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Freenode IRC servers 'takeover'

Background

• https://www.kline.sh/
• https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7ev8y/freenode-open-source-korea-crown-prince-takeover
• https://boingboing.net/2021/05/19/freenode-irc-staff-quit-after-new-owner-seizes-control.html

Traditionally, WMF projects and volunteers coordinated on Freenode IRC servers. Should we migrate (or aim to migrate) these projects to Libera Chat instead? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:13, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

The question here is to address what we should general aim to try to do. I'm well aware each project is independent and can setup IRC channels wherever they want. However, we could decide that we encourage specific servers and discourage others, and try to migrate the 'official' Wikipedia/Wikimedia IRC channels to Libera instead of Freenode. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:17, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't see that this needs an RFC? Wikimedia group contacts have already announced they will migrate to Libera on meta. Izno (talk) 20:22, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

This affects a lot more than what the WMF does. For example, there's #wikipedia-bag, #wikipedia-en-afc in templates like {{AfC welcome}} (including substed version of it), etc. etc. etc. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:41, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

So, why would we go somewhere else? Who has the knowledge in the community for that? Who wants to volunteer for that? Izno (talk) 20:46, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

See the above articles. As for who has the knowledge, there's busloads of technical users here that can help with this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:48, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Ok, let me spell it out then: A) We don't need an RFC. An RFC is a waste of the community's time on the point. B) Plain common sense is "go where WMF says they're taking the main channels". Izno (talk) 20:53, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Also see here. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:04, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, the channels were set up by the individual channel operators? So I suggest they can come up with a proposed plan and publicize it. I imagine most people will be fine with that, but in the event anyone objects, it can be discussed further. (Just as at meta, there may be interest in other chat tools, but that shouldn't stop any transition plan under these specific circumstances.) isaacl (talk) 21:06, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Wikimedia is migrating to Libera Chat, that was announced by the IRC Group Contacts already. See IRC/Migrating to Libera Chat for some of the technical details, it'll of course take time to update documentation, links etc. Legoktm (talk) 21:43, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC tag removed per discussion above; if this is about notifying as many users as possible rather than inviting feedback, the Signpost and WP:AN are probably better places for a notification. There is one at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#IRC_security,_Oversight_notice. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:49, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

@ToBeFree: You didn't remove it, you commented it out. There is a difference. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:25, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

...and I had even looked at that section. Thanks for removing it. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:27, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Help on "nested templates"

Firstly, Im not sure if this is the correct forum for "how to..." questions - if not, please re-direct me!

I have created a template related to the civil war and mercenary involvement in the Congo in the 1960's - this is the template, let's call it Target Template:

The section titled "Main Operations and Battles" contains a list of events that is described in another template - below is the one concerned - lets call this one Source Template:

The "Source Template" data for "Main Operations and Battles" is the primary data and is maintained in "Source Template" by unknown editors. To keep "Target Template" up to date, I can (a.) copy all the "Main Operations and Battles" wiki-links from "Source Template"' to "Target Template" [this is what I have done] and check from time to time that any changes made to "Source Template" is manually replicated to "Target Template;" or (b.) nest the data from "Source Template" directly inside "Target Template" so that it is only maintained in "Source Template."

I want to use option (b.) - please assist in letting me know how to do this? Farawayman (talk) 20:09, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Since the data is stored as an identical list in both templates, you could make a sub-template (e.g. Template:Congo Crisis/data) that contains only that list and have both Template:Congo Crisis and Template:Congo Conflict: 1960 - 1968 (that name seems a bit unwieldy to me, by the way, why not just call it something like Template:Congo Crisis navigation) transclude that template as the value for their respective relevant parameters. You should probably obtain consensus on Template talk:Congo Crisis before making such a change, though. – Rummskartoffel 20:45, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

See Help:Labeled section transclusion. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:46, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Rather complicated, but I'll give it a try. Thanks Rummskartoffel and PrimeHunter Farawayman (talk) 14:14, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to work for templates - one has to use the "# tag" function instead..... I think we will have to maintain the data in two places! Please see attempt at Source Template Farawayman (talk) 23:29, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

There appears to be an undocumented limitation: Labeled section transclusion doesn't work when the marked section is part of a template parameter. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:53, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, there is a limitation when transcluding from templates that I never quite understood. A workaround is to use lua to to get the section content. I set up something that works in {{section/sandbox}} a couple of years ago but there was no follow-up. I've used it to show that it works in this case in {{Congo Conflict: 1960–1968/sandbox}}. There are a number of other modules (e.g. Module:Excerpt) that might be suitable and more developed. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:17, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Please see comment at Template talk:Congo Crisis - we are going the right way!!! Need to make it work outside of sandbox now. Thanks to all. Farawayman (talk) 01:47, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

The partial translusion of a labelled section within a template parameter can be done with the existing template ({{excerpt}}) (using Module:Excerpt) using the same Lua method I used (but with more checks and options). I've used that to make the change to {{Congo Conflict: 1960–1968}}. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:24, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

A better solution is to use Module:Transcluder directly. Excerpt uses this module, but wraps the content returned with additional HTML. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:11, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Template:Campaignbox is not visible on mobiles and tablets even if desktop mode is turned on

Resolved

 – Chrome "desktop view" is not Wikipedia's "Desktop" mode; the former does not request additional content such as navboxes, the later does (and works). — xaosflux ^Talk 07:52, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

When I look at War of the Fifth Coalition on my Android mobile with Chrome Version 91.0.4472.101, I cannot see the result of the template "Campaignbox Napoleonic Wars" and I get no warning that something cannot be displayed. Even if I turn on desktop mode I cannot see any result of any campaignbox. The same is true for my Android tablet with Amazon Silk. The campaignboxes are very important to allow the user to navigate easily from article to article. Ruedi33a (talk) 14:54, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

What does desktop mode mean to you? What is the URL you are visiting? Izno (talk) 15:29, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

War of the Fifth Coalition in desktop mode according to Chrome on my mobile___=en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fifth_Coalition, no campaign box

War of the Fifth Coalition not in desktop mode according to Chrome on my mobile=en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fifth_Coalition, no campaign box

War of the Fifth Coalition url manually edited_____________________________=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fifth_Coalition, campainbox is visible but you cannot read it as the letters are too small unless you enlarge this part of the screen: visible but unusable for a simple user Ruedi33a (talk) 18:24, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

It works for me at [1] (link from following the Desktop view). Can you verify you successfully made it to the desktop mode (that your url is not en.m.wikipedia...). — xaosflux ^Talk 15:39, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

You are right, Chrome does not change the url correctly... Ruedi33a (talk) 18:08, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

You shouldn't just use the browser's toggle if you're currently viewing the mobile version of a page. You should use the toggle at the bottom of the page itself ("Desktop"), which serves you the desktop version no matter what the browser's preferences are. Nardog (talk) 20:52, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Works for me on desktop, too. Would it be possible to make it to where such templates appear on mobile w/o going to desktop mode? It seems that those templates are likely useful even for mobile viewers. Hog Farm _Talk 15:46, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@Hog Farm: feel free to join in 5 year old task phab:T124168 about wanting navigation boxes in mobile. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:53, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

navboxes editors vs developers - take 99

The fundamental problem with mobile seems that Wikipedians like to manually write things that work on the desktop with no regard for mobile. Developers then just code something automatic (like hiding certain boxes, or switching certain orders around, or the automated suggestions that replace some navboxes) to work around some problems with what Wikipedians have created. It might be possible to harness the power of Wikipedians to improve the mobile experience (Wikipedia's success is to use smart human labour instead of algorithms), but I wouldn't even know where to find the documentation. —Kusma (talk) 16:08, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Not only that, navboxes also take up an exorbitant amount of the data of page delivery, especially on the more popular articles. Downloading that on a phone is not fun —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:48, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Navboxes originated in the time before iPhones and the subsequent dominance of mobile Internet surfing. They just never made the jump from a design perspective. And also the size. I was going to play around with at least fixing the display part on MediaWiki wiki after navbox there got (fully) TemplateStyled, but TheDJ stopped working my edit requests ;). Izno (talk) 17:56, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not saying we should display standard navboxes on mobile (I'm not sure we should display them on desktop tbh), I'm trying to say we should design human-curated navigation tools that work well on mobile. —Kusma (talk) 20:12, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

If we knew what (good) human-curated navigation tools looked like, we probably would... Izno (talk) 21:10, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think we'd do worse than mw:Reading/Web/Projects/Related pages. —Kusma (talk) 21:34, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Maybe we should have a new class navbox-mobile which is similar to navbox but renders on mobile. {{Navbox}} and other templates could have an option for which class to use. Editors would probably disagree which navboxes are important enough to show on mobile so we would get one more thing to fight over. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:56, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

No, thank you. Forking things makes no sense. Izno (talk) 02:36, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I was unclear. I meant for navbox-mobile to render on both desktop and mobile, not forking to only render on mobile. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:50, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

No, the point I'm making is that must require a fork, because it's 'navbox' that causes these not to display on mobile. And it's not "display: none" CSS, it's "MobileFrontend rips the HTML out entirely". Izno (talk) 16:48, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

No, my idea would not require a fork. I'm suggesting that {{Navbox}} and friends get a new optional parameter, e.g. |mobile=yes. If the parameter is set then they add a new class navbox-mobile instead of adding navbox. navbox-mobile should have the same styling as navbox so it renders the same on desktop, but it also renders on mobile since navbox is no longer present. This assumes the mobile developers don't decide to also omit navbox-mobile from mobile. We can make a guideline about only using |mobile=yes on small or essential navboxes. Individual navbox templates may pass on the parameter, e.g. using {{Academy Award Best Actor}} on Academy Award for Best Actor to render on that article in mobile, but not on the biographies. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:59, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

PrimeHunter, would that not require forking the navbox style into two classes though which would then need to be kept updated in parallel? I assumed that is what Izno meant. firefly ( t · c ) 21:08, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I assumed Izno meant forking a lot of navbox templates. Defining an extra CSS class should be simple whether or not we call it forking. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:51, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

@Kusma: The fundamental problem with mobile seems that Wikipedians like to manually write things that work on the desktop with no regard for mobile. This is simply not true. The {{campaignbox}} template has been using class="navbox" for many years, and did so long before the devs started writing a special skin for mobile displays and provided the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/ domain to go with it. It was the devs who made a deliberate decision that any element belonging to the navbox class should not be displayed in mobile. So don't blame Wikipedians. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:19, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Sorry, I think my point did not come across. I was trying really hard to AGF with the devs and may have overshot. I'm just saying, there are good reasons why the devs chose a few years ago not to display navboxes. That they replaced them by RelatedPages still strikes me as bizarre (and somewhat insulting, I don't like being replaced by algorithms). The question is what we should do now. The most obvious solution to me is having separate navboxes, which according to @Izno makes no sense. The next obvious solution is to cull and cut down desktop navboxes until they make sense also on mobile, and to display them everywhere again. —Kusma (talk) 08:34, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

(As to "forking", I agree that asking desktop editors to edit something separate that is only visible on mobile isn't going to work. But maybe there's something else we can do). —Kusma (talk) 09:52, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

A social solution won't work. It's been a decade and editors are still happily making very large navboxes. :\ Izno (talk) 16:51, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I assume the majority of these editors are blissfully unaware that this might be a problem. —Kusma (talk) 12:41, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

It was a good decision not to display navboxes on mobile, they spread and grow like a cancer; in a few years every article will have a list of nearly all wikipedia articles in it. We already have infoboxes that are 5 screens long on mobile. I mean, who goes to wikipedia to *read* all these identifiers here? Ponor (talk) 12:50, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

{{Ended Turkish television series}} has 640 links to the Turkish Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:01, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, I've always like the navboxes and have found them extremely useful both as a reader and an editor to find related topics, and I use them all the time. As for the mobile version, I have no need for it even on mobile devices, and improvements in mobile phone technology that seemed to demand a mobile version in the first instance when they became capable of handling web pages now are making it obsolete. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:20, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

First I have to thank everybody joining this discussion about my question. I started as an ignorant human being and now I am on the long, cumbersome way to become a Wikipedian.
Summary: As a simple user I did not know the link "Desktop" hidden at the bottom of every wiki page. I have tried it now once and the result on my mobile was disastrous: the normal text is OK, the text of the infoboxes and campaignboxes is too small to be readable and must be increased manually. I will never use desktop mode again. If a wikipedian will say to me use "Desktop" mode to see the campaignboxes, I will know that this is an answer out of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: absolutely correct but does not help at all. The situation is that a user sees only 95-99% of this kind of wiki article on his mobile/tablet and gets no warning.
I suggest this solution: The simple infobox is a perfect replacement to solve the problem but the infobox seems to be too boring and too ugly for wikipedians. Compare Template:French invasion of russia mobile with Template:Campaignbox Napoleon's invasion of Russia. I suggest to replace each campaignbox with an infobox or something better than infobox that is visible on a mobile/tablet. Ruedi33a (talk) 11:00, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

We already have a meta-template for this, it's {{sidebar}}. That template also does not display on mobile, basically for the same reasons as the navbox above. I do not think this solution will do anything, and it's likely to be deleted locally anyway due to being a fork or converted to use sidebar, which will subsequently remove it from mobile. "I want to see these on mobile" isn't good enough to solve the problem. Izno (talk) 16:54, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Could someone give me a non-technical current consensus please? For example Ruedi33a has created {{Peninsular War 1810 1811 mobile}} (currently transcluded from 16 articles) to replace {{Campaignbox Peninsular War (1810–1811)}} (currently transcluded from one article). That is just one example of the many new "mobile" templates they have created. Is there any consensus for this? FDW777 (talk) 11:45, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@FDW777: well this is the tech page, so not sure what you are looking for. I don't think we should be misusing infobox classes to house a navbox though. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:07, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

that is, if certain "contained conflicts" etc are integral to articles about conflicts, they should get integrated in to Template:Infobox military conflict. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:09, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Template:Infobox military conflict contains a campaignbox parameter that allows campaign boxes to be included. Some campaigns are important enough to have many articles and some are not. But not all articles using a particular campaignbox is a campaign; only the top level one. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:29, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

I think my use of non-technical may have confused the issue, I was looking for a simple answer in layman's terms since a lot of the terminology is over my head. Is this change from {{Campaignbox Peninsular War (1810–1811)}} to {{Peninsular War 1810 1811 mobile}} something that actually needs doing from a technical standpoint? FDW777 (talk) 12:11, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

TFD opened on that at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2021_June_20#Template:Peninsular_War_1810_1811_mobile. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:07, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Are WP:MILHIST aware of what has been happening? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:35, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#"Hubs". This was considered a more appropriate forum for the discussion. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:59, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Implementation of book namespace deletion

Yesterday, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Delete_all_books_within_the_book_namespace closed with consensus for deletion while retaining WP:REFUND possibilities. The only way to achieve this is to move the pages to another namespace (presumably the Wikipedia: one) before deletion. Early on in the discussion I was under the impression this was not required (and thus the proposal itself was formulated under this assumption) but it definitely is as can be seen from the education program discussions.

My concrete proposal is to move all pages to subpages of Wikipedia:Books/archive with a bot and host a list of (deleted) books at Wikipedia:Books/archive. This will remove the possibility of refunding previously deleted books though. According to the WP:REFUND archives this has never happened though even though WP:BPROD explicitly allows for this. After this I will file a phabricator ticket for removal of the namespace. I also plan on dealing with related Book namespace cleanup which may have to occur before or after the massmove and namespace deletion. --Trialpears (talk) 07:49, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

@Trialpears: wait - do you want to undelete every page in Book:, move it, and redelete it? We are under no obligation to host deleted version indefinitely. — xaosflux ^Talk 07:57, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Xaosflux No I was just noting that it won't be possible to undelete previously deleted books after this but considered that no big deal since we literally never had a refund request for a book as far as I can tell. Perhaps I formulated that poorly. --Trialpears (talk) 08:00, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

@Trialpears: OK thanks, I agree - and don't think we should do anything to try to maintain those currently-deleted-versions. — xaosflux ^Talk 08:06, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

There's only ever been 24 restorations in those namespaces, almost half for history merges or splits, and so there's little chances of this being an issue. On the other hand, there aren't all that many deleted pages there to start with - some 1319 in Book: and 952 in Book talk:, compared to 7691/7357 currently existing - so briefly restoring them for the move seems like it would be low-effort. —Cryptic 13:28, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I mean it wouldn't be too annoying with twinkle d-batch and und-batch, but I'm inclined to just not bother given the tiny amount of restorations historically as well as how unlikely it is for there to be worth while content among them. If someone thinks it should be done I'm happy to do it though. --Trialpears (talk) 14:14, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Trialpears, FWIW I also agree that undeleting previously-deleted Books isn't worth the time and effort given there has been negligible interest in REFUNDing them up to now. firefly ( t · c ) 16:45, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Like I've put at in the closing note of the RFC, I disagree with moving to userspace. It would be very problematic, because Book-namespace books were community endeavors, and had multiple editors and no 'owner'. Before the book namespace existed, community books were hosted at Wikipedia:Books/Foobar. This is where their resting place should be as well. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:07, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Headbomb A few books were indeed proper community endeavors with more than one significant editor, but the vast majority was not with only one editor making significant edits. For the former category I have no problems if they get refunded to Wikipedia:Books/Foobar. --Trialpears (talk) 17:18, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Put them all there, there's no reason to treat pages in the namespace differently. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:58, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Headbomb I'm unsure exactly what you're suggesting: That all books be moved to Wikipedia:Books/Foobar without deletion, with deletion but with refunds or moved to Wikipedia:Books/archive/Foobar with refunds to Wikipedia:Books/Foobar.

In my opinion just refunding to either userspace or Wikipedia:Books/Foobar depending on what the requesting user requests makes the most sense. As for the reason I suggest Wikipedia:Books/archive/Foobar is that would make Wikipedia:Books/archive an obvious place to list all books moved in this process, give instructions on how refunds should be handled and a short explanation of how come books were deleted.

If it is that you don't think they should be deleted but just moved I don't necessarily disagree (I !voted neutral in the RfC and remain so) but I really don't want to prolong discussion more which would be necessary in case there are objections to the deletions per the close. --Trialpears (talk) 19:45, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

That they should all be moved to Wikipedia:Books/Foobar, and not User:Foobar/Barfoo. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:24, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

This is all an irrelevant tangent. The only reason pages are being moved at all is that if they are deleted in-place, their deleted revisions will become permanently unavailable (even to admins) once the namespace is removed. The correct location for a book (whether it should be in userspace, Wikipedia namespace, or somewhere else) can be discussed if and when a specific book is restored. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:27, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

The should all be preserved at Wikipedia:Books/Foobar, not deleted to begin with. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:49, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

No point in debating the outcome here, this isn't how you'll get it stalled or changed. Gonnym (talk) 08:43, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

The consensus was to get rid of the book namespace, not delete all books therein. RFC closed with "Editors felt that it should still be possible to access books currently in this namespace." Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:56, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I think we can start by disabling all editing in book namespace (except for admin editing), title blacklist or otherwise. Currently, the title blacklist disables the creation and the saving of new books to book namespace. After, we can contact all book creators about the book namespace being deleted and help them move it to userspace, giving them six months to a year to have their book moved. If an editor does not claim their book, then it will be gone, presumably permanently. Books with multiple authors can be moved to Project: space. Anyway, this is how I would approach it. Aasim (talk) 21:29, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Awesome Aasim I think your proposal would make a lot of sense if this was the one time where something would be essentially non reversable and the books wouldn't be undeletable, but since the books will first be moved to Wikipedia space and then deleted refunds will work just as usual. Anyone visiting a book should notice the big red banner on top of the page explaining that books will be deleted. We can also clearly communicate what happend using Mediawiki:Titleblacklist-forbidden-book and {{no article text}} and give instructions on how to request refunds. Also worth noting that most edits in the book namespace currently are dab fixes, red link removal and userfication, so I don't see any reason to stop editing there. --Trialpears (talk) 11:26, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

So I've been away a few days and am just catching up on this, so forgive me if I get something wrong. It seems like there is consensus to delete pages in the Book: namespace, but in a such a way that deleted revisions are retrievable. It doesn't seem like pages have been deleted yet, so we're still in the planning phase, yes? If so I want to summarize what I think the plan going forward is and how to do it efficiently.

1. Move all pages matching r/ Book:(.*) / to r/ Wikipedia:Books/archive/\1 / without leaving a redirect
2. Delete all subpages of Wikipedia:Books/archive
3. Create a documentation page at Wikipedia:Books/archive explaining the historical context, where titles hosting deleted book revisions can be found, and how to request undeletion if one wishes
4. Disable the book namespace in the site configuration

The first two seem relatively simple to do by script, and given the consensus to have the revisions accessible in some future way, I believe we should not skip straight to disabling the namespace. The minutia of where to restore can be handled by the relevant admin when requests come in, and I don't think we need to figure that out right now. For books that are currently deleted, I agree that undeleting them would not be wise; we would open ourselves up to restoring BLP violations or other inappropriate content, and without much interest in them I don't believe we need to retain stably deleted content just for the sake of retaining revisions editors are unlikely to request. That said, it would be nice to establish a timeline for namespace deactivation and advertise it so that interested editors have time to request any pages they might wish to keep.

Is there anything I'm missing? Have we coordinated volunteers for any of these tasks? — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:42, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Wugapodes, Trialpears currently has a BRFA open that’ll handle (1), and I believe they will then do (2) as a batch deletion. If nobody else has yet claimed (3) I’m happy to draft it. firefly ( t · c ) 20:57, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Seems that the BRFA has been closed as approved though it has only run on the Education Program namespace so far. @Trialpears: do you have an estimate on when you plan to expand to Books? — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:04, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Wugapodes you've essentially said everything I was thinking but clearer, I don't believe you're missing anything major either. The one bot currently interacting with books has been disabled, but we should ensure nothing using the {{ns:}} parser function breaks and MediaWiki:Coll-community book prefix should be deleted along with the namespace. There are also a couple of categories and other things that should be cleaned up afterwards, all of which should be included at User:Trialpears/book related things but again nothing that actually influences the plan you outlined more than adding a point 5: Miscellaneous clean up.

I plan on doing everything necessary if noone wants to help out. Firefly just volunteered for 3 which I think sounds great, and I got the impression 54nd60x was perhaps interested in helping looking over documentation, backlinks and other miscellaneous parts as they did for the Education program namespace. For when I would say no earlier then a week from this discussion opened so probably Sunday if nothing here indicates that would be inappropriate. My opinion is that a big red banner on all books for a month is sufficient notification, I also plan on personally making sure Book refunds are handled quickly and smoothly. Ultimately though I'm not in a hurry and can wait if people think there's a benefit to doing so. --Trialpears (talk) 21:25, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Crosswiki notifications and the responsive monobook skin

I use the responsive monobook skin, which changes several things depending on the size of my window/screen. When I receive a crosswiki notification, it shows up as a little blue "1" in the notifications inbox in both designs. However, if I click on it to see the notification, I can only see it in the classic design. There is no "notifications from another wiki" message in the small-screen/mobile version (but all notifications from enwiki are visible there). There seems to be no way to find out what a crosswiki blue 1 is about without changing screen size / turning off the responsive design. Is this intentional? If no, can this be fixed? If yes, why? Could crosswiki notifications at least have a different colour? (So I know I can't read them on my phone and will have to wait until I get back to my desktop). The software telling me I have messages but sometimes not telling me what they are isn't great. —Kusma (talk) 08:57, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

The problem also occurs in Vector, actually. The only information about crosswiki notifications is in the "Recent activity" box, which disappears without a trace when the screen/window size is too small. So if you get a crosswiki ping, you can't tell where it came from and you can't clear it from your inbox. I dpn't quite know where to report this. —Kusma (talk) 18:52, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Maybe somewhere related to mw:Extension:Echo? – Rummskartoffel 14:07, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Harv cite issues, Harv errors abound...

Harv cites are not my jam but when Harv errors and warnings litter an article it annoys me so I try to fix them. That being said, since they are not my jam, they are often a source of frustration to me because I usually cannot easily figure out exactly what is wrong. So, O Wiki Technical/Coding Mavens Who Understand All The Niceties of Harvard/Sfnm/etc Citations... could someone PLEASE take a look at Chester A. Arthur and tell me why it is littered with 44 "Harv errors"? I tried to fix one - the Abbot cite - but was unsuccessful. If you could explain it here, maybe step-by-step in somewhat plain English so my addled brain can understand that would be awesome. If you don't mind, please don't fix the issues at the article - explain it here and I'll get at it myself. I know it's probably something incredibly simple but I am just not seeing what the issue is at the moment. Thanks. Shearonink (talk) 17:24, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

With the version of the script you have installed, it correctly identifies that items in the Further reading section that you are citing with a Harv template should be in a separate section above the Further reading section. Perhaps "Works cited" or "Bibliography". The point of a further reading section is to contain works that you did not cite but have included for 'further' reading. Izno (talk) 17:41, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Like Izno said, that's because you have references in a further reading section, instead of a bibliography section (or similar). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:46, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Just for the record, I did not set the references up and I have had little to do with the article until (maybe) today. Chester A. Arthur is a featured article and the present referencing layout is how I found it. Btw, there is already a References section but it only has 2 Refname references + a single Sfn reference sitting in it... . Shearonink (talk) 17:59, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Figured out what will work. Thx Wiki-Mavens. Shearonink (talk) 18:10, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Just so. Izno (talk) 18:32, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

For the record, there were and are (at this writing) no short citation errors in that article. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:59, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Article paragraphs

Since the last time when I open an article, the paragraphs open automatically, please fix the bug and make it open manually. Mohmad Abdul sahib☆(message☎me!) 19:38, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Mohmad Abdul sahib, try going to Special:MobileOptions and turning off "Expand all sections". See if that fixes your issue. – Rummskartoffel 20:54, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

User:Rummskartoffel good, but Why did I not receive a notification of your reply?Mohmad Abdul sahib☆(message☎me!) 14:29, 20 June 2021‎ (UTC)

Mohmad Abdul sahib, the notification was successfully sent on my end. Try checking your notification settings at Preferences → Notifications. – Rummskartoffel 16:26, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@Mohmad Abdul sahib: Notifications to mobile users are not very prominent, and in some cases are not shown at all. See the discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF) RudolfRed (talk) 02:50, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Strong formatting in mobile amboxes

I made a thread here a while back about how strong formatting shows up within mobile amboxes (unlike bold formatting): Template talk:Notability#Strong markup. Is this a proper use of strong formatting? Any technical thoughts, ideas? — Goszei (talk) 01:05, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

The mobile display of ambox, as well as certain other elements on the mobile version, is still basically being controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation's developers. I believe that your suggestion that we do here will be overridden with code that they control on the mobile version. MW:Reading/Web/Projects/Mobile Page Issues probably best describes what they have been specifically doing with ambox. MW:Reading/Mobile Friendly Content probably best describes what they are trying to accomplish overall: basically, the MediaWiki software was not initially designed with responsive web design by default, and many existing elements are only optimised for desktop browsers, so they still want to find ways make these things more mobile friendly. Thus, you might want to instead post your suggestion at MW:Talk:Reading/Web/Projects/Mobile Page Issues. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (talk) 02:01, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: Show amboxes (article message boxes) by default on mobile devices

On desktop, amboxes are considered important enough to display even to non-editors. This is used by non-editors to recognize when there are potential issues with an article on WP. But on the mobile versions of Wikipedia, the amboxes are hidden or relegated to a subpage (E.g. on the Wikipedia iOS app, amboxes are not displayed but instead there is a link "page issues" at the end of the article.)

My opinion is, we should give amboxes similar prominence on mobile that we give them on desktop. I.e. display them at the top of the page or section. 15:44, 20 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

The mobile display of ambox, as well as certain other elements on the mobile version, is still basically being controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation's developers. I believe that your suggestion that we do here will be overridden with code that they control on the mobile version. MW:Reading/Web/Projects/Mobile Page Issues probably best describes what they have been specifically doing with ambox. MW:Reading/Mobile Friendly Content probably best describes what they are trying to accomplish overall: basically, the MediaWiki software was not initially designed with responsive web design by default, and many existing elements are only optimised for desktop browsers, so they still want to find ways make these things more mobile friendly. Thus, you might want to instead post your suggestion at MW:Talk:Reading/Web/Projects/Mobile Page Issues. Zzyzx11 (talk) 02:01, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Table ID

{{Excerpt}} Gives the impression that I can transclude a specific table if it has an ID.

tables — Tables to transclude. By default all tables are transcluded. Same syntax as when transcluding paragraphs, but also: tables=Stats2020 — Transclude the table with id 'Stats2020'

I've looked at Help:Table But I'm not clear how to create the ID. Is it done with an anchor?--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:46, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

My intended usage has a flaw so nevermind. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:38, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Show all

Is there a gadget to expand all collapsed sections on a page, including nested ones? An article like My Little Television needs over 50 clicks to show all its content, which can be inconvenient when searching. I could probably throw some JavaScript together to fiddle with the mw-collapsible-* classes but the idea seems too obvious to be original, so I expect this wheel has already been invented. Certes (talk) 17:00, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

$('.mw-collapsed').each(function () { $(this).data('mwCollapsible').expand() }); would do it, but they shouldn't be collapsed in the first place per MOS:DONTHIDE. Nardog (talk) 17:09, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you; that works beautifully as a bookmarklet and will save me much clicking. Certes (talk) 13:54, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

review/approve-a?

Which combination of page protections, user rights, and actions produces review/approve-a in the logs? -- RoySmith (talk) 00:07, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

It appears to mean any autoconfirmed user making an edit to a Pending Changes-protected page that doesn't have any pending edits (and thus their edit being automatically approved) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:16, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm seeing these on Tim Duncan, so that makes sense. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:06, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Copying text

I, being a mobile user, cannot copy text from a page's normal view, and have to into editing mode to do it, which can be problematic on pages using {{PAGENAME}} and similar. Is there a way around this? ― Qwerfjkl | 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂  (please use {{reply to|Qwerfjkl}} on reply)Template:Z181 15:05, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Maybe try a different web browser or app? I have no trouble copying text in the Read mode on mobile view (using Safari on iOS or Firefox on Mac OS). – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:22, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-25

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

• The otrs-member group name is now vrt-permissions. This could affect abuse filters. [2]

Problems

• You will be able to read but not edit German Wikipedia, English Wikivoyage and 29 smaller wikis for a few minutes on 22 June. This is planned between 5:00 and 5:30 UTC. [3]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 June. It will be on all wikis from 24 June (calendar).

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

15:47, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

TemplateScript error

Resolved

I get

Uncaught ReferenceError: pathoschild is not defined
    at <anonymous>:5:89
    at domEval (/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=startup&only=scripts&raw=1&skin=vector:11)
    at runScript (/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=startup&only=scripts&raw=1&skin=vector:13)
    at enqueue (/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=startup&only=scripts&raw=1&skin=vector:11)
    at execute (/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=startup&only=scripts&raw=1&skin=vector:14)
    at doPropagation (/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=startup&only=scripts&raw=1&skin=vector:6)

when running this code:

pathoschild.TemplateScript.add({
	name:'ScriptInstallation',
	script: function(editor) {
		editor
			.prepend('== Installation ==')
			.prepend(';Method 1:')
			.prepend('Get [[User:Enterprisey/script-installer|ScriptInstaller]], then navigate to [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}.js]] and click "Install" at the top.')
			.prepend(';Method 2:')
			.prepend('(This can be used on any-language Wikipedia.)')
			.prepend('# Place {{tlx|lusc|1{{=}}{{FULLPAGENAME}}.js}} on the bottom of [[Special:MyPage/common.js]] or [[Special:MyPage/skin.js]].')
			.prepend('# Press "Publish Changes".')
			.prepend(';Method 3:')
			.prepend('(This can only be used on the English Wikipedia.)')
			.prepend('# Place {{tlx|iusc|1{{=}}{{FULLPAGENAME}}.js}} on the bottom of [[Special:MyPage/common.js]] or [[Special:MyPage/skin.js]].')
			.prepend('# Press "Publish Changes"')
			.appendEditSummary('Added script installation text')
			.clickDiff();
	}
});

― Qwerfjkl | 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂  (please use {{reply to|Qwerfjkl}} on reply)Template:Z181 17:27, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

What do you believe pathoschild should be? Is this code part of a larger script? — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 17:53, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

@GhostInTheMachine This is made using TemplateScript. ― Qwerfjkl | 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂  (please use {{reply to|Qwerfjkl}} on reply)Template:Z181 18:10, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

The code above assumes that pathoschild.templatescript.js is already loaded. Your common.js calls the loader and then runs the above code straight away. This does not give any time for templatescript.js to be fetched and so it has not yet defined the pathoschild object. Take a look at mw.loader.using or TemplateScript as a gadget or framework for ways to defer your code to after the script has loaded — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 19:01, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

@GhostInTheMachine Thanks, that fixed it. How do you add a new line e.g. editor.prepend('some text{newline]')? ― Qwerfjkl | 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂  (please use {{reply to|Qwerfjkl}} on reply)Template:Z181 13:22, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Use \n to create a line break, e.g. editor.prepend("Line 1\nLine 2"). – Rummskartoffel 15:20, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@Rummskartoffel Thanks, I was using /n. Facepalm ― Qwerfjkl | 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂  (please use {{reply to|Qwerfjkl}} on reply)Template:Z181 15:42, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Graphs

How to create such graphs? I know that external application for it is needed. Eurohunter (talk) 22:46, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Use Template:Graph:Chart, with the "type = line" parameter option. No need to create an file. Use the xAxisTitle and yAxisTitle parameters to name the axis.--Snævar (talk) 00:42, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

@Snævar: Thanks but probably only 1-2 could be used for article and on Commons there could more of them (extension). Eurohunter (talk) 11:05, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Raw link

I'm looking for a template to strip formatting from a wikilink and give me the raw target. {{Delink}} works quite well but for piped links it gives me the label instead of the target.

For example, I want:

• [[Liloan, Cebu|Liloan]] → Liloan, Cebu

I did try using Module:String a regular expression but the pipe character is confusing things. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:49, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

It would seem that you should be able to modify delinkWikilink(s) at Module:Delink#L-38 to do that because titlearea (poorly named, that) gets the target article name so you could return it after Module:Delink#L-59?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:51, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

An additional function on that module would be great, if you had time to implement please — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:46, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Hacked the sandbox:

• Liloan ← {{delink|[[Liloan, Cebu|Liloan]]|wikilinks=}}
• Liloan ← {{delink|[[Liloan, Cebu|Liloan]]|wikilinks=no}}
• Liloan ← {{delink|[[Liloan, Cebu|Liloan]]|wikilinks=yes}}
• Liloan, Cebu ← {{delink|[[Liloan, Cebu|Liloan]]|wikilinks=target}}
• Liloan, Cebu ← {{delink|[[Liloan, Cebu|]]|wikilinks=target}}
• Liloan, Cebu ← {{delink|[[Liloan, Cebu]]|wikilinks=target}}

that what you want?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:09, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Amazing, thank you! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:04, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Ok, I'll update the live version of the template.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:06, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

By String ({{!}} is a |):

{{#invoke:String|match|s=[[Liloan, Cebu|Liloan]]|pattern=%[%[([^]{{!}}]+)|plain=0|nomatch=}} MarMi wiki (talk) 22:21, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Tooltip for WikiMiniAtlas coordinates inside a File template is cut off

When WikiMiniAtlas coordinates are inside a File template in an article, the tooltip is cut off by the image box and is not shown outside of it, as can be seen on this page. I tested this on Windows 10 in Firefox, Chrome and Edge. Does anyone else have this problem?

Gif question

If anyone can help, there is a gif I'm using on Cai Lun's article. However, at FAC, two users have expressed that it goes rather quickly between images (an insight I agree with); I attempted to use this website to slow down the process to five seconds per image, but when I uploaded it, it became exact some speed. Any advice or solutions would be appreciated—and apologies if this is the wrong forum for such a query. Best - Aza24 (talk) 22:38, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Runs at a very comfortable 5s per frame for me. FF on Vista(!) on a low-memory notebook. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 23:48, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Indeed! I seem to have been nothing but impatient, it probably took a second for it to update is all. Aza24 (talk) 00:20, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Gallery widths

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T214320

Is there any way to get a gallery to display on a specified number of lines (for desktop)? I got the one here to display nicely on one full line on my display, but when I tried a different monitor it went onto a second line. There doesn't seem to be anything at Help:Gallery tag, so I'm thinking it might be necessary to use some HTML in the widths parameter or something like that. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:08, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Why don't you want me (or some other users) to easily see Walker Beach, looking south? What's wrong with the gallery wrapping responsively so I don't have to horizontally scroll? — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 23:51, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

@JohnFromPinckney: I'm not looking to require horizontal scrolling, I'm looking for the pictures to be adaptively resized. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:29, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

That doesn't sound like it would work very well on mobile, or on narrow desktop screens/narrow browser windows. — Goszei (talk) 00:46, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I hadn't understood that. Are you helped by the cats example at Help:Pictures#Galleries? you may also find something useful at mw:Help:Images. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 00:51, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Looking further, I found the "perrow" parameter; it just doesn't seem to work for galleries in packed mode. @Goszei, for mobile/smaller devices, the galleries will definitely need to go onto multiple lines; the thing I'm trying to prevent is just the situation where 6 photos are on one line and 1 goes onto the next. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:01, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I found the relevant phab task: phab:T214320. No action since Jan. 2019. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:18, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Page tagged for speedy, did not get added to watchlist

I recently tagged a page for speedy deletion using those tabs at the top of the page (can't remember what they are called). The tagging happened correctly, the creator was messaged, but the page itself did not then appear on my watchlist. I'm sure when I've done this before the pages were added to my watchlist. DuncanHill (talk) 23:21, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Judging from your contribs, those tabs are probably Wikipedia:Twinkle. Some of the CSD don't cause the page in question to be put on the watchlist by default, but you can configure that on a per-criterion basis at Wikipedia:Twinkle/Preferences#speedy. – Rummskartoffel 12:00, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@Rummskartoffel: Thanks - yes Twinkle is it, and thanks for the pointer to the settings page, very useful DuncanHill (talk) 02:48, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Scripts only working on certain pages

Certain scripts (Ohconfucius's formatgeneral, Sources, and Common Terms, as well as TemplateScript) only show up on pages with &action=submit appended to their URL, as well as some random text.

ScriptErrorScreenshot

― Qwerfjkl | 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂  (please use {{reply to|Qwerfjkl}} on reply)Template:Z181 13:41, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: That's probably intentional. See e.g. User:Ohconfucius/script/formatgeneral#Actions: Once you are in edit mode, there is a button .... Unless I'm misunderstanding and they don't work in edit mode. – Rummskartoffel 17:09, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@Rummskartoffel They don't work in this edit mode but they do in this edit mode. ― Qwerfjkl | 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂  (please use {{reply to|Qwerfjkl}} on reply)Template:Z181 17:31, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Huh. In that case, dunno. For me, they work in both, and don't add random stuff. – Rummskartoffel 18:01, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@Rummskartoffel This also happens on the default 'create page' editor, but none of the buttons do anything. ― Qwerfjkl | 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂  (please use {{reply to|Qwerfjkl}} on reply)Template:Z181 20:24, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

(This edit mode.) ― Qwerfjkl | 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂  (please use {{reply to|Qwerfjkl}} on reply)Template:Z181 17:01, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Are there any error messages in the browser console? Otherwise, the only thing I can think of would be to revert your common.js to a version where it worked and then add the scripts in question again one-by-one until you find the one that breaks it. – Rummskartoffel 14:05, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Odd watchlist note

When I check my watchlist the Navajo line has an odd note beside it - a small clock symbol - and when I hover over it "30 days left on your watchlist" shows up. When did that start and why? Vsmith (talk) 16:14, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Hey, Vsmith, this is the relatively new watchlist expiry feature. I think that, wehn one interacts with a page via Twinkle as you did with Navajo here, Twinkle uses that new feature to add the page to your watchlist for 30 days, after which it'll disappear. This can be changed in your Twinkle preferences, as described in the Twinkle documentation. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:20, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, wasn't aware of that ... I'll avoid that twinkle bit or twiddle with prefs. I've got a huge watchlist that needs trimming ... tried once, but Wiki timed out trying to load it :) Vsmith (talk) 17:56, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@Vsmith: try raw mode here: Special:EditWatchlist/raw. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:53, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

This is a great addition. There are loads of pages on my watchlist where I made an edit and wanted to see any follow-up and years later they are still there. Setting the watch to a week or a month is very useful. —  Jts1882 | talk  19:46, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Updated blank map with national borders?

Is there updated version of this blank map with national borders? The other question is how to edit it expect Paint? Eurohunter (talk) 18:52, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Arabic variants font

Hi,

We have an issue here regarding the font selected by the OS/browser to display varieties of Arabic such as South Levantine Arabic (ajp) and North Levantine Arabic (apc). Apparently on Windows 10, using Firefox, Edge, or Chrome, the following words don't look the same and may not be readable depending on the language code used: ‏احنا‎ (ar) ‏احنا‎code: ajp is deprecated (ajp) ‏احنا‎ (apc) // ‏اللَّهْجَةُ الشَّامِيَّة‎‎ (ar) ‏اللَّهْجَةُ الشَّامِيَّة‎ (ajp) ‏اللَّهْجَةُ الشَّامِيَّة‎ (apc) On MacOS + Chrome/Firefox/Safari everything looks OK. Do you know if there's a way to solve this problem?

(I initially posted this question there but it seems here is a better place, so I copy/pasted it...) A455bcd9 (talk) 22:08, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Using Edge in Windows 10, and starting the Developers Tools, it appears that in the paragraph above the 'ar' script is rendered in Segoe UI, but the 'ajp' and 'apc' scripts are rendered in Arial. This explains why they look different, but I don't know what mechanism causes the selection of a different font for each script.--Verbarson (talk) 10:45, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Simple Windows doesn't have these particular arabic glyphs available in Segoe UI, and it thus falls back to a font which does have the characters available. By default Windows doesn't install all fonts of every language (it takes up a lot of space) if the language isn't likely to be spoken in your region. You only get a basic set. If you want full support for languages on Windows, you have to install the language packs. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:04, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your answers. @TheDJ: I don't understand your point. The characters are exactly the same in the examples, the only difference is the language code selected. So for me, the question is why Windows displays the same characters in different scripts depending on the language code. And I have no idea... A455bcd9 (talk) 14:10, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

@A455bcd9: in short, we (Wikipedia) don't specify the special font for that - we only include a language declaration on the element, it is up to the browser (and generally the underlying operating system) to determine if it wants to do something special with it. The ability to do this may be limited if certain languages are not installed in the OS/browser. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:14, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you have any idea how users can solve this problem on Windows? Then we could display some warning/help like Template:Contains special characters. A455bcd9 (talk) 14:40, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

As was already mentioned above, install additional system language packages from the manufacturer. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:16, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

As far as I know (and I also checked on Microsoft's website), there's no language pack for ajp and apc on Windows, unfortunately. Do you have any idea of where we could find help? A455bcd9 (talk) 18:22, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

You could go ask over at w:ar:ويكيبيديا:الميدان/تقنية - they will probably be more familiar with technicalities of that language. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:48, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I think people on the Modern Standard Arabic (ar) Wikipedia won't have any idea at all of this problem which only concerns ajp (South Levantine) and apc (North Levantine), which are different languages from ar. (and I don't speak Modern Standard Arabic anyway... ^^). And unfortunately, neither ajp nor apc has a Wikipedia. So I asked the question on superuser. A455bcd9 (talk) 20:56, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Edit lead section only

Resolved

 – Gadget is working. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:55, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I thought once upon a time, we were able to just open the lead section and edit it. I don't see such a link now. Did I imagine such a thing existed? Did I change some preference that took it away? I use Modern skin. — Maile (talk) 02:22, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

@Maile66: Is it not available in the "Appearance" section of Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets? Sdrqaz (talk) 03:12, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it's there all right. And I apparently already had it checked. But in editing any article, that lead section link is not available. Not in Chrome, and not in Firefox. Hmmmm. — Maile (talk) 10:04, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

 Works for me @Maile66: the gadget places the [edit] link at the end of the page title. Are you using the desktop site? Which skin are you using? — xaosflux ^Talk 10:19, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm using Modern skin, and have been using it for years. What is the desktop site? — Maile (talk) 10:32, 24 June 2021 (UTC) Nevermind. It was there all along, but I was looking in the wrong place. — Maile (talk) 10:33, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I can totally understand not seeing it. Putting the link next to the title is not an intuitive place for "click me to edit the lead". If I didn't know what it was, I would guess it was either "click me to edit the title" (i.e. rename the article), or "click me to edit the whole article" (i.e. a duplicate of the Edit link in the header bar). -- RoySmith (talk) 14:32, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

@RoySmith: it does have a tool tip label of "Edit lead section", and all other sections have the edit link next to the header name. I suppose it could inject a new L2 header called something like "== Lead ==" and put it there maybe? If you have some good ideas for improvement, please feel free to follow up at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-edittop.js. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:42, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

insert a caption here

Ah, so it does. I never noticed that before. Perhaps instead of just the tooltip, it could alter the displayed text? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:50, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Enhanced watchlist on mobile

Is there a setting to make the enhanced watchlist (that which groups changes to the same page) show up on mobile? Cheers. — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 ☎ 03:17, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Updated Special pages

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T285538

Hello, Tech folks,

Special:WantedCategories and Special:UnusedCategories always update every 3 days, starting on the first day of the month but they haven't updated today. I have no idea what bot or program is responsible for updating Special pages and these pages have no edit history to check. They have talk pages but not ones that anyone ever checks. Any ideas? Is there a general lag today? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:52, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

@Liz: this happens on the back-end by a cron job, the Job gets run every three days, but can take more than a day to get through the list. So unless it is a couple of days over, its not worth raising a phab ticket yet. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:10, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm, seems to be globally delayed. Looking if there is already a ticket. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:14, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

phab:T285583 opened on this. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:20, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Wow, that's great, Xaosflux. Thank you. It's great we have this forum to ask questions for those of us not technically-minded. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:22, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

@Liz: OK, just FYI this is now phab:T285538; which is marked 'resolved' - but please note that only means the underlying problem is resolved, not the instance of the problem. So the job that updates these is allegedly running now, but it may take time to realize the update. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:25, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

If anything is urgently needed, please poke someone and we can get a member of SRE to run it but otherwise it will just pick up on its next normal run. ~ RhinosF1_(Chat) / ^(Contribs) 20:27, 25 June 2021 (UTC)