Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bug reports and feature requests should be made in Phabricator (see how to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported differently (see how to report security bugs).

Newcomers to the technical village pump are encouraged to read these guidelines prior to posting here. If you want to report a JavaScript error, please follow this guideline. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk. Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for five days.

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"Pending changes" yet again

Following on from the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 188#Pending Changes again, it looks like I'm getting the "pending changes" error yet again, as can be seen from recent edits here. Why does this error keep coming back? Maestro2016 (talk)

Ultimately because the underlying bug hasn't been fixed yet, and while FlaggedRevs doesn't have an "owner" on the dev team it's unlikely to get fixed any time soon! ƒirefly ( t · c ) 19:01, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Huh, I don't really know if edits using Twinkle count here, but apparently, my edits at Smilodon are automatically accepted now? Maybe this a sign that they're starting to fix the bug? Hopefully... JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 17:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, screw my last comment, it seems I still have the problem... JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 16:26, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I have the same issue from what I have been seeing, see Special:AdvancedReviewLog and there were many bot accepts of edits by autoconfirmed users that have not been auto accepted, and also I have been trying to accept edits by autoconfirmed users that have not been auto accepted. This issue is still present. User3749 (talk) 17:34, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

My scripts are not working correctly

A bunch of my installed gadgets aren't working for me since yesterday, but I see through edit summaries on my watchlist that they are still operational. I'm not able to use the User:GregU/dashes.js, User:Ohconfucius/script/EngvarB.js, or User:Ohconfucius/script/MOSNUM dates.js scripts, and possibly others. Twinkle is partially working for me, but it wouldn't allow me to welcome an IP earlier today. There's also a weird thing on my notifications, where instead of displaying the time since the ping, it shows {{PLURAL:$1|$1h}} for all of them. Any ideas of what is happening? I haven't done anything that would have changed anything. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:00, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Have you contacted GregU (talk · contribs) and Ohconfucius (talk · contribs) on their talk pages? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:21, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Redrose64, I haven't, because this doesn't seem like a problem with their scripts per se, as I have seen other people using them today. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:24, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Longer reply coming: This is common when one of your scripts breaks, usually due to a change in MediaWiki. Izno (talk) 23:29, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Let's do some cleaning:

• Use the Twinkle gadget in preferences. Remove the line in User:Muboshgu/vector.js which imports it there.
• Remove everything in User:Muboshgu/monobook.js except for the last line. Move the last line to User:Muboshgu/common.js if you still want access to Lupin (I do not know if it works). Consider whether the options stored in monobook.js are still relevant to your WP:TWPREFS and add them there.
• Move every script in your vector.js into User:Muboshgu/common.js.
• Use the XFDcloser gadget in preferences. Remove the line in common.js which imports it there.
• Use the Prosesize gadget in preferences. Remove the line in common.js which imports it there.
• Switch User:Cameltrader/Advisor.js to User:Ebrahames/Advisor.js.
• Switch User:GregU/dashes.js to User:Ohconfucius/dashes.js.
• Remove one version of User:Ohconfucius/formatgeneral.js. You are loading 2.
• Remove one version of User:Ohconfucius/script/MOSNUM dates.js. You are loading 2.
• Remove Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/delsort.js. It is empty.

Start with that. Izno (talk) 23:41, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Will do... – Muboshgu (talk) 23:46, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Izno, all done with those steps, it did not fix the problem but I was noticing how cluttered it was getting on those three subpages. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:55, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

@Muboshgu: in User:Muboshgu/common.js, turn off all the scripts, then make sure your gadget-powered things are working. Then turn then back on one at a time to try to find which one is causing you a problem -- then go follow up with that script's author. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:58, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Okay, one more besides Xaos' comment: Remove the line for User:Kephir/gadgets/rater.js also, since Evad's version is maintained. Izno (talk) 00:10, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

With all of the scripts disabled, Twinkle is still not working right for me. And reenabling User:Evad37/rater.js back on (that script had been working for me before), it is now not working. :/ – Muboshgu (talk) 00:12, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Nm that rater part, apparentlly the Evad rater shows up in a different spot then the Kephir gadget I'm used to. I'll just have to keep futzing around I guess. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:20, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

They're working on some pages, but not others. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:49, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

for now. I reset all of my preferences back to default and spent a bunch of time toggling scripts and gadgets on and off. I've gotten everything I need working, and found some interesting tools I hadn't tried before. Thank you everyone for your help! – Muboshgu (talk) 03:32, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

@Izno and Xaosflux:. Thanks for troubleshooting the problem. FYI, I would confirm that there have been no changes to my scripts of late from my end, and what you have done to solve the problem seems to prove it. Best, -- Ohc ^¡digame! 16:33, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Underscores in raw links

I have been seeing blue links with underscores, often. I do not understand why some are shown this way with underscores. The second example below is a by bot reverting a BLP addition. Both observed 2 April. What is the significance, if any? Under what circumstances would they (underscores) be appropriate. How would I achieve this, if I needed to? Thank you.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 21:13, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Coats_of_arms_in_infoboxes

• https://www.reddit.com/r/MotoUK/comments/mg3q89/a_disgusting_act_he_keeps_blocking_every_one/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb

Underscores and spaces are interchangeable in wikilinks [[...]]. It's nearly always best to use spaces. Some tools use underscores for no good reason, maybe slightly easier coding or a programmer who didn't think about it. Underscores added by editors are probably copied from url's in most cases. Spaces are represented by underscores in url's. They are not interchangeable there. The only case where underscores is better in wikilinks is if the subject is written with underscores like static_cast and others in Category:Articles with underscores in the title. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:01, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Hey Rocknrollmancer, underlines are purely optional. This commonly happens when copying/pasting from the browser bar instead of the visual text on the screen. I try to remove the underlines for visual reasons, but both are acceptable technically and lead to exact same page. When pasting a link outside of wikipedia, the underscores are important, so that your website knows it's one url and not multiple. Shushugah (talk) 22:06, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you - makes me feel inadequate if I don't understand. I have now been playing around and can see that:
https://en.wikipedia.orgwikiWikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Coats_of_arms_in_infoboxes
is rendered as:
Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Coats_of_arms_in_infoboxes
by omitting the first part and adding [[...]].
Many thanks. BTW, UTC doesn't allow for British Summer Time which is +1 hour, but I'm sure you know this and it's insurmountable.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 22:56, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

UTC intentionally has no summer time and doesn't want to match British Summer Time. You can select "Europe/London" as your time zone at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:07, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

ThanQ, it's already set that way: Server time:23:28, Local time:00:28 (now 33 minutes).--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 23:32, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I had a similar conundrum with a clerk announcing at approx 11.30PM that evidence phase would close at midnight "in approx two hours". I had to query this as I'm used to ebay time as unequivocally 23:59:59, not with a +90/120 minutes tolerance. Stated to be flexibility for whomever was online after midnight. BTW, the 1 minute disparity when signing above was how my digital clock was manually set.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 23:42, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Spaces are never permitted in pure URLs - if desired, they must be encoded in some way, but the manner of encoding varies between websites. If the URL has a query string, most sites will use a plus sign + to represent a space in that part of a URL. Spaces before the query string are usually percent encoded, becoming %20. Wikipedia (and other sites using the MediaWiki software) allow the underscore as an alternative to %20, but not always as a valid replacement for the plus sign + in a query string. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:50, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Creating Special:Diff links?

If I'm on a diff page, is there an easy way to generate a Special:Diff/xxxx wikilink to that page? As far as I can tell, you need to manually type "Special:Diff/" and then copy-paste the oid out of the browser url bar. That's enough of a pain that I don't usually bother, and just grab the whole url. Am I missing something obvious? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:16, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

{{subst:url to diff}} exists. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:21, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Pppery, Hmmm, interesting, but that looks like as much effort to use as the manual process I described. It also doesn't seem to work in an edit comment. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:16, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Templates cannot be transcluded or substituted in edit summaries. Wikipedia:User scripts/List#Diffs shows CleanDiffURLs. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:42, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Try User:Enterprisey/diff-permalink. – SD0001 (talk) 16:50, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

SD0001, Ah, cool. That's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! -- RoySmith (talk) 22:44, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Need a new template design for religious text's verses

Can someone please invent a reference template (that maybe includes the preview ability) that allows a Bible verse to pop up and be readable within the text of an article? If it could be designed to be used by plugging in any religious text, that would be awesome as well. It probably needs to go to one of the off-WP sites that enable reading, and I think that's been the hold-up with this. They are all about the same, so picking one is max-nix. Right now, I can't find a way to reference texts under discussion so our readers can easily see what's being talked about. I am not techno at all, and as a result, I have total faith in your ability to work this magic! :-) It's really needed and would add value to WP articles on religion. Thank you!Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:56, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

This is basically not possible in a template without hosting a copy of the Bible on Wikipedia somewhere. Which then gets into the reason we have one or two templates that give you a choice of Bible to read. Izno (talk) 19:06, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Oof. The idea of the warring over which version of a religious text to use in these pop ups causes me to shudder.--Jorm (talk) 19:08, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

But Jorm dear, the current Bible verse template [[s:Bible (King James)/Psalms#Psalm 23|Psalms:23]] already allows the editor to choose which version of the Bible to reference. The current template is a link to those verses that are already available on wikipedia, just for that purpose, and it is already possible to link to the Revised Standard and a couple other versions as well. There's no reason to change any of that. My request isn't affected by that, and really, I think that's a non-issue. I've looked at several Bible sites and they all provide multiple versions of any verse you look for - automatically. You pick a version for what you are looking for, and voila, that's what pops up at the top of the page, but then there's also a list of the same verse in multiple other versions below it. Why can they do it and we can't? I have referencing envy.

But my actual complaint is that the current template isn't a pop up. A reader can't just hover and read the verse like in a preview function. That would be valuable - and would simply show the verse in whatever version the editor had chosen. It can be done Jorm, because it is being done elsewhere. We need that ability. It would better the encyclopedia by making it easier and more informative for our readers. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:59, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

No one is really saying the idea is impossible, it is doable, but it is tricky. [[s:Bible (King James)/Psalms#Psalm 23|Psalms:23]] links to an different website, called Wikisource, hosted by the same company as Wikipedia and as such the link is internal (although we also have internal links to non-affiliated wikis, but that is beside the point). Fetching content from a different website basically is not possible. If you really want to be thorough then the exception is Wikidata, but they rejected hosting bible verses already, all other wikis cant get data from each other since mw:Manual:$wgEnableScaryTranscluding is off, and no it will not be turned on. Like has been said the only option is to have the verses locally and make the template work that way.--Snaevar (talk) 08:18, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

If the passage is relevant enough for someone to definitely want to read it, then simply quote it. If it is not quite that relevant, there are several methods of making Bible references of which {{Bibleverse}} is probably the best. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 09:08, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Bummer. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:37, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Left aligning template contents

Not the most world-changing request, but I was wondering if a knowledgable editor would mind looking at Template:Peer review/Unanswered peer reviews sidebar and helping me make the text of the bullet-pointed list left aligned? I'm really scratching my head where to put the styling here. Thanks I hope! Tom (LT) (talk) 04:15, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

It oddly places the content in above so abovestyle = text-align:left; works. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:40, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Much appreciated. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:45, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Want to try out the latest greatest tool?

Registration is now open for a scientific study to test the efficacy of my new anti-promo tool. If you are interested in participating and you meet the inclusion criteria, please leave a message on my talk page. Inclusion criteria and other information about the study may be found on my talk page. Sam at Megaputer (talk) 04:26, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Penton, Tunica County, Mississippi

I wonder if someone could help me change the name of this place back to "Peyton". On March 5, 2020, an IP changed the name. I'm not sure if changing it back will make something go wonky. Thanks for your help! Magnolia677 (talk) 21:52, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

@Magnolia677: IPs cannot rename pages. The only IP edits dating from March 2020 are these two, which are simple text changes and should easily be revertable by any user. No special rights are required. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Sorry, I should have given more detail. Last year an IP went through the text of the article and changed all the "Peytons" to "Pentons". Then today User:Maxbmogs actually changed the name of the article to Penton. I changed all the text back to Peyton today, but the name of the article still needs to be changed back. Thanks! Magnolia677 (talk) 22:42, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

In which case, either yourself or Maxbmogs should be able to WP:MOVE the page back to where it came from. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:51, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Worked like a charm. Thanks! Magnolia677 (talk) 22:56, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Hide/Show links of collapsible table

Hi, the links which hide and show a collapsible table are commonly "[Hide]" and "[Show]". Can the links have other names? "Collapse" and "Expand" for example. Is there a way to have the collapse link in two places; at the top of the table and at the bottom? Thanks, PeterEasthope (talk) 23:07, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Collapse links cannot be placed at the bottom of a table. You cannot customize on per-page what the toggle displays, that can only be done in Javascript (it might be possible for you to personalize for yourself if you work hard enough, but I do not guarantee that it would look pretty). Collapse and expand are actually the default, but for historical reasons we preferred hide/show. Izno (talk) 01:49, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

OK, thanks Izno, ... PeterEasthope (talk) 03:28, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposal for finding longstanding bad articles

Thomas Ranch is about to be deleted, having existed in Wikipedia for over fifteen years without a single inline reference, and without ever having an external link to an independent source. Grub Smith, though a bit longer, has been in a similar state for an equally long time. I happened to come across these two not while searching for suspect articles but while doing general cleanup around the given name Thomas and the surname Smith. How many more articles are out there in this condition? I propose that the best way to find out, if technically feasible, would be to generate a list of articles that have never had an inline ref tag over the course of their existence, sorted by age, and push through them from the oldest on forward. If someone has the Wiki-fu to generate such a list, please have at it. BD2412 T 00:20, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Never over the course of their existence is probably a tall order, but WP:RAQ is probably a better first stop. Izno (talk) 01:51, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, a tall order, but great efforts yield great rewards. Thanks for the pointer. BD2412 T 02:41, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• BD2412, I seem to remember that the database replicas only include metadata, not the actual page contents. To get the contents, you need to go through the API (which is much slower). Somebody needs to check me on that. Just as a proof-of-concept, I wrote a trivial little python script that iterates over all pages in mainspace and searches for <ref> anywhere in the text. It's processing about 10 pages/second. We've got about 6 million articles (from WP:STATS, which I assume is talking about mainspace when it says, "6,281,819 articles"). So, we could scan every mainspace article in about a week. One could envision doing that. I'm guessing the number of revisions is 2 orders of magnitude higher, so searching every revision of every article would likely be prohibitive. First guess, a couple of years. I'm not sure what value it would add anyway. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:49, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

  We could cut that down significantly by first removing from the search every article that has a ref tag right now (which should be a substantial majority), and of those that remain, only searching articles created before, say, 2007. The value would just be clearing out old garbage. BD2412 T 03:00, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

An database scan should work. I tried searching for an ref tag on a lot smaller wiki than enwiki and it seems to work. Queries would not work, because they are not logged in an sql table.--Snaevar (talk) 08:00, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Snaevar, What query did you perform? Can you link to a Quarry page? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:02, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

They're likely talking about database dumps. Quarry won't work as you say – it doesn't have page texts. Pinging HaeB who I think can comment on the feasibility of processing the dumps for this task. – SD0001 (talk) 16:55, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I did an database scan using AWB, on an small wiki and I simply searched the main namespace for pages who do not have <ref>. That kind of search is done offline. The dump file contained all pages with the most current version only (pages-meta-current in the filename). The dump file was downloaded from dumps.wikimedia.org.--Snaevar (talk) 19:33, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

As noted in the WP:RAQ discussion, inquiries can further be narrowed to articles categorized in the Category:Companies category tree, or articles categorized in Category:Living people. That's where these sorts of problems appear most likely to arise. BD2412 T 15:15, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

@BD2412: why not begin with something like Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2006? For companies specifically use something like Cleanup listing for WikiProject Business (currently does not exist for WikiProject Companies but you can request one). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:17, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Neither of the articles noted above were so tagged, perhaps because they have external links (even though these link to sites unusable as sources). I am looking for things that have really slipped through the cracks. BD2412 T 16:20, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Sure, BD2412, but if some type of action is needed on articles with these specific problems, it would make sense to start with the ones that have already been identified. But I get your point. I sometimes run across low-traffic articles with obvious problems that have slipped through the cracks as well and tag them. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:24, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• Well, I spun up a VPS instance. Performance is hugely better than on Toolforge; I was able to scan 994,949 pages in just under 6 minutes! I'm not sure if this is what you had in mind, but I found all pages in Category:Living people that did not have </ref> anywhere in the text. Only found 7 pages:
  • Gianni Clerici
  • Sybille Gauvain
  • Stephen Holt (field hockey)
  • Artur Kaskov
  • Mike Kingery
  • Art Phillips (composer)
  • Carol Skelton

Does this seem plausible? -- RoySmith (talk) 02:27, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

BTW, https://github.com/roysmith/bad-articles -- RoySmith (talk) 02:31, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Somewhat remarkably, up until now none of those article were tagged as needing sources. I suspect that there are more out there, though. BD2412 T 04:04, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Pending changes update: "Approved" revisions incorrectly enabled on enwiki

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T278904

In page histories, manually accepted revisions are now displayed with a #d5fdf4 background instead of the #eaf3ff background used for automatically accepted revisions. The text "accepted by Username" has been replaced by "approved by Username", a change which I have overriden at MediaWiki:Revreview-hist-quality-user to match our protection policy's wording. If we find a little consensus to do so, an interface administrator can also override the new color. That said, I personally don't mind seeing the distinction between automatically and manually accepted changes. Note: Twinkle's rollback manually accepts the resulting revision, resulting in brightly highlighted vandalism reverts. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:43, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

No, wait, this is a bug. phab:T279276. MediaWiki:Revreview-hist-basic-user vs. MediaWiki:Revreview-hist-quality-user. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:51, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Now phab:T278904. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:13, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-14

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

Recent changes

• Editors can collapse part of an article so you have to click on it to see it. When you click a link to a section inside collapsed content it will now expand to show the section. The browser will scroll down to the section. Previously such links didn't work unless you manually expanded the content first. [1]

Changes later this week

• The citoid API will use for example 2010-12-XX instead of 2010-12 for dates with a month but no days. This is because 2010-12 could be confused with 2010–2012 instead of December 2010. This is called level 1 instead of level 0 in the Extended Date/Time Format. [2]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 April. It will be on all wikis from 8 April (calendar).

Future changes

• PAWS can now connect to the new Wiki Replicas. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work from 28 April. There is a new way to connect to the databases. Until 28 April both ways to connect to the databases will work. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech.

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

19:38, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Fool-proofing WP:Sandbox notice

Is there anyway of fool-proofing the notice so it won’t ever get deleted again? Perhaps make it smaller? More hidden comments? Move it to the page’s edit notice? --Heymid (contribs) 22:18, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Cyberbot I has a task that cleans the sandbox periodically, like this. I didn't dig in to its BRFA or logic to see why it sometimes takes a few hours between edits. cyberpower678 might be able to shed some light. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:57, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I know this. I haven't been living under a rock. So there’s no way of forcing the template to be there outside of putting it in the page’s wikitext along with everything else? A problem is that some users add the nobots template which disables bot editing of the page. And it’s not like the bot immediately restores the message once removed. --Heymid (contribs) 19:47, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Cyberbot I's BRFA for the task in question says it isn't exclusion compliant, so {{nobots}} shouldn't be an issue. – Rummskartoffel (talk • contribs) 15:50, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Who to give kudos for preview cards?

I noticed that someone finally added preview cards for enwiki articles, showing the first image in tweets, on slack, etc. I thought that was declined by the tech team. I'd like to give a hearty thank you to whomever coded that. Anyone know how to find out? mw:Extension:TwitterCards is still listed as "experimental" and is not shown as installed on any Wikipedia. 2601:647:4D00:2C40:6130:2EC6:6215:83F0 (talk) 23:44, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

You'll want the work on/around phab:T157145. Izno (talk) 00:00, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

List of articles that need improvement

I've come across a cluster of Wiki articles that are loaded with unsourced statements. What is the best way to get them on a list of articles that need improvement that everyone can see? I've been adding the Ref Improve template to the top of such articles. Does that automatically put it on some "articles needing improvement" list?

In some cases, the entire article is unsourced. Some contain line after line of equations in math-major notation, with no supporting footnotes. The average reader has no way to ascertain whether that "stuff" is supported by experts in the field, generally accepted, or some anonymous Wikipedia editor's original work. I've been trying to find reliable sources, but it's difficult because that requires access to specialized textbooks that aren't readily available online or in my local library. The articles I'm talking about concern finance. For example:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_income_analysis
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_to_maturity
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_duration

Thanks, BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 10:54, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

@BuzzWeiser196: {{Refimprove|date=April 2021}} adds the hidden categories Category:Articles needing additional references from April 2021 and Category:All articles needing additional references. The latter has 400,000 articles. You can enable "Show hidden categories" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. I recommend that for editors. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:08, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 11:12, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Editing a talk page blanks the entire discussion

I just added a comment at the last thread Talk:macOS High Sierra, and the edit window blanked all the existing text. Consequently, this diff has removed a bunch of comments (when I didn't want it to!) and ended up with a reply to the wrong thread. I know talk page communication is difficult, but if I'm struggling, what hope have new users got? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:58, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Same issue here, I was only able to get to edit here by doing it in mw:safemode. It doesn't appear to affect me while logged out (I popped into an incognito window and appeared to be able to edit fine). ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 15:20, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

If I comment out all of my extensions in Special:MyPage/common.js, it starts working. I'll go back and uncomment each one in turn, and let you know which is the culprit. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:22, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

That's probably not what's going on with mine; my common.js is blank (has been for years). ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 15:29, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Well, if I comment out importScript('User:Gary/comments in local time.js');, the problem goes away. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:30, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• @Ritchie333: I reverted changes in that personal userscript that were requested in MediaWiki_talk:Gadget-CommentsInLocalTime.js#Fix_for_incompatibility_with_DiscussionTools. That personal userscript seems to be in need of rewrite to modernize it for gadget use as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:35, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  I don't use that gadget but whatever changed seems to have fixed it for me. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 15:37, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  @ElHef: that gadget is just a reference back to the personal userscript mentioned above. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:39, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  Yeah, I just realized what that was referring to and I do have that enabled in prefs. Thanks for the quick fix. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 15:42, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• I have the same problem as Ritchie above. I tried to add this comment in the previous section, but was unable to do so. RolandR (talk) 15:05, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  @RolandR: try again (see above). — xaosflux ^Talk 15:38, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Help refining a search

Apologies if this is the wrong place, but I don't know where else to ask
I regularly search for links in articles to User pages, as these are contrary to MOS:DRAFTNOLINK and are often vandalism - usually linking to unacceptable content - or people mistakenly signing their additions to articles
To find these I search for insource:User insource:/\[\[ *User *:/ sorted by edit date - as here
Today, User:polbot has auto-created 150-160 articles, each of which includes User:polbot and this; along with User:GreenC bot/Job 18 and User:Kvng/RTH are cluttering up the search results, making it difficult to find the links to "real" users pages. However, I don't know enough about the coding to omit those three "users" from the search results - can anyone help me out ? Thanks - Arjayay (talk) 15:14, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

@Arjayay This search works. Not sure why you had wikipedia namespace selected in there which was causing a timeout. – SD0001 (talk) 15:19, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks SD0001 - that's really helpful, and very prompt - I was trying to put the omissions at the end - Thanks again - Arjayay (talk) 15:24, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

@Arjayay: This omits pages with a user link inside comment tags. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:04, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Wow PrimeHunter thanks a lot. I started off with 3250 search results this morning, SD0001 reduced that to 750, and you've got it down to 40 - My only regret is not asking sooner - thanks again to both of you - Arjayay (talk) 17:19, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

We also have Wikipedia:Database reports/Articles containing links to the user space but it's not live and it includes links made by templates, e.g. {{Proposed deletion/dated|...|nom = username}}, so it's less useful. It would be better if our search feature had a linksfrom: option (requested in phab:T253642). PrimeHunter (talk) 17:51, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Transcluding mainspace pages

I've discovered that some pages like Doctor Who (film) are being transcluded in other mainspace pages. I'm not sure I agree with this practice. This is a job that I think should be done only with templates. Most editors, especially if you're using VisualEditor, probably don't realize that editing the table at Doctor Who (film)#Production effects over 340 other articles. With that in mind, I have semi-protected the page indefinitely as high-risk, which is something that happens automatically in the templatespace.

What's even worse I think is using parser functions like #section and #section-h. This kind of selective transclusion offers useful functionality but it is fragile. #section requires special markup on the target page, and #section-h will break all transclusions if an editor changes or removes the target section heading.

Is there any technical reason not to use templates for these use-cases? If not, should we propose a policy/guideline to disallow mainspace transclusion? The practice seems to be widespread (~3,500 articles have a transclusion count of 5 or more). It would take a lot of work to convert everything to use templates, but we could at least deprecate and/or formally discourage this practice.

Thoughts? — MusikAnimal ^talk 15:57, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• Seems to easily overlap with scenarios brought about with Template:Excerpt. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:02, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• I have for quite some time considered making a bot to deal with transcluded sections changing names, but haven't got around to it. I think it's actually quite a good idea to tranclude sections to perhaps a handful other pages but when the count gets to the double digits it should probably be a template. I think in any case MusikBot probably should be enabled in mainspace, just in case. --Trialpears (talk) 16:24, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• The people wanted section transclusion and we gave it to them. This is what happens. I agree with Trial that while we support it, MB should probably operate in the mainspace. There should probably be a report for "large number of main space transclusions". --Izno (talk) 18:27, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• This is follow-up to Template talk:Infobox Doctor Who episode#Deriving an episode/serial number, and it's not a section of Doctor Who (film) that is transcluded but the whole article, which is pushed through {{Template parameter value}} in order to extract a single figure from the infobox. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:47, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  Well, that seems dumb. :) Izno (talk) 18:50, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  Looks to be @TedEdwards: back in Oct 2018. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:55, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  Exactly, and if you follow the first link that I provided in my last post, you'll see that I already mentioned that. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:57, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• This practice is even recommended at Help:Transclusion#Pages with a common section, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt transcluding HitRecord as an example. Nardog (talk) 01:10, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  I think it's OK to transclude part of an article in one place. A common example is a TV series transcluding an overview from a list of episodes. For example, 24 (TV series)#Overview transcludes List of 24 episodes#Series overview. It does sometimes fail when somebody removes onlyinclude tags and the whole list is transcluded. It could be nice with a tracking category of mainspace pages which transclude another mainspace page without onlyinclude tags. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:36, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  The extistence of {{excerpt}} and mw:Extension:Labeled Section Transclusion, which can transclude content from articles without relying on any special tags, mean that the report wouldn't be very useful. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:34, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  A special page or database report wouldn't be very useful. A category could be used in searches like incategory:... -hastemplate:Excerpt -insource:... The search link could be placed on the category page. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:35, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  In that example, the transcluded part is literally just a call to a template. You could make a wrapper for that template and simply transclude it where needed, then you don't need the fragile <onlyinclude> tags, etc. Right? — MusikAnimal ^talk 03:42, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  There is code like <includeonly>List of 24 episodes</includeonly>#Season 1 (2001–02). It would be a little more complicated but could be done. It would also be harder to update a separate template and check that section links work. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:35, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  Agree that there's not a problem with doing this in general, although it should only be used when a significant amount of content is actually being transcluded and not in cases like the one that started this thread where the transcluded content is one purely static number. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:34, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

New plan for RADAR rollout

Since no one wants to be a lab rat, we are changing course for the rollout of my new tool. Registration is no longer be required for use.

• Click here to use the tool. (link will begin working shortly) Sorry for the bad link. The actual link will be up next Tuesday.

• Click here for instructional videos.

Be sure to save the links so you don't lose them. Sam at Megaputer (talk) 16:32, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

So what exactly is this tool? EGGIDICAE🥚 18:50, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

The tool does several things, but the main feature I am proud of it that it detects promotional articles. Or at least it will, once our IT guy get the link working (haha). So I've run a customized sentiment analysis on all articles about companies and schools to derive a promo score, which we can use to rank them from most to least promotional. I've also pulled in all of the promo tags, and monthly page views. Then the idea is that we apply various sorts and filters to discover various types of damaged articled. To give some examples, we can filter down to untagged articles and sort by promo score. The articles at the top of the list are promotional articles without tags, so we tag them. Or we can filter to articles that have POV tags, and then sort by monthly views. If we care about reducing damaged hits, this gives us a priority que for articles in need of cleanup. Sam at Megaputer (talk) 18:59, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't understand why we need a tool hosted off Wiki which presumably will have access to private data for user accounts when we have perfectly good filters that already do this. EGGIDICAE🥚 19:05, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Well, we can't sort by promo score. And I'm not sure what you mean by access to private data for user accounts. Once the link is working, no account setup will be required. Sam at Megaputer (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, we can. In the same way that ORES and filters already do. EGGIDICAE🥚 19:12, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure that ORES does exactly that. Could you show me what you mean? For example, could you get me a link to all articles on companies that have a notability tag, sorted from most to least promotional? Sam at Megaputer (talk) 19:20, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

MW:ORES. Can you please explain how exactly your tool works, what type of information it would "see" from using it? EGGIDICAE🥚 19:28, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I make this video series to explain how it works from a user's prospective. If this can be achieved with ORES, It's certainly not obvious how to do it from that documentation. I am planning on opening up the tool for inspection after it has been out for two weeks and we have collected some data on efficacy. Sam at Megaputer (talk) 19:40, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

You still haven't explained what if anything it sees from a data standpoint, which is more important since you're asking people to test it out and promoting it all over the site without any meaningful discussion with the actual community. EGGIDICAE🥚 19:42, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Are you asking me to explain how it creates the ranking? Sam at Megaputer (talk) 19:47, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

To be honest, this sounds to me like straight-up spam promoting your company's tool, and I'm half-minded to remove the spam you posted - the optics of this are very concerning for me. If it's genuinely not intended to be promotion and is intended to purely for the interests of furthering the project, why not open-source it and host it on wikitech:Toolforge? That way, concerns about leaking the private data of users of this tool can be mitigated through the requirement to follow Toolforge's terms of use as well. While I'm definitely interested in the anti-spam fight, just the way this seems to have been pushed from your end definitely feels like (to me, at least) a bait-and-switch, though I do assume that's not your intention.

You also mention you're collecting usage data from this, but I fail to see where you've disclosed your privacy policy detailing exactly what data you will be collecting and storing, and for how long. ​stwalkerster (talk)

Oh, that data collection. The data I am collecting is just an analysis of how these Wikipedia articles change over time. We aren't collecting any user data. And this tool was built with a proprietary software framework, so it can't be open-sourced. But it might be possible to create an open-source knock off if it is popular, and I would even be willing to help with that. I'm not sure what you mean by "bait and switch". Sam at Megaputer (talk) 19:56, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

The fact that you do not understand what I am asking about with regard to data is a problem. How do we know what data it is collecting from someone using the tool? How do we know this isn't just scraping IPs? What privacy assurances are there? EGGIDICAE🥚 19:59, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

It's the same as when you visit any website. If I had built this tool to scrape IPs, I would be doing that in a very inefficient way. You are probably wanting to know what Megaputer is trying to get out of this. That is a perfectly reasonable question. My company let me work on this because they are hoping to make the news. As for myself, I am a Wikipedian who wants to help along the project. Sam at Megaputer (talk) 20:02, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

No, I honestly don't care. I want to know what user data this tool is gathering from USERS ACCESSING IT considering you've promoted it all over the place. This isn't a goodness of your heart creation, you even said as much. My company let me work on this because they are hoping to make the news. EGGIDICAE🥚 20:07, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Why would any company do all this work just to steal data from a dozen or so Wikipedians? That makes absolutely no sense. And of course this isn't being done out of the goodness of Megaputer's heart. Megaputer is a company, and companies don't have hearts. I started building this thing during my unpaid internship. Megaputer let me do it because I was unpaid, and they really didn't care what I did as long as I learned the software. Now I am releasing it. Quite frankly, I'd like to see it do some good. Sam at Megaputer (talk) 20:14, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Again, you're totally missing the point, aside from you spamming on behalf of your company who wants to "get in the news", what a tool used on Wikipedia does with user data does matter whether it's intentionally nefarious or not. That's why Stwalkerster asked about the privacy policy. You're really toeing a line here and you need to stop. Further, just because you've disclosed as a paid editor, doesn't give you free reign to use Wikimedia as a marketing stunt. EGGIDICAE🥚 20:16, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Here is a link to Megaputer's privacy policy. Sam at Megaputer (talk) 20:20, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the privacy policy link. I've had a look, and I'm disappointed in a number of the vague statements regarding potentially indefinite data retention and the depth of user-identifying information that you appear collect. I will not be using this tool. stwalkerster (talk) 20:43, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I respect your decision. But please bear in mind that there are many Wikipedians who use Facebook, Twitter, and even Google, all of which are known to violate your privacy in ways that Megaputer never could, even if we wanted to. These Wikipedians will likely not have such an objection to Megaputer's privacy policy. I very much hope that a few of them will give my tool a try. Sam at Megaputer (talk) 20:58, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

The difference is that those are individual choices that have nothing to do with Wikipedia. A tool for Wikipedia is a different matter, especially one that is promoted heavily by someone with a vested interest in that company. I would recommend dropping this given you literally said that it was an attempt to get media coverage. EGGIDICAE🥚 21:13, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

@Praxidicae When you navigate to an external site by clicking on a link from Wikipedia, they'll be able to know that you've come from Wikipedia, but they can't possibly know what your user account is or any other information related to your account. They'll also get your IP address and user agent string – but that's true of every website you visit on the internet. If you don't agree to that just don't visit their site. No need to make a fuss about it as it spurs technical innovation and discourages future technical contributors from even trying to improve WP. Hosting on Toolforge is good practise but it is certainly not a requirement since it's always up to users whether they want to use the tool or not. – SD0001 (talk) 04:25, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

SD0001 You've completely missed my point. There is a difference between viewing an article, clicking a source. No one is worried about that data scraping. This is someone who was literally paid/hired to write about the company hosting this tool and is creating the tool and promoting it in hopes of getting media attention per their own admission in this thread. Further, it would be very easy to scrape data from accounts using a tool like this - say it pulls up 5 spammy articles and I go and AFD/tag/CSD them, it's fairly obvious who was using the tool at that point. Further, ORES already does this. This is nothing more than a marketing ploy. EGGIDICAE🥚 15:17, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

This is nothing more than a marketing ploy So much for WP:AGF. I'm not missing your point – all the comments you've made here indicate you were worried about user data collection. You even started this discussion by creating FUD (... presumably will have access to private data for user accounts – which is technically impossible by the way). Even if the sole purpose of creating the tool was to get user data – it doesn't sound like the type of data that can be sold to DMPs for money. ORES is maintained by an understaffed team at WMF. I'm quite sure it is possible to create more sophisticated ML algorithms. I do not know whether this is one of those. But by the way you're treating this person, you're ensuring that no one makes another attempt. – SD0001 (talk) 17:38, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

SD0001 My company let me work on this because they are hoping to make the news. is a direct quote from the OP, who is literally paid to write content about the company hosting this "tool". It is quite literally a marketing ploy. So perhaps, I don't know, read through the thread next time. EGGIDICAE🥚 21:32, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

As much as I don't want to engage with you, I feel the need to say that I do not appreciate being told that the product of my hard work is a "marketing ploy". You have claimed that my tool is redundant to ORES (it is not), that it steals user data (which doesn't even make sense), and even that I lacked community approval to build it. You are clearly just throwing out allegations and seeing what sticks. All this started with allegations of "spam", and while I could have handled the rollout better, your response to this has been far more disruptive than anything I have done. Sam at Megaputer (talk) 22:02, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I never once said that it steals data, I said that it's possible given your lackluster response about the privacy policy. And if I'm disruptive, please feel free to take it to the appropriate noticeboard. My marketing ploy comment is completely reasonable given your response to someone asking why you built it was that your company wanted to be in the news. The disruptive one here is you. EGGIDICAE🥚 23:18, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I raised this on Sam's user page, but he took umbrage, which is undercutting my AGF. Is there any reason this user isn't yet blocked for all of the above as well as the non-answers & evasiveness re: his prior account? Courtesy @DGG, Praxidicae, Blablubbs, and RoySmith: StarM 18:23, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

• The bity-ness and general rudeness in this thread makes me sad. The OP wanted to do something to help the encyclopedia in an innovative way. Killiondude (talk) 18:26, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Sorry but I don't agree with "helping the encyclopedia." He literally said it was because his company wanted to be in the news. Further, I'm super skeptical of an editor who is paid to write about their company reporting competitors for COI, afding articles and tagging other articles as paid/upe/coi. EGGIDICAE🥚 18:28, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Bot Partially Non-functioning

I think that I have a specific issue and a general issue to report. The specific issue is that a bot, User:MDanielsBot, has stopped doing one of its tasks. The task is Task 6, which is to clerk the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard by maintaining a table that summarizes the status of disputes. It has stopped maintaining that table. The bot seems to be doing Task 4 properly, which is to dispose of stale reports at the vandalism noticeboard. The instructions say that if the bot is malfunctioning, administrators can press a button to block it, or non-admins can report it at WP:ANI. Presumably a report at WP:ANI will result in the bot being blocked. Any bot should be blocked if it is doing something wrong. In this case the bot isn't doing anything wrong. It isn't doing something right that it should do. The general issue is what should be done if a bot stops doing one of its tasks, and the bot maintainer is on a long wikibreak. It appears that User:Mdaniels5757 has posted a notice saying that they will be back in a few months. In the meantime, their bot is doing its most important task, and isn't doing another task.

What should be done with this bot?

What should be done with bots that are partly non-functioning and do not have a current bot administrator? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:16, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

This is a typical problem with bots. There's nothing that can be done about it. Try emailing Mdaniels; if he sees it, and has time, he might fix it. If not, WP:BOTREQ to find someone else to create a similar bot (presumably this may help make it quicker for someone to do so). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:20, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

User:ProcrastinatingReader - Is the link the Python code that performs the task? If so, that would mean that it would be minimal work for a Python coder to use the existing code, and that would be why User:Firefly is able to make such an offer. I will send the email and provide an update in between 24 and 72 hours. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:27, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

It certainly appears to be - I've not tested it, but at the very least it would cut down the work required as the basic algorithm is there to see. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 06:23, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Just noting that I’d be happy to have FireflyBot take this on if it’s deemed necessary (BRFA would be required of course). Ping me if MDaniels doesn’t get back to you! ƒirefly ( t · c ) 20:55, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Where is this totally incorrect media viewer caption coming from?

Resolved

 – Fixed via editing. — xaosflux ^Talk 09:43, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi. On John C. Calhoun, click on his photo in the infobox to open the viewer. The caption is totally wrong:

Oil on canvas painting of John C. Calhoun, perhaps in his fifties, black robe, full head of graying hair

Where is this coming from? It is obviously false so I tried to correct it, but it is not on the Commons page for the photo or anywhere on the article it displays on. Thanks, DemonDays64 (talk) 02:34, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

@DemonDays64: it is in the page text, the 8th line of wikitext as the "|alt=" attribute for that image. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:36, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: oh lol somehow i forgot to check the source. thanks for the super quick answer DemonDays64 (talk) 02:37, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

The image was changed 2 April. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:42, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Read-only time April 28 at 05:00 UTC

Because of maintenance on their primary database master, there will be a read-only period on English Wikipedia starting around 05:00 UTC on April 28. This means you can read, but not edit, the wiki. The window is 30 minutes long, but it will most likely be significantly shorter. See phab:T279505. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 11:36, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Clean up watchlist of bots

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T258098

Hi, A significant portion of the watchlist table in this wiki is just watchlist of bots. It's because "watch pages and files I create" is turned on by default and bots that create pages (like user talk pages) have them added to theirs. It distorts Special:UnwatchedPages and I doubt any user checks their bot's watchlist so I'm inclined to delete all of them here but let me know if you object to this. Also, if your bot created lots of pages here and you're okay with the rows being deleted, please let me know here and I'll delete it sooner. I already deleted mine. See phab:T258098 for more info. Ladsgroup^overleg 13:54, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

@Ladsgroup: can we get a list of the bots with the most entries? We can open a discussion at WP:BOTN, call out the bot operators, and do a silence-is-consent period. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:01, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I'd also be supportive of having a dev manually turn off that setting (one time run) for any of those same identified bots that are still creating pages. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:02, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

The auto-watch preference has been ignored by all bots since January 7, following phab:T258108 — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:17, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

The top bots are:

+-----------------------+----------+
| user_name             | count(*) |
+-----------------------+----------+
| ClueBot NG            |  3664794 |
| SmackBot              |  1048014 |
| SineBot               |   595420 |
| COIBot                |   464596 |
| HostBot               |   437022 |
| RjwilmsiBot           |   398358 |
| XLinkBot              |   372374 |
| Polbot                |   332758 |
| AvicBot               |   313928 |
| ClueBot               |   292196 |
| RussBot               |   285662 |
| LaraBot               |   233820 |
| ClueBot III           |   225346 |
| Citation bot          |   220294 |

The total number of rows in watchlist is 287M rows so the first user alone is responsible for 1.3% of all rows. Ladsgroup^overleg 14:19, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh lord, cluebot what have you done. I think it would be worthwhile to also purge the watchlists for these bots if not most/all bots. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 14:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

@Ladsgroup: A proposal to clear these has been opened at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard#Clearing_bot_watchlists. We normally give operators a week or two to respond to bot clean ups of this sort. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:52, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

phab:T258108 was resolved in early January and was announced in Tech News, so these bots have already stopped auto-watching new pages. If they do need to watch pages, they have to explicitly set the 'watch' option when editing with the API. — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:07, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

The logo looks blurry in Timeless skin

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T279645

as title--John123521 (Talk-Contib.) 14:28, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

It displays https://en.wikipedia.org/static/images/mobile/copyright/wikipedia.png which is 100px but in Timeless it's shown at 135px, at least for me. That does look bad. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:45, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

phab:T279645 opened, replicated on eswiki and dewiki as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:59, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Category for the Philippines

The universal template for sports events by month by country works fine for most countries (and is very useful!) but for the Philippines displays the category “2015 in Filipino sport” instead of “2015 in Philippine sport” (which has a temporary fix). Can this be fixed please? See Category:January 2015 sports events in the Philippines. Hugo999 (talk) 21:41, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Hugo999 The problem is that the nationality isn't the same as the adjective for something pertaining to the country. Looks like a {{country2adjective}} template should be created to deal with these cases. I think Le Deluge may be intressted in dealing with this. --Trialpears (talk) 22:00, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Update and improvement regarding Template:Singapore legislation

With effect from 1st March 2021, chapter numbers are no longer used when citing Singaporean enactments. According to the Interpretation Act 1965, as amended by the Statute Law Reform Act 2021:

8.—(1) It is sufficient for all purposes to refer to a written law—

(a) in the case of an Act—

...

(ii) where the Act, as enacted or revised, provides that it may be cited by a short title—by that short title; and

...

— section 8(1)(a)(ii), Interpretation Act 1965

Examples of using the new citation method can be seen at new bills like this and this.

I therefore propose to make updates on {{Singapore legislation}} to bring conformity with the new citation method.

Also, I would be grateful if the updated Singapore legislation template can direct references to individual sections, like that in {{Cite Hong Kong ordinance}}. This helps standardization of various citations.

As I have no experience on dealing with these complex templates, and are clueless about how to ensure that enactments are redirected to the correct external pages, I hope anyone who are familiar with templates can give a helping hand on these problems, many thanks.廣九直通車 (talk) 03:24, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

@Sgconlaw and Jacklee:Also notifying relevant users who are experienced in Singaporean law to give suggestions.廣九直通車 (talk) 03:24, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia app's SuggestEdit ruining short descriptions

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T279702

Not sure if this is the right place to discuss this, but the SuggestEdit-add 1.0 feature on the android app is encouraging new users to change short descriptions in a way that always violates WP:SDFORMAT, and are half the time complete nonsense. Firstly, it suggests users uncapitalize short descriptions, which leads to new editors (very reasonably!) trusting the app and incorrectly uncapitalizing short descriptions en masse: [3] [4] [5] [6] [7].

When the program does decide to change the actual content in short descriptions, it very often adds complete nonsense. Here's a really lovely short description [8] it suggested (and successfully encouraged a new user to add!) to natural science: branch of science about the natural world and how it relates to statistics, prediction, low-entropy thinking, extra sensory perception (ESP), Prophecising, Apocalyptic Revelations, God, The Trinity, David, Kyle, Alpha, Omega, K, Cabal, cosmos, Wikis. Great stuff.

It's plausible that there's some team I could take this issue up with and some marginal improvement can be made to the program in a months time, but really, I can't see what benefit this possibly serves to the project, it is effectively always disruptive. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 17:34, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

@Volteer1: you may want to report this as a bug using this form - sounds like the problem is that this feature is making inappropriate suggestions. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:38, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Bug report submitted, T279702. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:00, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Problems accessing WMF sites

Hi - an editor I know and trust has contacted me by e-mail to tell me that she is unable to access WMF sites today - no commons, no EnWiki, no EsWiki. Not that she can't edit, but she can't connect at all, her browser is giving her "The server at en.wikipedia.org is taking too long to respond." She's checked with friends and family in the same locale with same ISP, they can get access, but despite multiple reboots, trying different browsers, even trying her husband's computer, she's not getting access. Other websites all work fine, just WMF sites won't load for some reason. Any thoughts about what to try? If it matters, she's in Mexico. Thanks in advance for any suggestions, which I will have to forward by e-mail (since she can't see this page!). GirthSummit _(blether) 18:15, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

I wonder what en.wikipedia.org resolves to for her? SQL^{Query me!} 18:19, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Tell her to try using Google Public DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), this is almost certainly an issue on her end. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 18:22, 8 April 2021 (UTC)