

<span style="white-space: pre; font-family: monospace; display: block;"><nowiki>[[File:{{PAGENAME}}|thumb|Legenda]]</nowiki>

result= [[File:{{PAGENAME}}|thumb|Legenda]]

or just

<code><nowiki>[[File:{{PAGENAME}}|thumb|Legenda]]</nowiki>

result= [[File:{{PAGENAME}}|thumb|Legenda]]

Try:

<span style="white-space:nowrap;"><nowiki>[[File:{{PAGENAME}}|thumb|Legenda]]</nowiki></span>

That is, doubling the nowikis. Look at it in the edit window to see what I mean. Happy‑melon 23:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for you answers. I'm not trying to find solutions. What I mean is: "nowiki" really works inside "pre" while other code (<ref></ref>, <includeonly></includeonly>, <blockquote></blockquote>, tables, wiki code in general...) is shown like plain text? Mosca (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Back in the old days we had to use <nowiki> tags inside the <pre> tags, otherwise all other tags were interpreted by MediaWiki. So for that reason <nowiki> tags were not shown, since they were not supposed to be seen. I am pretty sure that behaviour was kept for backwards compatibility, otherwise lots of old <pre><nowiki> ... </nowiki></pre> usages out there would suddenly have shown their old <nowiki> tags.

If you want to actually show a <nowiki> tag then we usually code the tag like this: "<nowiki>". Here's an example, check it out in the edit window too:

<nowiki> Some text. </nowiki> 

Of course, it is now some years since the <pre> tags were updated to also have the functionality of the <nowiki> tags, so it is probably time to update MediaWiki to show <nowiki> tags inside them.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for you explanation. I though <pre> worked fine unless it had another <pre></pre> inside <pre></pre>. It's strange since I never saw this problem. Always learning. Mosca (talk) 02:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

You probably haven't seen it before since it is so rare that we need to show <nowiki> tags inside <pre> tags, and the editors that write such examples are usually very experienced and already know how to handle that.

By the way, if you want to show <pre> tags inside <pre> tags, then you escape them the same way: "<pre>". The "<" part simply is the html code for the lower than "<" character. So here's an example with that:

<pre> Some text. </pre> 

We use such escaping to insert all kinds of special characters that otherwise would be interpreted by MediaWiki, like hash "#" = "#", space " " = " ", pipe "|" = "|", and braces "{ }" = "{ }" and so on. We mostly use this in template code. Wikipedia of course has several articles about this.

--David Göthberg (talk) 10:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Can I change the link color by style attribute rather than setup a CSS?

I want to make a parameter in the template which will control the text color. The text entry isn't linked by default. Rather I prefer to make it optional to modify link color along the unlinked text because the default background is quite deep, making the default linking color scheme to hard to read. Can I change the link color by style attribute like style="(link-color):white" or something like that? -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 04:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Not without sticking span tags with style attributes within every link, off the top of my head. --Izno (talk) 06:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I suggest that the Image Annotator gadget be installed for Wikipedia.

I suggest that the Image Annotator gadget be installed for the Wikipedia site. This is a gadget that allows people to comment on portions of a picture. The gadget is active over at WikiCommons and I find that it's useful. Installing the gadget on Wikipedia would not only make this functionality available there, but would also allow Wikipedia readers to see comments attached to Wikicommons photos. Without the gadget Wikipedia readers will not even realize that there are notes attached to a Wikicommons photo.

Here is an example of a Wikicommons photo that has notes attached. By hovering your mouse cursor over the photo you can read the notes. Also notice the "add note" button, that's the entry point to using the gadget. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magnus_890_electric_chord_organ.JPG

Here is a Wikipedia page that displays the above photo from Wikicommons, but the notes are not visible because the Image Annotator gadget is not available on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_organ

If a reader was to find the photo interesting and click on it to get an enlarged view, s/he would get to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magnus_890_electric_chord_organ.JPG

If you hover your mouse on the above photo you will see that the notes do not get displayed. The reader would not even know that any notes are available. To see the notes, the reader would have to be really persistent and also lucky enough to click the correct one of several links on this page to get to the source page on the Wikimedia Commons page, where they would finally be able to see the notes. Few readers would be that persistent.

The gadget can only be installed by an admin. I have requested the admins install this but three different ones have vacillated, with one calling for some sort of vote/consensus. That's installed on my talk page.

The help file for installing the gadget is here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator/Installation

TheLarryBrown (talk) 04:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Those admins are correct, Larry - You need consensus for any changes to the page involved, since it effects *everyone*. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Boribori!)} 04:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I can see this appropriate for free content that can be built on (eg commons licensing) but I don't see this working for non-free content - if it is not as controlled as regular text edits, I could see malicious users "vandalizing" images with these tags, and possibly get us in trouble with copyright owners. --MASEM (t) 04:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Category intersections

Is there a way to generate a list of all articles that fall in the categories:

• Category:All unreferenced BLPs, and
• Category:India (and all its subcats)

That would help the India wikiproject review the unsourced BLPs that fall under its purview (at least the ones that are sorted into a India category). Abecedare (talk) 15:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Category_intersection —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

A pity. I was hoping that someone would at least have a tool available to generate such lists on request, even if it's not a feature of mediawiki itself. Any volunteers ? Abecedare (talk) 15:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

You mean like WP:CATSCAN which is linked from the category intersection page? Nanonic (talk) 15:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. I just found out about it. Am trying that and Intersection search tool. Abecedare (talk) 15:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Update for anyone interested: Intersection search tool worked for me and was used to generate this list, which is now being reviewed by members of India wikiproject. Abecedare (talk) 23:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Download all Templates (Having issues)

I've spent the better part of three weeks trying to figure out, on my own, how to download the templates for Wikipedia to Upload to my own site (which has the Wikimedia engine installed) and I am at a loss. I have already asked for help at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates and Wikipedia:Help desk the WikiProject Templates sent me to the Help Desk which sent me here... can someone help me out? Does anyone know how to do this? Quando Omni Flunkis Moritati - ( When all else fails, play dead ) (talk) 19:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I sincerely doubt you want all templates on the English Wikipedia on your own wiki. But if so, there are database dumps available that contain pages in the Template namespace. If you just want a particular template, use Special:Export on this site and use "Special:Import" on your own site. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I know it sounds ridiculous... but I really do. Whether or not I use them is irrelevant to me. I am putting together pages right now, and I just put together a page with references. I used the and the Reflist template. It didn't work. There are other entries I've tried to make that I discovered were apparently handled by Templates on Wikipedia. Not being able to just use my Wiki as if it was part of Wikipedia is frustrating, especially with templates that are reliant on templates. Rather than have to research every template to see if it requires other templates, I would rather tap up to 5-6GB of space on my own server for templates alone to avoid dealing with THAT hassle. So yeah, I really would rather download ALL templates. I've tried to dumps. I cannot get a single dump to give me an actual file. And I've tried to get them from pc's at work, home, and even from a Mac laptop. Nothing. I'm so beyond frustrated... Surely someone has directions for grabbing ALL WIKIPEDIA TEMPLATES in one easy swipe. I don't have the time to study each template I want and make sure it doesn't require more templates... this is just plain easier. I know I repeated myself... I'm frustrated. HELP! Quando Omni Flunkis Moritati - ( When all else fails, play dead ) (talk) 20:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the process of setting up something that functions, looks, and feels like Wikipedia is bad. I'd really like to see Wikimedia publish a version of Mediawiki that provides a relatively comprehensive set of template, extensions, and other things to provide people who want it with an experience that mimics Wikipedia. But wishing for that to happen isn't going to help you now. Of the dumps, the smallest one you could use is pages-articles, which includes all the templates, but also includes all the articles and image descriptions. It is 5.4 GB with bzip compression and would expand to somewhat more than 100 GB uncompressed. I just verified that the file is present and you should be able to downloaded it. Browsers sometimes choke on very large downloads, but if you have a Linux style server with shell access, I've found that wget from the command line seems to always work. That said, assuming you get the file you still have to either load lots of unnecessary article content (which I wouldn't recommend unless your database is backed up by a lot of RAM), or you will need to filter the dump to extract only the template pages. Overall this approach is a lot of work, and far from an easy solution. But it can be done if that's what you really want.

An alternative I've used (more or less with success) is whenever you find a template you don't have but that you want, create similar wikicode on a page in your userspace, e.g. something like User:Randomblink/dummy. After saving the page with the corresponding template calls in it, head to Special:Export. Add "User:Randomblink/dummy" (or whatever you called your page) to the big box of things to download and then make sure to check the box "include templates". When you hit download it will then include not only that page, but all templates that were needed to render it (up to 1000 per export). You then take that file over to Special:Import on your site and it will load the necessary templates for that specific application. This way you avoid having to track down the dependencies yourself. It is still likely to take many such downloads before you have copied all the templates you might want, but it is probably still less trouble than trying to copy all of Wikipedia's templates via dump. Dragons flight (talk) 21:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, it took me a couple hours but I have collected ALL the Wikipedia Templates into an Importable XML file... ugh! NEVER want to do that again... ah well, it's importing now. Thanks anyway one and all. Reverend randomblink - Ask and you shall believe. (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

It might be worth posting that somewhere (don't know where though) so others can use it in future. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 15:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Userboxtop template is breaking my user page formatting

The formatting on my user page is being broken by the 'userboxtop' template. Notice the huge gap in the section titled "Interesting Wikipedia Articles". Any suggestions on how to fix this? Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

It looks like someone fixed it for you but you made a edit that broke it again. So I added the {{FixBunching}} template, which kind of fixes it. Gary King (talk) 04:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Their edit didn't fix it for me (I'm using Firefox 3.5), so it was broken for me still before I made the last edit. The editor that attempted to fix it was someone on IRC, and the change that he made fixed it for his screen, but not for me and for other people on IRC at the time. {{FixBunching}} is not doing anything for me either. I still have the gap on my screen. Thanks for trying to help. Any other suggestions? Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems to have something to do with the {{top}} etc, templates for creating columns. That is the only noticable difference I can see between my page, and that of, say, User:Soxwon. Any idea why these might interfere with each other?Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Cross referencing two categories

Is anyone aware of a tool which lets an editor see pages with the same two categories, like, for example,Category:Unreferenced BLPs and Category:American songwriters Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 22:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Have you taken a look at WP:CI and Wikipedia:CatScan? – ukexpat (talk) 22:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Ikip, see above. Abecedare (talk) 22:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

You folks are wonderful, god bless you. Ikip 23:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Edit box - symbols, IPA, etc

That thingy under the edit box where you can select symbols, IPA, Greek letters, etc doesn't seem to be working for me. I clisk on the relevant bit in the drop-down menu, but the symbols or whatever don't come up. I'm using IE8 on WinXP. DuncanHill (talk) 23:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Blank User:DuncanHill/monobook.js, see if that works. Then remove all gadgets. Then try a different browser. Gary King (talk) 04:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

But first of all, bypass your browser cache to reload the javascript that adds the "edittools". And if/when you do changes to your personal /monobook.js, then you normally need to wait one minute, then again bypass your browser cache to see the changes.

--David Göthberg (talk) 10:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Bypassing the cache did nothing. DuncanHill (talk) 14:19, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• There was a thing called "wikimarks" in my monobook, which has never worked properly. Removed that and Ctrl+F5, and it let me select the symbols, but now I can't change from those. DuncanHill (talk) 14:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• • Then I tried blanking my monobook, I could change which symbols/alphabet but only when in the edit screen for my monobook, and whatever I chose their stuck for other pages. Then I restored everything to my monobook apart from the wikimarks thing, and now it all seems OK. Thanks everyuone for the help :)♥æЖ DuncanHill (talk) 14:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

What happened here was probably that DuncanHill didn't wait one minute between editing his /monobook.js and bypassing his browser cache. It often takes 30-60 seconds from the edit until the new versions of javascript and CSS pages are available at all Wikipedia servers. So reloading before that usually gives the old version. While in the edit preview of your /monobook.js the current version is loaded so you see the effect there immediately.

--David Göthberg (talk) 15:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

No images when searching

When I search anything in wikipedia no image will show with text, this problem has been occuring for last few weeks, I have cleared my cache but still I am facing problem —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.20.19.18 (talk) 04:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Web browsers have a setting where you can choose if images should be loaded or not. You might have unset that setting. Do you see images on other web sites?

Another possibility is that you might have adblocked upload.wikimedia.org, since that is where our images are loaded from. If you have an "adblocking" plug-in in your web browser check there. Such blocking can also be done in the firewall if you are using one, so check there too.

--David Göthberg (talk) 16:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Or are you talking about images in the results ? In that case, you might be looking for Google instead of our own search feature. Or you have to select one of the different searchmodes in the results page, because by default not all namespaces are searched I think. See also Wikipedia:Searching. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Unusual undo results?

A few moments ago, I clicked the "undo" button to revert revision [2] at Discover Card. I also manually edited the undo to restore the Sears Tower link (which had been changed to Willis Tower in revision 339011701). When I saved this edit, I noticed the bytecount inexplicably dropped from 13,223 to 11,388; I then checked the diff and saw that various citations and prose were removed through my edit. I then attempted to simply undo my edit, without making and manual changes (until I figured out what was going wrong), which did not restore the material that went missing in my first edit. I'm at a loss for figuring out what's going on here. Anybody? jæs (talk) 00:40, 24 January 2010 (UTC)