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. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk.

« Archives, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213

Infobox location

I have noticed a change that seems to have happened the last week. Infoboxes started appearing to me, an android app user, in the very beginning of every article instead after a lead paragraph, which renders the article preview that appears when I press hyperlinks empty and useless. would anyone tell me what happened? please mention me with the {{ping}} template if you reply.  • Sammy Majed  • Talk  • Creations • Wikipedia Arabic  • 15:56, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

User:DBrant (WMF) will probably know the answer to your question. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:31, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi @SammyMajed:, This was actually a server-side issue caused by a recent update to the mobileview API. The issue has been fixed, and it looks like all the caches have been updated. The issue was tracked at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T165119. Please let us know if it's still happening. DBrant (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

@DBrant (WMF): Thanks for your reply. The issue was resolved in most articles, but some remain, e.g. Eisenhower dollar.  • Sammy Majed  • Talk  • Creations • Wikipedia Arabic  • 04:25, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Post-scriptpocalypse issue with mw.util.addPortletLink

After the recent scriptpocalypse I made all the requisite changes and everything was working again, but then a couple days ago some of my scripts stopped working again. After some testing, I saw that commenting out my mw.util.addPortletLink calls in common.js fixed the issues. Has anyone else run into this? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 19:06, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

What is in your browser console? Ruslik_Zero 12:24, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

@Stevietheman: Please see the first section at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_154#Old_script-pocalypse, which particularly talks about mw.util.addPortletlink() and how it should be used vs, how many people are using it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:07, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks -- I implemented the related advice, and now it's all working. What's funny is that there were no problems with my mw.util.addPortletLink calls up to roughly May 11. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 16:25, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

@Stevietheman: See the newly added § Tech News: 2017-20, below. mediawiki.util was still being auto-loaded into the base JS environment until sometime in the last few days. For the record, this thread title makes me think of some horrible disaster involving a laser printer. Murph9000 (talk) 02:55, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Prototype for editing Wikidata infoboxes on Wikipedia

Hello,

One of the most requested features for Wikidata is to enable editing of Wikidata’s data directly from Wikipedia, so the editors can continue their workflow without switching websites.

The Wikidata development team has been working on a tool to achieve this goal: fill and edit the Wikipedia infoboxes with information from Wikidata, directly on Wikipedia, via the Visual Editor.

We already asked for feedback in 2015, and collected some interesting ideas which we shared with you in this thesis. We would like to present to you our first prototype and collect your feedback, in order to improve and continue the development of this feature.

We present this work to you very early, so we can include your feedback before and all along the development. You are the core users of this feature, so we want to make sure that it fits your needs and editing processes.

You will find the prototype, description of the features, and a demo video, on this page. Feel free to add any comment or feedback on the talk page. The page is currently not translated in every languages, but you can add your contribution by helping to translate it.

You can either add your feedback on the talk page on Wikidata, or add a comment here. I’ll follow this discussion to make sure that all of your feedback is taken into account. However, it would be better to write your message on the central Wikidata page so everyone can read your input.

Thanks, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 15:31, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

No, no, no! You stopped bolding right before the most important bit. "via the Visual Editor." 95% of manual editing on enwiki doesn't happen with VE but with the standard Wikitext editor, so why are you still pushing VE by releasing requested features only (or at least first) for VE? Fram (talk) 08:03, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

And of course, this only works somewhat intuitive when you want to use an URL as a source. As soon as you want to use e.g. a book as a source, or a newspaper article, or.... you run into trouble, as this is really not easy on Wikidata. It seems to be built around either unsourced items, imported items from other wikis, or url sourecs with a short title and nothing more. Referencing at the level we are used to? I get items which are supposedly sourced, and the source is "imported from Wikidata"example. I thought the "imported from nlwiki" and so on were poor example sof circular referencing, but this really is taking the piss. Basically, you are pushing the same tired VE down our throats in an umpteenth attempt to get it away from the tiny minority tool it has remained for years, to make it easier to edit data from a website we shouldn't be using as a source anyway as it is a poorly sourced and maintained wiki with a lack of even the most basic policies. Just drop both of them and you'll make a lot of wikipedia editors a lot happier than with this effort. Fram (talk) 08:23, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

WMDE is a) not the organization "pushing the same tired VE down [your] throats in an umpteenth attempt"; b) this is to be used on other wikis as well, not solely en.WP; and c) there is nothing anywhere to suggest that there must be feature parity except for regressions between the 2010 wikitext editor and VE, which I assume is the editor you believe that most editors are using (which I'll not dispute). There is also d) the 2017 wikitext editor built on Parsoid and no doubt also enabling this technology. I won't comment on the rest of that screed. --Izno (talk) 12:02, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

It is the umpteenth atempt to push VE down our throats, and this time it is done by WMDE instead of WMF. Wow, big deal. Most other wikis also use predominantly the wikitext editor, not VE, although the percentages are probably different from those here. Your point c misses the point as well: it may well be that fature parity isn't a must, but it is stupid (certainly because it is a common theme) to add features (and in general, smend much more time and resources) to a project that has failed to attract most editors, instead of adding features first to the most popular editor (and also, or later, or never, to minority editors). What is done here (and too often in the past) again smacks of disregard for what most editors actually use and need, and instead going for a pet project (or here two pet projects in one go) at once. Fram (talk) 12:20, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

As for the circular referencing issue, I've started a discussion on the Wikidata project chat. Seems to be largely the result of a single QuickStatements batch. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 12:14, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Fram (talk) 12:20, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Rather fundamental problem (one of many, but simply one I think of now): at the moment, when I go from enwiki to wikidata, I am logged in at enwiki, but not logged in at wikidata. If this happens with the easy editing tool, it looks as if my wikidata editing would not happen under my account but as an IP. Not good... Fram (talk) 12:42, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

That's strange, do you have that with other sister sites ? We have 2 methods making sure that people are logged into our various sister sites and it generally works rather well. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:06, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Doesn't happen with other languages (just tested via random article => Swedish wikipedia), but it seems to happen with e.g. Commons as well. And at meta. Fram (talk) 13:24, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Right, so just cross domain. We have two methods to do this. The first is using cookies and images. This method easily breaks on more modern browsers, where you have stricter rules for cookie exchange. Another reason it breaks could be privacy protecting (or adblocking) extensions. The reason is that we use 1pixel images for this, and sometimes these images are considered to be tracking pixels. Private browsing mode might also affect it.

The second method we use is Javascript. The javascript method is usually highly reliable and as far as we know can only be broken if you disable Javascript in your browser. If you did not disable JS and something were able to interfere with it, then we need to figure out what that is, because it might affect a lot more people than we are aware of. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:29, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

STiki session log outs

I have been logged out of STiki twice in 5 minutes and then again 15 minutes later when I fired up STiki again. The error message says it is WMF problem not mine or STiki's. Is anyone else suffering? d.g. L3X1 (distant write) 03:00, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

@L3X1: What is STiki? What is the exact error message? How is this related to the English Wikipedia? How to reduce the problem? --Malyacko (talk) 11:18, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

See WP:STiki. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:29, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

So this is just a me problem? I fired up STiki again and haven't had any issues. d.g. L3X1 (distant write) 19:48, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Watchlist not loading

Since yesterday my Watchlist has stopped loading. This is the only Wikipedia page I'm having trouble with. Occasionally it shows "This page isn’t working. en.wikipedia.org is currently unable to handle this request. HTTP ERROR 500." It loads if I disable the Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent option in my Preferences, but that's not ideal. Browser: Chrome Version 58.0.3029.110. --The1337gamer (talk) 06:21, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Upright

Wouldn't it make sense to globally (meaning for all wikis) add the "upright" option for embedding images with the corresponding tool in the "regular" 2010 vector editor toolbar? This function is used actually not so rarely and so a default function could be quite useful I think. What is your view?--Hubon (talk) 07:12, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Chrome issue with inserting character after backspacing

I don't know whether this is a browser issue or a Wikipedia issue, but it only occurs in Chrome. The issue occurs when editing. If I backspace to remove a character, then use Wikipedia's 'Insert' toolbar to insert a replacement character, the new character will be inserted in the wrong place - not where the mouse pointer is positioned, but after the next character. For example, in the phrase "Ecuadorian-Peruvian war", I want to replace the hyphen by an endash, so I backspace to remove the hyphen, then click on the endash from the toolbar; the result is "EcuadorianP–eruvian war" instead of "Ecuadorian–Peruvian war". I've tried this in Firefox, Edge and Opera - the problem doesn't arise. It's only Chrome. Another note: if instead I remove the unwanted character by positioning the pointer to the left of it and pressing Delete, there is no problem; the replacement character appears in the correct location. Colonies Chris (talk) 08:57, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

<cite> vs. <span> and printed urls

Prior to 26 September 2015, cs1|2 templates ({{cite book}}, {{citation}}, ...) had their output wrapped in <span>...</span> tags that held class= and id= attributes. On that date, the wrapping changed to <cite>...</cite> tags because the forced italicization of the content of that tag had been removed and because <cite>...</cite> is more semantically correct. What we apparently did not notice is that with the change, cs1|2 citations lost rendered urls in the printable versions of an article.

Here are three examples:

1. without span or cite tags
2. with span tags
3. with cite tags

If, from the Print/export menu in the left sidebar I click Printable version, I get something that looks like this:

1. without span or cite tags (http://www.example.com)

2. with span tags (http://www.example.com)

3. with cite tags

If I look at the page source of the printable version, I see:

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.example.com">without span or cite tags</a></li>
<li><span><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.example.com">with span tags</a></span></li>
<li><cite><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.example.com">with cite tags</a></cite></li>

Does that mean that this is a browser issue? an html issue? a css issue? a MediaWiki issue? something else?

I suspect that it is important for printed article pages to show the urls that are hidden behind title text in the online version.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:40, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

According to this cite tag in HTML5 is for titles of works but not for citations. So, I am not sure that it is semantically correct. Ruslik_Zero 12:06, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

For those interested in the history see this discussion at MediaWiki and this discussion at cs1|2.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:19, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. I'm not sure why that was there, as it wasn't really documented back then (pre-2010). Ping me if you find a problem due to this change. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:33, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Good. Thank you.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:56, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

@Ruslik0: Don't believe everything that you read at w3schools. If you check the HTML5 spec for the cite element, it says The cite element represents a reference to a creative work. It must include the title of the work or the name of the author(person, people or organization) or an URL reference, which may be in an abbreviated form as per the conventions used for the addition of citation metadata., so our usage, which does include at least one of these (where feasible), is valid. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:26, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Email return page

At the moment if you send an email via the 'Email this user' function, you have a choice when finished, of 'Return to User:Example' (or go, bizarrely, to main page!- I've always thought 'Back to where you were' would be most sensible). Since the same text also points out that you can let them know they have email using {{ygm}}, etc., wouldn't it be more useful if the choice was to 'Return to User talk:Example'? I mean, you are either going to want to leave a ygm notice or not. If you do, then you want to be on the talk page to do so. If you don't, then it doesn't matter what page is recommended! — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:45, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by go to main page. I only get the option 'Return to User:Example'. It links to the user page no matter where in their userspace you clicked "Email this user". That may seem a little odd for a link saying "Return to". The part "You can notify users that you have emailed them by leaving them a talk page message. The {{You've got mail}} template is available for this purpose." is made by customizing MediaWiki:Emailsenttext for the English Wikipedia. The MediaWiki default only says "Your email message has been sent." The username is not available as a parameter in MediaWiki:Emailsenttext, and you are on Special:EmailUser at the time so it cannot use {{PAGENAME}} or similar to detect the username. The message "Return to User:Example" is probably made by MediaWiki:Returnto which is used in lots of other places. My conclusion: The MediaWiki default has no particular reason to link the user talk page, and I don't currently see a way we could do it at the English Wikipedia without a change in the MediaWiki software like a $1 parameter with the user name in the call of MediaWiki:Emailsenttext. It's possible a customized MediaWiki:Returnto could detect whether it's on Special:EmailUser and add a user talk link in that case, but I'm not sure it has access to analyze $1 to detect the username or manipulate the link. And it's a minor issue anyway, probably not worth the performance cost of customizing MediaWiki:Returnto with parser functions. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:15, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that thorough analysis, Primefac; I could've sworn it had a choice of going to the main page at some point. But never mind. Anyway, so you think that it's out of our hands where to direct the return page as? ah well- shame. BTW did you mean it would cost $1 to change the code; or was that the piece of code that would be changed?! — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 14:24, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Wrong Prime ;) Primefac (talk) 14:25, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter and Primefac: Sorry ...! -too many primes for me to handle! ;) — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 14:43, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

$1, $2, ... is how MediaWiki messages access parameters from the caller, similar to {{{1}}}, {{{2}}}, ... for unnamed template parameters. For example, MediaWiki:Returnto says "Return to $1." where $1 is a value given by the MediaWiki software when the message is called. The problem is that MediaWiki:Emailsenttext does not get the username as a $1 parameter in the call (as far as I know anyway, https://translatewiki.net/wiki/MediaWiki:Emailsenttext/qqq would be my normal way to check parameters but translatewiki.net is not responding for me). We cannot add it locally but a general MediaWiki change to add it could be requested at phab:. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:35, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the detailed explanation! Appreciate that. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 14:44, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi, see $1#Other uses and Dollar sign#Use in computer software; it's a broader computer-science use. Nyttend backup (talk) 12:17, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that Nyttend: I should've known that the liklihood of it only costing a quid was slightly unlikely! — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 12:22, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

translatewiki.net is finally responding. To my surprise https://translatewiki.net/wiki/MediaWiki:Emailsenttext/qqq says: "$1 - (Optional) the recipient's username, for local customizations". We can still not change 'Return to User:Example' but we can add a user talk link to MediaWiki:Emailsenttext. I have done this including a preload link to use {{You've got mail}}.[1] I have tested it works after mailing myself. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:35, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Display title bug?

The page San Francisco (sans-serif typeface) is rendering its title (for me, anyway) with lowercase "san" ("san Francisco") and I can't figure out why, there's no DISPLAYTITLE on the page. Is this a bug? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:12, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

• Same for me, on Chrome and IE, both logged-in and logged-out. Can't see the reason why either. Black Kite (talk) 14:17, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Fixed by moving {{lowercase title}} inside noinclude in a transcluded template.[2] PrimeHunter (talk) 14:21, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Good sleuthing. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:58, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

RevisionSlider

RevisionSlider will be available as a default feature for all users on all wikis from May 17. The RevisionSlider adds a slider view to the diff page so that you can easily move between revisions. The slider view is collapsed by default, and will load by clicking on it. It can also be turned off entirely in the user preferences. RevisionSlider has been a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia for 6 months and a beta feature on all wikis for 8 months. The feature fulfills a wish from the German Community’s Technical Wishlist. Thanks to everyone who tested RevisionSlider and gave valuable feedback to improve the feature! We hope that RevisionSlider will continue to serve you well in your work.

Birgit Müller (WMDE) 14:39, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

@Birgit Müller (WMDE): When you hover over one of the bars, there's a pop-up balloon showing some information about that revision. In Monobook it's unreadably small: I would like to fix it by adding a rule to my common.css - but I can't do that, because I can't find out anything at all about the HTML element in question. This is because when I use the "Inspect element" feature of Firefox, the popup vanishes, and I find that I'm inspecting whatever element that the popup was over. Whether I can fix it myself or not (at the moment it's "not"), I suggest that the font size be increased, because as it stands it's a serious accessibility issue. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:43, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Thanks for the feedback! I created a phab ticket for the accessibilty issue in general. For you common.css rule, you probably need the div with the class "oo-ui-popupWidget-popup" (you can get this on Firefox if you go to Extras > Web-Developers > Inspector, and then in the console that appears there is a button in the top left is a button that shows you all info immediately when you hover over an element). I hope this helps! Lea Voget (WMDE) (talk) 11:41, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

This seems to have some potential to be really useful. A couple of dumb questions: why doesn't it show up on the Revision history page, which is where it'd be most handy; and what determines the number of revisions shown? – obviously it isn't what it says here, "The tool only fetches data for revisions that are currently visible on the screen (maximum 500 revisions) and data about additional revisions is only loaded when the user navigates back or forth on the timeline using the arrows", because the number of revisions displayed on the screen in any diff is always either one (for new pages) or two. At the moment it's giving me 50, I'd like to know how/where to change that to 500. Actually, I'd also like to know how to get more than 500 revisions to display in the revision history page, other than by manually adding &limit=5000 or whatever into the url; is there a way to do that, a preference, whatever? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:15, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I would like to support that idea of moving it to the "View history" display, as opposed to being at the top of diffs. When I look at a diff, I'm really interested in seeing that single edit. Conversely, the slider seems like a very useful tool when examining the page revision history. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:28, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

It would probably be a better mechanism to browse the history, but I would not support moving it away from the diff screen. I use RevisionSlider as a workaround the obnoxious issue with watchlist (viz the split of days sometimes requiring multiple tabs to review a single page's changes since you last looked at that page). --Izno (talk) 20:33, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

What is this "split of days sometimes requiring multiple tabs to review a single page's changes"? I never need to do that. I open my watchlist, go to the bottom and look up the page until I reach the boldfaced entries - then I continue upwards, this time clicking the "diff" links as I go. It's all in one tab. If I see that there have been more than one edit, I might use the "hist" link, from where I can pick out one of the "cur" links. But no need for more than one tab. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:04, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64: phab:T10681 describes the issue I'm working around--right now, the "N changes" gets divided up into day M and day M+1 (overnight, at least). If I click on the total diff for day M, then I need either a) second tab with the total diff for day M+1 or b) revisionslider or its predecessor, which allows me to include day M+1 in the same tab as day M. "cur" on the 'previous'-to-all-new revisions doesn't always work because sometimes I haven't marked as read anything so recent as the earliest edit stored in the watchlist (and I've got it set to 1k changes). --Izno (talk) 00:48, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Go to Preferences → Watchlist and enable "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" - disabling this causes too much trouble - for instance, if you have "Hide minor edits from the watchlist" enabled, and the most recent edit to a given page was marked as minor, you don't get anything for that page. Too easy to miss too much. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:48, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps there could be a user preferences setting that would, separately, allow it on diffs and/or on revision histories. Myself, I don't much like seeing it on diffs, but I'd be happy to have it on the revision history pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:05, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, a user preference would be fine. Lea Voget (WMDE), Birgit Müller (WMDE), any comment on this, or on my questions above about changing the number of revisions displayed? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 08:16, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tryptofish:, @Justlettersandnumbers: Thanks for your feedback! I added your suggestion to have a user preference to the relevant phabricator ticket. @Justlettersandnumbers: Do I understand you correctly, that you want to be able to reach more than 50 revisions with the RevisionSlider? Or do you want to see 500 bars at the same time? The first is already happening: The RevisionSlider loads the information of 500 revisions, which is much more than you see bars on the screen. Once you click the arrows on the side to navigate to older or newer revisions, it reloads more revisions to be able to show them to you if you want to go back even further in history. If this is not what you meant, please correct me :) Lea Voget (WMDE) (talk) 14:48, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

MediaWiki message / template confusion

I am having no luck figuring out an issue I noticed regarding the MW footer on IP contribution pages, MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer-anon. The footer transcludes {{anontools}}, and the WHOIS link in the template calls tools.wmflabs.org/whois/gateway.py. However, the footer on IP contribution pages (example) is calling Robtex whois, which has recently gone from being a relatively useful tool to being almost useless. No amount of null edits or purging has been changed the link, so I've decided that I must be missing something, like I'm looking at the wrong footer code or something. Hopefully, someone can shed some light on this for me. Thanks. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 14:50, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

@DoRD: Unless I'm missing something, the IP template comes from Template:Anontools/ipv6 or Template:Anontools/ipv4. While the ipv6 template has been updated, the ipv4 one still uses Robtex. Sam Walton (talk) 14:55, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

See, I did say that I was missing something. MW message pages are still somewhat of a mystery to me, but I've updated the v4 template to make it useful again. Thanks! ​—DoRD (talk)​ 15:01, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

*headdesk* I should have looked at the source for {{anontools}}. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 15:06, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Removing the "importance" parameter from a WikiProject banner

I'm planning to propose that a WikiProject I'm very involved with should discontinue using the "importance" parameter in the banner. It is of little to no actual value in managing the project, the rating is entirely subjective and leads to unhappiness and even fights as some people feel that a low rating is actually an insult to the article subject. Is it possible to actually remove/switch off the parameter so that it no longer displays in the banner or in the project's article assessment tables? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:50, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Some projects have deprecated "importance" parameters (@Iridescent: would be a person to ask about this, although I don't think they have Echo enabled), but I don't think there is current any function on Template:WPBannerMeta to turn off that parameter. I would endorse adding such code, though, in my opinion importance ratings are usually pointless. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:59, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Visual arts is probably the most high-profile project to abandon an importance scale. AFAIK, all you'd need to do in practice is change the talkpage banner templates so that importance categories are no longer displayed and Category:low-importance ''foo'' articles etc are no longer populated; a bot can then go round and remove the ratings at leisure. ‑ Iridescent 17:03, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

It looks like this change would be all you'd need to do, depending on how the template in question is set up. ‑ Iridescent 17:07, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, now all I need is the consensus of the project members to do it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:37, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

@Dodger67 and Iridescent: That change won't do it, because |IMPORTANCE_SCALE=no is treated the same as |IMPORTANCE_SCALE=yes or |IMPORTANCE_SCALE=standard; even physically removing the parameter will simply be treated as if |IMPORTANCE_SCALE=standard (which is the default) were present. This is because {{WPBannerMeta/importance}} recognises only two values: inline and subpage - everything else, including no and absence, is treated as standard. To disable the importance scale, you need to remove the |importance={{{importance|}}} parameter. Removing the |IMPORTANCE_SCALE= parameter (if present) can be done as well, but is not essential.

For future ref, questions of this nature may be posted at Template talk:WPBannerMeta where experts in WikiProject banner construction - such as myself or MSGJ (talk · contribs) - will offer advice. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:05, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Redrose64 Thanks for the correction. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:09, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Strange file upload history

Something odd is going on with File:Aleta Ogord.jpg. The oldest revision shows at the top of the upload history, and, while the file has been reduced in size, the older, larger image is what shows in the file preview. Any idea as to why this is happening and how best to deal with it? clpo13_(talk) 17:20, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

File:A.O..jpg shows the original file version was deleted and later restored. If the restoration of a file version is the most recent file action then I guess that version becomes current no matter the original upload order. I assume the version could just be deleted again. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:41, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Done. Bencherlite^Talk 17:50, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! clpo13_(talk) 18:50, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Getting of list of the piped links used when associated with an article link?

Given a piped link such as [[Topic A|Name A]], is it possible to get a list of the different uses of "Name A" that are used with the link of "Topic A"? I'm sure there's some AWB magic that could be used but I'm curious if there's an on-wiki way.

The specific case that I'd like this for is for video games: for articles on games that require an online connection, some editors have linked to Always-on DRM (Digital rights management) with the piped text of "online", which can be a bit of POV-pushing in some cases - DRM is generally seen as controversial, and just because a game is online-only doesn't mean it is attempting to control DRM, but players often see it as such, incorrectly. I'd like to review the cases where this specific [[Always-on DRM|online]] piped link is being used. --MASEM (t) 00:45, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

There are none saying exactly that. Maybe you are more interested in a search for all piped links: linksto:"Always-on DRM" insource:/\[Always-on DRM\|/i. See mw:Help:CirrusSearch#Insource. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:12, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Bethloe/common.js

Can anyone explain this to me please? It looks... Massive, compared to the scripts usually used. I assumed some kind of WP:NOTREPOSITORY or something, but would like a deeper understanding if that's possible. Cheers! — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 06:26, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: I can't begin to understand the code, but the embedded messages suggest that the script is calculating some kind of readability index for the current article. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:49, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with that; there's also User:Bethloe/common.css. A few newlines wouldn't go amiss. Has anybody asked Bethloe (talk · contribs) where these came from? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:08, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

It has been "minified", which makes it horrible to read but efficient when downloaded into the browser on each page view. It looks like it's directly related to Wikipedia, so should be free of "WP is not …" type concerns. Some sort of article quality analysis, as suggested above, seems like a reasonable bet. It's quite unusual as a first edit, to drop in some quite advanced JS & CSS. The only immediate concern I see with it is copyright and licensing. If it's the user's own work (which it could be, and I didn't spot anything to suggest otherwise), there's no issue there. That might seem implausible for a new account, but they may have been using and developing this script as an IP user (injecting it into WP page views using Greasemonkey or similar). If it is copied from somewhere, it's lacking license and attribution. Murph9000 (talk) 11:58, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

A keyword search on Wikipedia brings up another account, which seems to have had a role in developing it, and a description page. I'll not name names and leave it to others to search for themselves - from an admin viewpoint it doesn't seem worth pursuing. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 12:18, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

• @Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: Ok, after a bit of detective work, it seems to be Quality Assisted Editor, which is MIT-licensed (so should be fine as far as copyright and licensing goes, I believe). I have no idea what the current status of that tool is (either with WMF or using it on EN-WP). I think I would recommend loading the CSS & JS from tools.wmflabs.org, rather than copying them directly into local personal CSS & JS. Or, if there's demand for it and the tool passes reasonable due diligence, they could be added as a gadget. Murph9000 (talk) 12:20, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@John of Reading, Redrose64, Murph9000, and Zzuuzz: Thank you all for your help with this. It's all little out of my league, but suffice it to say that if you're assure as to its harmlessness, then I'm reassured. Mind you it does all seem rather interesting. Thanks! — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 12:25, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

An admin might reasonably add attribution (either in the page history or the page-proper), because I would guess the MIT license requires it. (I suppose you could do it on talk page.) --Izno (talk) 12:30, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

If there's a concern there, that could be done. My own, unofficial, opinion is that when a MIT-licensed file is distributed from its home location without a license header / comment (as seems to be the case here), that obligation is implicitly waived by the copyright holder. If WP would prefer to take a stronger view on that, that's also ok. Murph9000 (talk) 12:41, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

#invole:Chart looks terrible in mobile Wikipedia

Please help! The chart in the bottom of the article looks totally terrible in the mobile Wikipedia: https://bg.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B3

The same here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jeremy_Corbyn&oldid=731595817#Growth_in_the_Labour_Party

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Димитър Янков (talk • contribs) 09:04, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

The first one is bg:Фрайбург#Българска общност and in both cases, the "terrible" effect is that the x-axis labels are written vertically, as in

2
0
1
5

rather than horizontally. The enclosing <div>...</div> element has a style= attribute containing the declaration max-width:1px; (the Bulgarian one) or max-width:2px; (the Corbyn one) which I am fairly certain is the direct cause. There is also a bad CSS declaration veritical-align:top; in the same attribute: being invalid, this will be ignored. I'm no Lua expert, but searching Module: space for that spelling mistake "veritical" suggests that the drawXlegends function in Module:Chart would be a good place to start. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:23, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

The Corbyn example was reported by Rwendland at Module talk:Chart#Mobile wikipedia bar chart presentation terrible with no help. Module:Chart computes a max-width for x legends. It's apparently meant to be approximately the width of the displayed column. In my Firefox the max-width is ignored in desktop but followed in mobile so there the text can become vertical when the columns are narrow. If there are a lot of columns then max-width becomes negative and is ignored in both desktop and mobile. That happens for the last example at Module:Chart#Scale per group with max-width:-4px so it looks OK in mobile. If the same example is cut off before 1960 then you get a positive max-width:6px and mobile displays vertical text for me here:

5

10

15

20

25

30

1940

1950

The idea of setting max-width to the column width must be that if each column has a legend and it doesn't fit the column width then it has be vertical or run into the next legend. But if many of the columns have no legend like the above example then there is no need for max-width. If the module cannot determine this automatically then I think there should be an optional parameter to omit max-width. If we try to code the module to make it enforce max-width in desktop then I suspect many of our charts will suddenly get unnecessary vertical legends in desktop in addition to mobile. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:36, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! I changed to max-width:-1px in line 395 in Module:Chart (in the Bulgarian Wikipedia). Now mobile is fine (see: bg:Фрайбург#Българска общност) and I can't encounter any problems in desktop for now. Just an idea: is it possible to add the CSS word-break:keep-all somewhere in Module:Chart? --Димитър Янков (talk) 10:38, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

@Димитър Янков: The reason that max-width:-1px "works" for you is that negative values for that property are illegal, so that your browser is ignoring the declaration. This might not be the case for other browsers, so it's safer to remove the declaration entirely. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:00, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Missing Twinkle tab

The WP:Twinkle tab (TW) that normally appears at the top, to the right of the "More" tab, has vanished from user and user talk pages. It is still there on all other pages. If I look at the user contributions I get an abbreviated tab. But I would like the full tab back. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 11:45, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

What is your skin at Special:Preferences? Do you see a working "warn" link at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:CambridgeBayWeather&useskin=modern? (ignore everything else there) PrimeHunter (talk) 12:02, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm using Vector and yes the link works. Of course I tried all the other links as well! They worked. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 16:00, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

It may be something in User:CambridgeBayWeather/vector.js. Try previewing that page with the current and with no content. Do you get a Twinkle tab with no content but not with the current content? If so then you can try previewing without different parts to narrow it down. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:00, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I get the full Twinkle tab on the page. Just in case it is important I get the full tab on all my subpages, just not on the user and talk pages. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 18:11, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

PrimeHunter. Please feel free to tell me how stupid I am. I completely misunderstood what you were saying. Blanking User:CambridgeBayWeather/vector.js does restore the Twinkle tab. So now all I need to do is figure out which part. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 02:10, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@CambridgeBayWeather: This my be the issue and this also - Mlpearc (open channel) 02:33, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Turns out this was the problem. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 05:14, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I actually thought you were also missing the Twinkle tab on User:CambridgeBayWeather/vector.js and could therefore make tests by previewing different parts of that page without having to save. If you preview a js or css page then the whole window is rendered as if the page contained what you preview. But if you have to view another page to see the result then you have to save (at least as far as I know). Good to hear you identified the problem code. I don't know how to fix the code. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:04, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Categories on mobile

Hi, I've created a simple gadget that will load the categories and add them to a mobile interface page. You can test it from the Gadgets in your preferences section. If people think this is desirable, than the gadget can be made default on (for everyone or just for some specific usergroups). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:37, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

File Upload Wizard fails - something to do with js?

I am trying to use the Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard But one I click on "click here to start the upload wizard", nothing happens. Any thoughts?

I see that it ends in .JS so I assume it is JavaScript. I have separately noticed that my own JavaScript file doesn't seem to be working so I assume it's related. I vaguely recall some traffic about some issues but don't recall where I start or how to resolve it.--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:45, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: When you add stuff to your Javascript pages, you should (be able to) maintain them. I'm not saying this to be annoying, but it's a wonder you were still able to use Wikipedia at all really, with all of this common.js changes, monobook.js changes, vector.js changes that I had to make. If you don't understand what's in there, then it's dangerous and can break a variety of things. Try to use Gadgets whenever possible. Remove things when you don't know/remember what they are doing. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:26, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

What does the file upload wizard have to do with my Mono book page? Perhaps it does but I didn't create the file upload wizard, so I don't understand why errors in my common JS file have anything to do with that file.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:29, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I see that the upload Wizard is now working again, so thanks for that. Sorry for my technical ignorance, but why would anything in my .js file affect a Wizard created by someone else, one that is presumably used by thousands of editors?--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:35, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Because all that code executes inside the same browser window. If one thing breaks, then it can interfere with all the other things that are meant to be running at the same time. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:40, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Maybe it's time we expand MediaWiki:Jswarning, with some advice to use Gadgets when possible and be able to understand what Javascript is... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:40, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

It is an inherent flaw (or feature) of the internet (or at least html) that all pages (or most) consist of simple text. This means that browsers, javascript, browser extensions, and even the operating system can easily mangle (or change) just about anything you receive in the browser. It is what makes web development a nightmare compared to a native OS application. In this case it means that whenever people use javascript without understanding it well enough they can easily cause script errors that prevent "proper" rendering or display. In fact, a good number of errors reported in websites are actually caused by external factors (e.g. userscripts, extensions, network connections or ISP).

It is fortunate that readers can just disable javascript and escape from 90% of these problems, but unfortunate that +90% of them probably don't even know such a switch exists or what it does. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.218.88.223 (talk) 15:02, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Changing links in sidebar

I have some trouble changing an link in the sidebar of is.wikisource, with the intent to link to is:s:Hjálp:Efnisyfirlit. Years ago I changed the help link on is.wikipedia like so, but when Ruslik did the same on is.wikisource after I asked him to do so, it did not work. Granted some years have passed since I made said change on is.wikipedia but I am still puzzled by this. Are the links in the sidebar supposed to be changed in some other way? Why is the change linked above on is.wikisource not working? --Snaevar (talk) 18:32, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

It seems to be working now. In my experience there can be a delay before changes to the MediaWiki namespace take effect. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:35, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

BIG blue button will break scripts

I've collected some information at mw:OOjs UI/Fixing scripts and gadgets about the upcoming change to the "Save" button (and some other buttons nearby). This is a technical change, not just a change to the color, and it appears that it will unfortunately break multiple editing-related scripts. If you maintain a script, please check that page and test your script (instructions on the page). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:20, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Search: Links from

In the search facility there is the linksto:<page> clause.

Is there the opposite, or the equivalent to, that is, a linksfrom:<page> clause, that is returning all the pages linked to from within an article ?

Eno Lirpa (talk) 14:44, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

A template to get only subpage name

Similar to template:PAGENAME, but instead gives you the subpage name. For example if the title is Evanescence/The Open Door, it gives you The Open Door only. Is there such template?—‎Lost Whispers _talk 16:48, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

There is a magic word: {{SUBPAGENAME}}. See mw:Help:Magic_words#Page_names

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:56, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you!—‎Lost Whispers _talk 19:31, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Or see WP:VAR. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:41, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Upload Wizard on sr.wiki

Could someone help on where to change target for the main sidebar link "Upload file" so that it leads to the Upload wizard instead of Special:Upload on sr.wiki? We've translated it and it's working (but on a separate page).

Also, could someone find a glitch that causes message about current uploading to stay even after an upload is finished (header should display other message, about finished upload).

Thanks. @Future Perfect at Sunrise: --Obsuser (talk) 18:08, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Make a request at phab: to set mw:Manual:$wgUploadNavigationUrl in https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php. Link to a discussion showing consensus. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:52, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

See meta:Requesting_wiki_configuration_changes for the procedure. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 12:55, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Pages created versus overwritten by the content creation tool

Hello Everyone,

A while back, the content translation tool was behaving undesirably (context). This left us with about 5000 articles which were either newly created by this tool, or were overwritten by this tool. The articles are listed here: [3]. The edit which either created or overwrite the page has an edit summary that looks something like this: (Created by translating the page "[Name of article on foreign language wiki]") (thank) (Tag: ContentTranslation). I need to know which of these edits were overwrites, and which were creations, so we can check to see if the overwritten page was acceptable. To do this, either I need the full edit summary where the CXT edit happened for each article (overwrites will have undo), the revision history for each article, including full edit summaries in a form I can edit (a .txt file, for example, I can do regex on this to extract the information), or a list of which articles had (or preferably, didn't have) the CXT edit as their first edit. I suspect a quarry search will be a good attack on this problem, as that's how the original list was generated. Pinging @Xaosflux:, who ran that Quarry search. Pinging @Mathglot:. Tazerdadog (talk) 01:21, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

I did a lot of coordination there, but I think the report you are looking for was generated by @There'sNoTime:. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:31, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

FYI: The current abuse filter only prevents brand new creations by non-extendedconfirmed users in the article space. Overwrites (e.g. Tudor Chirilă from today) are are not stopped. They are of course logged and can be reviewed by recent change patrollers. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:37, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Per WP:CXT/PTR#CX Translation report, mightn't the Quarry report have been Samtar (talk · contribs)? There are three more of Samtar's ContentTranslation-related queries linked from his Quarry userpage. Mathglot (talk) 02:32, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion, We're going back through the pre-edit filter archives to try and spot where the articles were overwritten by raw machine translations. Tazerdadog (talk) 02:47, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Preserving hyperlinks when inserting RichText in Wikipedia

I have a RichText with hyperlinks, and I want to copy it into a Wiki page; specifically, I'm looking for some tool that transforms the links in the original text properly into Wiki Markup links. Any idea? — Pajz (talk) 05:39, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Maybe just pasting it into Wikipedia:VisualEditor will work ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:53, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Pajz: It's not entirely clear exactly what these links will be, so please note a few things which might be relevant. External links are generally not allowed in the content of an article (other than within references, subject to the various policies and guidelines on those). If the links are to other articles on English Wikipedia, they need to be converted to internal links. Interwiki links to other language Wikipedias are mostly discouraged in the middle of content, and should also be internal links rather than external. Lastly, please remember to clean out or convert the majority of formatting that may accompany the paste from a RTF document, and remember copyright issues. Murph9000 (talk) 11:30, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I'm aware of that, thanks. I often have to copy emails into our private (WMF) Wiki, and it's terribly annoying that I lose all the links in the process. VisualEditor doesn't preserve them either. I just wondered if perhaps there is a tool that properly converts them into our [url linktext] syntax. Best, — Pajz (talk) 22:59, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Pajz: Ahhh, ok, now it's a little clearer, thanks. It's not a direct solution, and not quite as convenient as a simple cut & paste, but mw:Extension:Html2Wiki might be worth a look, potentially giving you a RTF-->HTML-->MW route, since I guess extensions and import permissions are not necessarily ruled out. Murph9000 (talk) 23:20, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Pajz: One more thought, have you tried WP:WIKED / mw:Extension:WikEd? Murph9000 (talk) 23:30, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Watchlist notifications

Is there a way to disable bot edits from triggering watchlist notifications ? - Mlpearc (open channel) 14:34, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mlpearc: Yes, there is. At the top of the watchlist there's a big box called "Watchlist options". In that box there's a place that says "Hide:" and then there are a bunch of radiocheckboxes. One of those says "bots". Put a checkmark in that and it'll hide bot edits. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 14:51, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Do you refer to emails enabled with "Email me when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-personal? I don't think bot edits can be omitted there. "Notifications" usually refers to Wikipedia:Notifications (formerly Echo) with settings at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo, but this feature does not include the watchlist. The actual watchlist can hide bot edits with a setting at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist or a checkbox at top of Special:Watchlist, but I guess it doesn't affect emails (I haven't tested it). PrimeHunter (talk) 14:54, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@ONUnicorn: I have that already checked, I should of been more precise, @PrimeHunter: yes, I am referring to getting emails when a bot makes changes to a page on my list. - Mlpearc (open channel) 15:03, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Strange format of sidebar at Walter Benjamin

The opening section after the lead section in Walter Benjamin is formatted with an error message printing in the text. Could someone take a look? ManKnowsInfinity (talk) 19:16, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Same thing seems to come up on the sibling article at The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction related to a sidebar malfunction. Any thoughts? ManKnowsInfinity (talk) 19:18, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@ManKnowsInfinity: Fixed Other articles will be fixed when their cache is cleared or they are purged. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:24, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Blank Watchlist

Resolved

My watchlist is showing a blank white screen since 2 days. What is the issue, how to fix? -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 10:15, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@Capankajsmilyo: It's not a certainty, but there's a reasonable possibility that one of your user scripts is causing a problem. I suggest a good first diagnostic step would be to comment out all of the scripts in User:Capankajsmilyo/common.js and User:Capankajsmilyo/vector.js, and see if that makes any difference. Add // to the start of each line to comment it out (temporarily disable it). If that fixes it, remove the comments one at a time (saving the JS file each time), until you find the script that is broken. There were changes to MediaWiki recently that have caused some old scripts to break. I don't know if the ones you are loading are some of the broken ones or not, it's just a good first step. If disabling them does not fix the problem, at least we know it isn't down to the scripts. Murph9000 (talk) 10:30, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@Murph9000: It did not fix the problem. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 10:36, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@Capankajsmilyo: Hmmm, ok. Well, next step is to also disable the scripts in meta:User:Capankajsmilyo/global.js (sorry, I forgot to check if you had a global JS in my earlier reply). Keep the other two disabled as well, until we're certain the JS is not the issue. Remember to Wikipedia:Bypass your cache, and give Special:Watchlist a good 60–120s to load (it really shouldn't take that long, but a larger watchlist can be slow, so it's good to rule that out as well by allowing a long time). You could also try another browser (e.g. Firefox instead of Chrome, or Safari, or just any other browser than the one you normally use). Murph9000 (talk) 10:44, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@Murph9000: Did not help, error is 500. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 10:47, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@Capankajsmilyo: Huh, ok, that's not good (a 500 error from the server). Well, at least we know that your JS is probably not the problem (can't really be 100% on that until things are working ok without it, but it's probably 90%+ likely not to be the JS at this point). How big is your watchlist? Can you load it for editing at either Special:EditWatchlist or Special:EditWatchlist/raw? Murph9000 (talk) 10:54, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist?safemode=1 work? PrimeHunter (talk) 11:02, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@Murph9000: & @PrimeHunter: I don't know the size, but it is quite large. Special:EditWatchlist/raw is working but Special:EditWatchlist & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist?safemode=1 are not. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 11:05, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@Capankajsmilyo: Ok, well the next step seems to be to copy your watchlist from Special:EditWatchlist/raw into a local text file on your computer. Once you have a copy safely saved locally, you can clear it on Wikipedia (Special:EditWatchlist/clear can be used for that), and see if that helps. If that clears the 500 error, then it's fairly certain that either the size or something in the watchlist is causing the problem. You can then either paste a reduced version back in, or paste it back in chunks until you find a problem. Please be careful doing all of that, we can't restore a lost watchlist if something goes wrong. Murph9000 (talk) 11:20, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@Murph9000: Clearing watchlist worked. But I can't re-add entries to my watchlist. It shows

“ Database error

To avoid creating high replication lag, this transaction was aborted because the write duration (11.156260490417) exceeded the 3 second limit. If you are changing many items at once, try doing multiple smaller operations instead.[WSAuMwpAMFUAAKXhtwIAAABX] 2017-05-20 11:53:38: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBTransactionSizeError"

”

-- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 11:55, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Are you having that problem only when trying to readd in bulk, or even if just adding a single page? About how many entries are you trying to add? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:06, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

If this was related to the size of the watchlist, phab:T142329 might be related bug report (though it's not the same error code). --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 13:13, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I have 8,493 items in my watchlist. Error is coming while trying to add all at once. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 14:00, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

So don't do it all at once. Split it in half; or if that doesn't work, try quarters; etc. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:35, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks a lot for help. It started working automatically now. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 19:40, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Follow-up to the RfC for sister projects in search results

Thank you for the constructive feedback and discussion during the recent RfC. The following sister project snippets will be displayed on enwiki are listed below (in no particular order):

• Wikisource
• Wiktionary
• Wikiquote
• Wikibooks
• Wikivoyage (title match only)

The following projects will not display on enwiki at this time:

• Commons multimedia
• Wikinews
• Wikiversity

Barring any unforeseen circumstances or significant new issues being raised, we’ll enable this new feature on the search results page for all Wikipedias during the week of May 30th, 2017. Cheers, DTankersley (WMF) (talk) 10:34, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@DTankersley (WMF): Thanks for this! This feature should really improve Wikipedia searches for the general public. I note, however, that the closure of the RfC states that there was a "strong consensus to oppose" the inclusion of Wikibooks. I disagree with the closer's assessment of "strong consensus", but I note that there was certainly a lack of support for the inclusion of Wikibooks. Would you be able to make a comment on this? — This, that and the other (talk) 03:57, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

First & only section of article talk page isn't displayed

I clicked on New section to add the first section of an article's talk page but after finishing my edit, I don't see the section on the talk page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Elias_Beckingham&oldid=781319801

I'm experiencing this problem in Firefox 53.0.3 on a Windows 10 PC and on an up-to-date Chromebook. Thanks in advance. --Dyspeptic skeptic (talk) 14:46, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@Dyspeptic skeptic:  Fixed - the previous edit muddled the {{hat}} template. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:57, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. The fix worked but the problem has reoccurred now that DYKUpdateBot added Template:DYK talk:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Elias_Beckingham&oldid=781394036

I suppose I could edit the talk page myself to move that template out of the middle of the earlier one but I am concerned the problem could reoccur in the future and a better fix is needed. --Dyspeptic skeptic (talk) 09:36, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

@Dyspeptic skeptic:  Fixed-ish. I've moved the {{hat}} inside the subpage. Bots may still get confused by the transcluded GA page, and think it's part of the header (so may still add stuff below it). What should be completely fixed is stuff getting erroneously hidden inside the hat. Murph9000 (talk) 09:49, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Table appearing in wrong place

For some reason, the table that's supposed to appear in the "Certifications" section in The Very Best of Kiss is appearing at the very bottom of the article. I'm using Safari 10.1.1 on OS X 10.12.5. Esszet (talk) 02:02, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

@Esszet:  Fixed someone had removed the {{Certification Table Bottom}} from it, causing the formatting failure. My gut says it was a good faith or unintended mistake. Murph9000 (talk) 02:09, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Default addition

Currently we have to add {{Authority control}} manually to pages. Is it possible to make it a default addition to pages? -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 04:52, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

No. For a start, it's not relevant to all pages, and in some cases would be inappropriate (dab pages and redirs are the most obvious cases, as would be almost anything outside mainspace and Draft: space). Secondly, it would require a change to the MediaWiki software, so you would need to file a feature request at phab:. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:19, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Can a reflist be indented?

Is it possible to get a {{reflist}} to indent for use on the talk page? For example if I am in the middle of a discussion four (4) colons deep, and I write this (silly example) in wiki-markup:

::::I agree completely<ref>Well, not completely, for example...</ref> with what was said<ref>The word "said" has a very interesting etymology. [Discourse on the word said.]</ref>above.<ref>Other thing that might interest you...</ref>

::::Notes:

:::::{{reflist}}

I get this:

I agree completely with what was saidabove.

Notes:

Everything indented nicely, except the reflist. This drives me nuts, because it looks so awful and distracting on the talk page. I looked in the documentation for {{reflist}} and searched for "indent" and nothing came up. I have never seen anyone indent a reflist. I have seen {{reflist talk}} but that isn't any better. Is there a way to do it?

--David Tornheim (talk) 10:26, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

<div style="margin-left: 4em;">{{reflist}}</div> could be used.

Notes:

I see no reason in mainspace but maybe an |indent= parameter should be added to {{reflist-talk}}. Template:Reflist-talk#Limitations mentions the problem. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:03, 21 May 2017 (UTC)