Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 

• Table of contents
• First discussion
• End of page
• New post

The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bugs and feature requests should be made at the BugZilla since there is no guarantee developers will read this page. Problems with user scripts should not be reported here, but rather to their developers (unless the bug is exigent).

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

This page is automatically archived by Werdnabot. Any sections older than 7 days are automatically archived to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive. Sections without timestamps are not archived.

These discussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.

Getting a partial source, with action=raw?

Is there a way to get the source (ie. raw wikitext) of a section of an article? I tried adding &section=x to the URL (as per how section editing is done) but it still pulls the whole article. If there is no current way to do this via a URL, is there a good way to parse the whole wikitext to split into sections (ie. a regex to split on)? —Daniel Vandersluis^(talk) 21:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's the MediaWiki parser regex for making headings (converted to JavaScript):

       for ( i = 6; i >= 1; --i ) {
           var h = "";
           var r = i;
           
           while (--r >= 0) h += "=";
           
           re = new RegExp("^"+ h +"(.+)"+ h +"(\\s*)$", "gm");
           
           text = text.replace(re, "<h"+ i +">$1</h"+ i +">$2");
       }

You could a split/explode just before the regexp, and you'd have an array of sections. As far as I know, there's no current way to do this via URL. Datrio 07:37, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! —Daniel Vandersluis^(talk) 13:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

dontcountme=s?

Does anybody know why and where the "dontcountme=s" parameter for MediaWiki's index.php originated and what, if any, use it had (or has). This parameter can be found in many installation codes for user scripts, as in:

// install User:Cacycle/wikEd in-browser text editor
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="'
+ 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Cacycle/wikEd.js'
+ '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');

I have tried hard to find any reference to it, including the MediaWiki source code. It is also not listed under http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Parameters_to_index.php. Cacycle 03:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I've also wondered about this... Gracenotes^T § 03:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I would guess it has something to do with access log processing for statistics and that it has always ignored by the MediaWiki software itself. Mike Dillon 05:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Well "common selse" would suggest that it relates to MediaWiki's hit counting feature. I can't speak to wheter or not it actualy has any effect in the current MediaWiki version. I know hit counting is disabled on the English Wikipedia and probably most other MediaWiki projects for performance reasons so around here it defenently doesn't do anyting regardles. The way it's used would suggest the intention was to avoid having stylesheet and javascript pages like MediaWiki:Common.css or MediaWiki:Common.js show up as the most viewed pages on the site. People have then just copied the syntax used to load those pages when they created theyr own user css and js pages, but I'm pretty sure it can safely be done away with seeing as the hit counting mechanism is turned off anyway. --Sherool (talk) 06:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It was a hack for webalizer, which considered all URLs ending in "s" to be JavaScript or CSS and therefore uncountable. Of course we haven't used webalizer for a few of years now. -- Tim Starling 11:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to make sure: we can remove dontcountme=s from our script now, right? (And also from importScript() in MediaWiki:Common.js) — Alex Smotrov 13:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. -- Tim Starling 12:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Is there an official guideline/recommendation for the use of class="wikitable"?

Hi, I am wondering whether class="wikitable" is to be prefered over other table layouts. I find that there are way to many lines in wikitable, but maybe there is some rationale behind this? Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jasy_jatere/Sinhala_tables for examples of what I mean Jasy jatere 13:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The second is much better. Use wikitable when it looks good to use wikitable. — Omegatron 13:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikitable is preferable in general, although there are always exceptions to the rule. Feel free to convert tables in articles to wikitable style if they're otherwise plain - they'll look better that way. Nihiltres^(t.c.s) 15:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[1]

This link is very worrisome to me. Perhaps someone could fill out a bug report. I won't, because I'm leaving. However, when I even hover over the contributions history of the user in popups, it really screws up my screen, let alone just going to the page makes it impossible to delete. The Evil Spartan 18:50, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Already deleted. Also, get a better browser :-) Just teasing :-) -- ReyBrujo 18:57, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Wide Diffs

Hi, don't know if this question has been asked before, but why is it that sometimes a diff will come out many times wider than my browser window, Here's an example of what I mean [2]. I'm using IE 7.0. Is there something I can do to keep these from happening? Thanks! —Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 17:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The reason for the wide diff is the long URL contained near the end of the diff. There is no whitespace in the URL for the diff text to break on, which causes the display to extend to the width of the URL. I don't know if there's anything that can be done about this. —Daniel Vandersluis^(talk) 18:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

For a while, I used a "diff enhancer" which solved this problem. I stopped using it because it was sometimes too slow. I don't remember where I got it from, so I am unable to give credit where it's due. See [3] for the code. For most people, you need to put this in your monobook.js file, ie in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:YOURUSERNAME/monobook.js. I haven't used it for almost a year, so there's a possibility that some change in user interface may have broken it in the meantime.-gadfium 20:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Found the original: see Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Fix diff width. It's probably been updated since the copy I used, so use this link, not the one I gave in the previous paragraph.-gadfium 20:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll see if that works for me. —Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 21:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I also used that for a while, but nowadays I simply use the following on my user CSS: .diff-context, .diff-deletedline, .diff-addedline { overflow: auto; display: block; }. The note on my user CSS's history says it came from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Fix diff width#Very simple CSS fix?. Since it uses CSS only, it's much faster (because it uses the browser's highly optimized CSS engine). --cesarb 23:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I didn't know about that. I've just tried it, and it works well enough that I'll keep it, at least for a while. It's fast, as you say. The only problem for me is that pressing the "End" key to move to the bottom of the article while the diff portion is showing wrecks the screen display. Pressing PgUp and then PgDn again fixes it. There may be further problems if the article and diff was only a couple of screens long. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Linux.-gadfium 01:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

This is now fixed. --brion 19:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Yay! Thank you. --Iamunknown 19:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I've seen this problem, but not actually thought fixing it, let alone how to. Thanks :) Gracenotes^T § 01:33, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

So, quick question, how do you disable this? I hate when Sourcesafe does that, and so I hate when Wikipedia does it :-( -- ReyBrujo 01:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

See here. The relevant code is:

table.diff td div {
  overflow:auto;
}

You'd probably want

table.diff td div {
  overflow: visible;
}

Gracenotes^T § 02:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I've made an additional tweak this morning[4] which makes the extra-wide cells wrap attractively instead of scrolling in Internet Explorer and Safari. Unfortunately Firefox and Opera don't appear to support this style setting, so they'll continue to scroll. --brion 15:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I also find the change to be annoying...it seems like I have to scroll much more now than I had to before, and so reading diffs is no longer something I can do without horizontal scrolling on a regular basis, and that's more work. This is with Firefox 2.0. I'm not sure if the wrapping isn't working right, or what. Is there support for adding a preference box for this? Also, is diff.css versioned somewhere in the wiki? I can't seem to find it. Thanks. jhawkinson 22:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Scroling Across Diffs

Why all of a sudden, do the diffs have left to right scrollers on each part of the diff instead of just having it longer on the page? --TeckWiz is now R ^ParlateContribs_@ (Let's go Yankees!) 21:07, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Because people don't like having 99% of the diff be completely unreadable due to page widening. --brion 21:09, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the scrolling. I like the wide diffs. Is there a css way to override it? --TeckWiz is now R ^ParlateContribs_@ (Let's go Yankees!) 21:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure making 80% of the diff hidden was the answer here; usually Column 1 was narrow and Column 2 was page-width for me, so I just used Column 2 as my guideline for seeing what changed. I hate the scrollbars and they mess with certain wheelmice (which will try to scroll when the cursor is over the bar). -- nae'blis 21:13, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

If you wish, you may restore the old, broken behavior by customizing your user CSS. See the new diff.css for the current styles; the bits you'd want to "reverse" are the overflow: auto (change it to visible, I think) and the table-layout: fixed (change it to auto). --brion 21:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's a huge improvement. Hats off to the developers. Thanks for your efforts on our behalf. --Dweller 22:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it is as well: I found it annoying when checking differences that I had to scroll the broswer. This new feature makes it a lot easier to check differences. Acalamari 23:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Only the first line of each paragraph is being shown in Mozilla, with no scroll bars. (I can still sort of scroll by highlighting the text and moving the mouse up and down.) It's kind of extremely annoying. -Nogood 06:08, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Which browser version? This particular failure mode is a new one for me. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 06:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

This failure (Just the first n bytes of the diff being displayed) is currently occurring with my browser: Netscape 7.0 on Solaris 8. It makes the diff essentially useless for any paragraph with more than n bytes. It's clearly a CSS problem as the entire paragraph is there in the HTML source of the page.

Atlant 17:00, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I've managed to reproduce this, and have attached a screenshot to bug 1438. Since the problem only occurs on Netscape 7.0 and not on 7.1, this seems to have been a browser bug that has since been fixed. At this point, my advice to affected users would be to upgrade. (That doesn't mean I don't want to know if this occurs on other browsers as well, just that there's not much I can think of that we could do to work around it in MediaWiki.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:39, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

However, a simple user-specific workaround is to put "table.diff td div { overflow: visible; }" (without the quotes) in your monobook.css (or the appropriate .css page if you're using some other skin). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:42, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Internal Server Error

I get the following message when I try to move more than two pages in a row: "Internal Server Error: Sorry, the server has encountered an internal error. Please wait a moment and hit "refresh" to submit the request again." I have to wait few minutes in order to move the next page. It's been like this for few days. Does anybody know what's wrong? Jogers (talk) 12:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

A move rate limit of 2 moves per minute for non-sysop or non-bot users was introduced by Tim Starling on May 15th "in response to vandalism on Wikiquote". 86.140.128.210 22:32, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

It makes my work much harder. Is it going to be permanent? Jogers (talk) 05:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The limit was increased to 8 moves per minute on May 22nd, again, by Tim Starling. 164.11.204.56 11:46, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

templates with span style="display:none"

I'm getting some curious behaviour with {{Mathematician data}}. Its used to record data about mathematicians in {{Talk:Blaise Pascal/Data}} which are themselves templates, and allow extraction of the data. For instance

• {{Talk:Blaise Pascal/Data|key=dates}} gives 1623 – 1662
• {{Talk:Blaise Pascal/Data|key=sortname}} gives Pascal, Blaise

And with no parameter a longer description is produced

• {{Talk:Blaise Pascal/Data}} gives This subpage contains data about Village pump (technical) which is used by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics to produce tables of mathematicians. Edit this page to add or update the sortable name (sortname), date of birth or death (dates) and field (contribs) of Village pump (technical).

---

• Name: Pascal, Blaise
• Dates: 1623 – 1662
• Contribs:

{{Talk:Blaise Pascal/Data}} looks like

{{Mathematician data|{{{key}}}
|dates= 1623 – 1662
|sortname= Pascal, Blaise
|contribs= 
}}

Everything works fine, until we have tried to work with BCE dates. To get these to sort properly in Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Mathematicians, we have include a working sort key inside span tags. For instance

{{Mathematician data|{{{key}}}
|dates= <span style="display:none">*615</span>384 – 322 BCE
|sortname= Aristotle
|contribs= 
}}

Extracting the date field works fine

• {{Talk:Aristotle/Data|key=dates}} gives 384 – 322 BCE

but no output is produced in the no-parameter case.

• {{Talk:Aristotle/Data}} gives This subpage contains data about Village pump (technical) which is used by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics to produce tables of mathematicians. Edit this page to add or update the sortable name (sortname), date of birth or death (dates) and field (contribs) of Village pump (technical).

---

• Name: Aristotle
• Dates: 384 – 322 BCE
• Contribs:

I've been scratching my head trying to workout why the span tag causes problems. Any ideas? --Salix alba (talk) 13:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, anything with its display set to "none" will never show up in any circumstance; saying as the span tag is properly closed, though, that shouldn't be an issue (I tried adding the closing semicolon at the end to Artistotle, but that didn't do anything). Are the quotes (in the span tag) throwing it off, maybe? EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:19, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Not showing the *615 is the intended action. What we would like is for blah...384 – 322 BCE...blah to appear, but for the full text to be there for sorting purposes. Whats curious is that no text appears even in the html source. --Salix alba (talk) 15:38, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What I've noticed is that the text won't show up at all, even when looking at the page source. I think it's the equals sign that's causing the problem, since removing it causes it to display correctly and adding it in other locations to other parameters causes a blank output. This would probably therefore indicate a problem with the template parameters or perhaps the #switch: ParserFunction, rather than the formatting. Tra (Talk) 15:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I did experiment to see if it was the equals sign. Changing the span to <span foo="bar"> while still having a = sign actually displayed correctly. --Salix alba (talk) 19:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing that might be because MediaWiki doesn't recognise foo as a valid HTML tag parameter and consequently strips it out before evaluating the wiki-code. If you change it to <span style="display:inline"> which is valid, then it doesn't work. Tra (Talk) 20:34, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Urgh, not HiddenStructure again. display: none does show up in several circumstances; text browsers, plaintext rendering, search engines, and anything else which ignores either CSS or its display property. It would be better, if possible, to use a separate field as the sort key, defaulting to the date if it's not available. --cesarb 18:32, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem, for sortable tables, is that there is not currently other way to customize the sorting of certain cells. For example it is common to see things like:

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
| <span style="display:none;">Bush, George W.</span> [[George W. Bush]] || 2001-present

If we can get a built-in way of doing this, it would be easy enough to convert all the display:none's at the same time. Until then it's better than nothing. — CharlotteWebb 19:32, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes I'm coming to that conclusion about having a sortdate key. Hidden structures seems to be the only way to get the table to sort right and display sensible dates, indeed they are discussed extensivly in Help:Sorting. None of the files are in main space, so the associated problems are minimised. --Salix alba (talk) 19:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I've now implemented a more elegant workaround. An extra sortdates key is used for pre 1000AD dates. The table code in wraps this up in the hidden span, sort sorting works and dates display correctly. Thanks for everyones help. --Salix alba (talk) 20:32, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Weird bits of text in various places

In the last couple days, I've been getting weird chunks of text in random parts of pages. I'd say it's happened maybe 10 times. Looks as though some database field is getting randomly included in an article, or parts of HTML tags are getting stripped out. Refreshing the page usually makes it go away. For example, here are a few lines from my watchlist; look at the second line:

    20:07 Hanford Site (diff; hist) . .  (+500) . . 70.20.190.160 (Talk) (fire balloon attack)
    20:05 torial_elections%2C_2010" title="United States gubernatorial elections, 2010">United States gubernatorial elections, 2010 (diff; hist) . .  (+7) . . 67.162.154.78 (Talk)
m   19:55 Pierce v. Society of Sisters (diff; hist) . .  (-4) . . Davidwr (Talk | contribs) (→Background - wikilink fixup of Supreme Court of the United States)

-Pete 06:30, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

That looks like part of the start of an HTML tag is missing; you're seeing the second half of an <A> tag there, for instance (it's exactly where the A tag should be, it's just that the first half of the tag is missing). I'm not sure what's causing it. --ais523 09:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think your analysis is correct, but when I refresh the page, the problem goes away. It's only been happening in the last couple days.

Not sure if this is related, but I've also been having random chunks of text appear in my edits, also in the last few days. It's the kind of thing I might assume results from a stray "paste" keyboard shortcut on my part, except that it's happened several times, in areas of text I haven't even been editing. For instance, the following weird text showed up after this edit; I hadn't even cliicked in that paragraph. (I bolded the extra text below to draw attention to it.)

The most famous and prominent example of TABOR legislation is in the state of Colorado.[1] In 1992, the voters of the state amended Article X of the Colorado Constitution to the effect that any tax increase resulting in the increase of governmental revenues at a rate faster than the combined rate of population increase and inflation as measured by the either the cost of living index at the state level, or growth in property values at the local level, would be subjected to a popular vote in a referendum, a process referred to as &quo<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lupin/navpop.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css&dontcountme=s">t;de-Brucing" after Douglas Bruce, the author of the amendment. This applies to any cities and counties in Colorado as well as the state itself. Additionally, any "natural growth" in revenues that exceeded this rate was to be either earmarked for educational improvements or rebated to the taxpayers once an adequate reserve ("rainy day") fund was established. This has led to a decrease in actual tax revenue (relative to population and inflation) for two reasons. Because the law does not adjust for rising productivity, additional income from year to year among the same population can not be effectively taxed. Secondly, the law only looks at the previous year, leading to a "ratchet-effect", wherein if tax revenue temporarily lowers in a recession, revenue can not rise back to pre-recession levels without a referendum. In Colorado, these factors have led to a decreasing overall tax revenue in the state.

-Pete 19:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks very related; that's a chunk of text from the page you received being included in the information you sent (that's the styling information for navigation popups, as it happens, but given what you've said upthread it's probably just a bit of text plucked out from the page's HTML at random). One possibility might be network problems somewhere between you and Wikipedia, but I'm not sure what would case the symptoms you've seen exactly. --ais523 12:19, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

You are not the only one to experience this weird link popping up, see Shoulder_problems&oldid=133059167#Shoulder_structures_and_functions Root⁴(one) 05:41, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again for your thoughts. Network weirdness sounds plausible, except that there are so many error checks built into TCP transmission that it seems unlikely. Also, I haven't noticed this posting to sites other than Wikipedia. In case it's relevant, I have POPUPS installed...I've been thinking of ditching it though, and trying a different tool. Twinkle seems popular, I may give that a try. -Pete 20:03, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

One more weirdness - this time an explicit error, upon trying to save an edit to the John E. Frohnmayer article:

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:
(SQL query hidden)
from within function "SiteStatsUpdate::doUpdate". MySQL returned error "1205: Lock wait timeout exceeded; Try restarting transaction (10.0.0.237)".

-Pete 22:19, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Still happening, getting worse

Sorry to be such a naysayer, but the random pieces of HTML tags scattered over Wikipedia articles seems to be getting worse. I hope somebody smart is looking into this! -Pete 18:42, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Just some suggestions, no pro advice here...You need to isolate the problem by either removing pop-ups or disabling JavaScript in your browser. Any updates to how the server handles form data, update to your browser, or a change to the pop-up code could cause a problem. Are you including the javascript from lupin or did you copy the code? Take a look at the last change made to the script and when your browser was last updated. Look to see if there is a relationship between the change date and when the pop-up errors started. -- I already forgot  talk  19:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Good suggestion. I somehow immediately forgot about the Popups aspect - I'll disable it now, and report back in a few days on whether that solved the problem. -Pete 19:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Lag-warn-normal

Why is MediaWiki:Lag-warn-normal showing up on the watchlist and contrib list? Is it really necessary to know that the list is 1 or 2 seconds slow? --- RockMFR 20:37, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

This was a result of mediazilla:9628. For lag of less than 30 seconds, MediaWiki:Lag-warn-normal is displayed. MediaWiki:Lag-warn-high is displayed for significant lag. I'd imagine some users might want the following in their user css:

div.mw-lag-warn-normal { display: none; }

Gracenotes^T § 21:52, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

In response to your question, though, this feature is a bit too useful to disable. (Check the archives of VPT for many, many threads on watchlist lag.) If you don't like it, don't display it! Gracenotes^T § 21:56, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

informing the user of a one-second lag is clearly a bit ridiculous. it'll only show up for >15 seconds now. (that number can be changed if needed). kate.

The dark background color is really irritating. What happened to the light color? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 02:55, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I think even the light color was emphasising it too much. Can't it be toned down? Petros471 19:46, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

This should be at the bottom of the page or somewhere not in the way... lag notices are a very minor thing and it's not something that needs to be in your face. --W.marsh 19:49, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

What would be nice is if we could change the formatting in the MediaWiki page. Right now, all it has is the text, and the box with its colors looks like it might be hardcoded somewhere? —Centrx→talk • 21:50, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Yep, in main.css... could be overwritten, of course. Gracenotes^T § 23:47, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I too got the "Changes newer than 1 seconds may not be shown in this list." Took me a bit of searching to find this topic too (should be easier with this quote). Anyway, I can see how this helps certain people. Perhaps, to make it even more useful for some of the more persistently clueless and technically challenged, a script could update the number of seconds. It could say "WARNING: This page has not been updated for 12 seconds." with an ever-increasing font size. And then it could start beeping if you didn't refresh it quickly enough!! Anyway, sorry for the rant, I just wanted to get the message over how annoying the current message template is. I'm sure it's just growing pains. Mfb52 21:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Animated GIF not displaying

Hi,

I uploaded an animated GIF to Uncyclopedia here, but thumbnails of the image do not display. In the place where a thumbnail would be, it says, 'Error creating thumbnail: /usr/wikia/source/wiki16svn/bin/ulimit-tvf.sh: line 4: 23995 Segmentation fault "$@".' You can see the message here. Anyone know what could be causing the problem?

Thanks,

Squaw 93 00:45, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm only ¾ sure, but I think I heard that MediaWiki can't scale animated GIFs. Nihiltres^(t.c.s) 03:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

It can, it just fails on ones that have been optimized by dropping unchanged portions of the frame, because it doesn't scale the droppings correctly. Uncyclopedia is entirely separate from wikipedia, anyway, so this isn't the place to ask. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:33, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, MediaWiki has scaled even optimized animations properly since almost a year ago. The resulting scaled animations will not be optimized, but should look correct. Since the thumbnail cache wasn't purged when the change was made, it's possible that some old animations still have broken scaled-down versions in the cache; if found, those may be purged manually.

In this case, however, I suspect that the problem is that the file is simply so big that the image scaling program is running out of its allotted resources. Either that, or something in the scaling setup is simply broken. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Redirects in categories

I've recently seen redirect pages showing up in categories, being listed in italics. Could somebody please point out to me when this was implemented, and if there was any discussion about it? Thanks. >Radiant< 11:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

It was briefly mentioned right here (now in /Archive#Marking links to disambiguation pages). The change was in rev:22156, 10 days ago. --Derlay 11:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I noticed them too - and like them! DuncanHill 11:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

• Perhaps we should discuss this some more. Me and a few others think this is a bad idea. Apart from a bit of meta-data, in general redirects shouldn't be categorized, certainly not in categories meant for articles. If the page redirected to is in the same category, that means the item is now listed twice, which is confusing. If the page redirected to is not in the same category, that means that the page you get to is not in the category you expect to be browsing, which again is confusing. >Radiant< 12:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

The ones I noticed are for several Disused railway stations, which used to have seperate articles, but have now been combined into one larger article. They now show as italicized links in the relevant category for rail transport or for stations, this is extremely helpful for someone looking for particular stations. See Category:Disused railway stations in Cornwall to see what I mean. DuncanHill 12:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

This is clearly useful for some categories (DuncanHill has a good article-space example, and as a project-space example Category:Speedy deletion templates would be more useful IMO if the redirects into it were categorized in the same way). In other cases (e.g. categorising typos), it could be harmful, but there's nothing forcing cats to be put on such redirects. Leave the cats off if it's confusing, put them on if it's helpful. Surely this is a positive change if people are careful about how they categorize redirects? --ais523 13:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

• I would suggest that cats are not intended as an exhaustive list of topics. This trick is probably useful in some cases, but it is certainly confusing in others. >Radiant< 13:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd agree with that. I don't think it's a reason to disable this feature, though. --ais523 14:11, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
    • You'll note that I asked for people to discuss it, not disable it :) >Radiant< 14:52, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
  • OTOH, what is the earthly point of having categories at all if not to collect all articles (<> topics!) that fall into the category? Insofar as this feature helps to do that, I like it. --Tkynerd 15:14, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

In terms of implementation, this feature is innocuous. All it does is add a <span class="redirect-in-category">...</span> around redirects in a category. If there is a decision to remove the special styling, it's as simple as doing this in the site-wide CSS:

.redirect-in-category { font-style: inherit }

So there's no need to do anything with the feature itself. Mike Dillon 15:00, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, it's possible to do even more specific stuff, like disabling/enabling style on a per-category basis:

.page-Category_Speedy_deletion_templates .redirect-in-category a { color: red }

There would have to be some assessment of the relative cost/benefit of adding such styling site-wide, but I could see this being justified for some of the project-oriented categories. Mike Dillon 15:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

While not all redirects should be categorized, if we're going to adopt a mergist philosophy that aggregates minor articles into lists and subject-area articles, we absolutely need to categorize those redirects in order to facilitate navigation through categories. Misspelling/variant spelling, and other housekeeping redirects should remain uncategorized. See also Wikipedia_talk:Redirects#Categories_on_redirects_needs_clarifying for recent discussion on the matter. -- nae'blis 15:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

True enough, although personally I see this as a good reason to avoid excessive merging in the first place. But then, that has been my stance for a long time. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

This is an excellent innovation and it removes a major problem that has always annoyed me. There are lots of things that don't have their own article that a reasonable person might expect to find in a given category. Hawkestone 20:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Precisely. I think it is an extremely good thing to be able to categorize redirects in cases where the redirect covers only a historical or minor aspect of the target article and it would be confusing to categorize the article with the same category. older ≠ wiser 12:00, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

The ability to add redirects to categories and their presence there is nothing new. Only the italic styling is new and it was added on-wiki at MediaWiki:Common.css (see MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Italicize redirects in category). Any discussion about whether or not the guidelines for having redirects in mixed categories should be changed belongs at Wikipedia talk:Redirect, not here. There is nothing technical about this discussion except how to change/disable the italics if that is what consensus determines. Mike Dillon 14:55, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Cartoon Network template

I'm looking for assistance with {{Cartoon Network}}. My knowledge of parser functions is patchy at best and require someone who's capable of adding new classes for list-type articles, other templates associated with the project and adding the code for handling importance levels within projects. Completely dealt with now, thanks to Gracenotes for the heavy lifting and MZMcBride for some small after sales support. --treelo _talk 00:30, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible to fix inline references so they aren't copied?

When you ctrl-C a section of text on Wikipedia, it gets filled with all the superscripted [5]s and [2]s and [57]s from the references. This is very aggravating to many casual users of Wikipedia who are excerpting small sections of text or the like. As the articles are filled with more and more references, it becomes more and more annoying, even though the references are clearly a good thing. Would there be a technical way to make it so that when the text was copied, the reference tags would not be copied? Clearly once the text is copied off Wikipedia, the tags are useless as the references they point to are gone. —Dark•Shikari^[T] 22:36, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

One possible solution would be to temporarily add

.reference { display: none; }

To your monobook.css, and then clear your cache, and then copy the text, and then remove it. While a JavaScript function could toggle the display of objects in the class "reference", this temporary solution would at least work. People might want to copy the references, so making them unselectable (if it's possible, I forget how) may inconvenience other users. Gracenotes^T § 01:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Would people want to copy them, really? If people care about copying anything to do with references, they would probably prefer if the superscript were expanded to the full reference text in brackets.

The first technical solution that comes to mind is to generate the superscript using the CSS content property, the results of which are not selectable. But the content property cannot have HTML in its value, so Javascript would have to be used to make it clickable. Personally, I'd just wait till CSS3 which is designed with footnotes in mind. Vagary 03:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Special:Search drop-down

I've suggested code here that adds a drop-down box to search pages. Links are already used for no results, but I'm wondering what people think about this; it's just a convenient enhancement, really. Gracenotes^T § 22:44, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and fulfilled the editprotected request. It seems to work great. Cheers. --MZMcBride 23:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Great :) Hopefully no one will be inconvenienced by it. Gracenotes^T § 00:02, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Hm, the box looks only a tad off-kilter in IE. Could just be me, though. Gracenotes^T § 00:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Bizzare non-alphabetical listing in stub cat

Was just browsing through Category:Cornwall geography stubs when I noticed that they are not listing in anything like alphabetical order, also the 'next 200' takes me to the page I was already viewing. Anyone know what's up? DuncanHill 00:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I removed the sorting by |* from the stub template. The articles should become sorted over the next few minutes. –Pomte 00:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks seems to be working now! Had spent ages 'defaultsorting' lots of Cornish Saints, and suddenly it all went doolally! DuncanHill 00:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Librarians must be hiding something.

I heard that Jimbo and Steven Colbert had an interview and something was said about mass vandalism on the phrase "The Librarians are hiding something." I am finding a ton of this for over an hour. Anyone know how to write a bot to catch this? I added the phrase onto the Lupin antivandal tool. thanks. —Gaff ^ταλκ 04:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Exporting watchlist

Is it possible for me to export my watchlist from an old account of mine to this one?--Seraphiel 07:26, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Well....anyone?--Seraphiel 10:36, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Not at the moment, although it might become possible in the future. 164.11.204.56 11:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I would also like the ability to periodically save and restore my watchlist. It's already filed in bugzilla: bug 7959. CMummert · talk 11:41, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for opening the feature request. This is a feature that should have been there since a long time ago itself. Hope it gets approved.--Seraphiel 12:03, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I didn't open it. One way to bring attention to bugs that you are interested in is to "vote" for them in bugzilla. CMummert · talk 12:53, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Rugby league

I am trying to add some syntax to Template:WikiProject Rugby league.

I am trying to add a peer review section to the template.

I have done that and saved and all seemed well.

When I tried to test it out on Talk:Karmichael Hunt, nothing happened.

It should come up with something like "A request has been made for this to be perr reviewed.

But on Karmichael Hunt it hasn't come up. (I also tried it on Brisbane Broncos, but it didn't work)

The category's supposed to come up also don't come up. I think I've done something wrong.

"old-peer-review" doesn't come up either. SpecialWindler 10:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I've looked at it and I can't figure out what's wrong, although I haven,t actually tested whether the problem is that there is no option given for if {{peer review}} does not equal "yes".Circeus 20:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is a problem. I played around with Special:ExpandTemplates and the parameters look fine. I also see the text you're looking for in the article history:

• peer-review: [5]
• old-peer-review: [6]

Perhaps the problem was related to caching or database synchronization (i.e. lag). Also, Talk:Brisbane Broncos is currently listed in Category:Old requests for Rugby league peer review. Mike Dillon 00:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that this is a couple days old... Mike Dillon 00:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Issues with Cartoon Network Wikiproject assessments

After the update to the template as indicated above, the assessments made on every article has been removed and are now considered unclassified even though the articles still have the classification mentioned in the template on their talkpages. I've run the WP 1.0 bot manually but doubt waiting for it to assess automatically would yield different results. Is the code within the template correct? --treelo _talk 17:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I've edited the template to recategorize the talk pages (they weren't being categorized previously). It should work in a while. –Pomte 18:20, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Lupin's anti vandal tool again...

Even though the Lupin's anti-vandal tool is working now, it dosen't catch as much vandalism as it used too (it used to catch 4x the vandalism it does today). The RSS still updates every 30 seconds, but it dosen't catch as much as vandalism as it used too. Is this a bug? Can anybody fix it?--PrestonH^{(Review Me!) • (Sign Here!)} 03:16, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Please see the relevant discussion here.

I am working on it, when it is done you have to click Shift-Reload to update. Cacycle 05:17, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

It should work now, please click Shift-Reload to update. Cacycle 08:06, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Upload file wizard

I noticed the new "upload file wizard", similar to that of Commons. I just think this link belongs in the "toolbox" group, rather than the "interaction" group. —Anas ^talk? 12:27, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

The toolbox cannot actually be added to from the MediaWiki user interface. It has to be done through MediaWiki extensions. Gutworth 13:05, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Top 100

Is it possible that in the next month or so on the Top 100 most visited sites in Wikipedia to exclude the Main Page, as technically it is not an article? Simply south 14:07, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Yet another reason to move the Main Page into Portal space comes up... --ais523 14:21, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Article redirecting to category

Among the articles in Category:Cinemas and movie theaters is List of cinemas, which is a redirect to the category. I've never seen something like this before, and I don't know what to do with it. What can properly be done — does this work well? It seems to be an odd kind of loop. Nyttend 15:55, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

It strikes me as being somewhat inadvisable. Taking the redirect to RfD would seem likely to find the best solution (which is probably just deleting the redirect). --ais523 16:03, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem is that the redirect had #REDIRECT [[Category:Cinemas and movie theaters|*]] rather than #REDIRECT [[:Category:Cinemas and movie theaters|*]] with a colon. With the latter, the redirect does not appear in the category. Gimmetrow 16:57, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

What a coincidence. I just came here thinking of mentioning this issue. I recently made this very change to African-American actors which redirects to the category. I put in the colon to remove the categorization. After doing so, I started thinking about if this sort of redirect is a bad thing. It doesn't mess up any categories and it might be helpful. There is nothing that stops such a redirect from developing into an article or list. I couldn't think of a good reason to delete it. Is there a problem I am not considering? -- ☑ SamuelWantman 23:16, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's a bad redirect to have (although having a bot fix the probably-numerous missing :'s is probably a good idea). Lists and categories are a related concept, and this is not the usual sort of 'cross-namespace' pollution I'm worried about. -- nae'blis 15:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Ref family template alternatives which would not assign the ID attribute

I brought this up here, and would like to see more comment before I jump in and create these alternative templates and update the documentation. Comments welcome -- this is probably a better place for the discussion than the template talk page. -- Boracay Bill 01:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The idea seems sound to me. It might be better to just add a parameter to {{ref}} that disables the ID, rather than making a second template that would get out of sync. CMummert · talk 02:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Shortpages

Could Special:shortpages be modified to remove, or at least highlight, things such as redirects, disambiguation pages, and copyvio pages? — Swpb ^{talk contribs} 03:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Using the skin to create a banner

Hi, I am wondering if somebody could point me in the right direction to create some form of text, banner, or box near the top of my wiki page through my monobook.js file. I'm just looking for the code that could do what I need to do! I want to make a bit of text that changes to reflect the current UTC date and time. I know that I can use {{CURRENTTIME}} etc, but how can I make this appear near the top of the page. I am just sick of converting my local time to UTC when I want to compare with edits etc. Thanks, DanielBC [_talk^contrib_stats] 09:28, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

There's a script that does this at Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Time. Tra (Talk) 09:53, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much Tra! I am also looking forward to implementing your watch other users contributions script! Coincidentally I have been looking for that exact script for several days! Thanks again, DanielBC [_talk^contrib_stats] 13:17, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Further changing the display of redirects in category pages

For background, see Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects and its talk page.

I'm afraid I don't have the revision number, but there was a fairly recent change that made redirects in categories display in italics (can anyone supply the revision number?). The italics mark-up is better than the previous mark-up where the redirect links displayed the same way as normal articles. However, the italics mark-up only marks the redirects out as different. It doesn't tell the reader why these links are in italics. Possibly some text could be added to the boilerplate category page explaining this, but I am wondering whether it would be possible to try something slightly more ambitious.

Would it be possible to have redirects display on category pages like this?

Name of redirect page

see name of destination page

Or to use a real example:

Paris Township, Kent County, Michigan

see Kentwood, Michigan

This is exactly how such "redirects" appear in paper indexes, so there is ample precedent for the usefulness of this kind of set-up. This would also solve the problem that sometimes when clicking on a redirect you are taken (via an anchored link) to a subsection of an article, and so are not given the helpful "redirected from" bit at the top. This solution would, at least for categories, change the message from "you have been redirected", to "you are about to be redirected", just changing the point at which the message is displayed to the reader. (For redirect links clicked on in article namespace, the "redirected from" bit at the top is still very useful, and anchored redirect links clicked on in article namespace will still be disorientating unless well-designed, but this would reduce the disorientation when clicking on redirects, both normal and anchored, in category namespace).

Another example is the Bi-musicality redirect, which currently appears in Category:Ethnomusicology. Currently, when you click on Bi-musicality in that category, you jump deep into an article, which is disorientating. This disorientation would be removed if the category entry displayed as:

Bi-musicality

see Mantle Hood#Bi-musicality

Or even bettter:

Bi-musicality

see Bi-musicality section of Mantle Hood

But that would require detection and parsing of the anchor (#) character and piping of the display, which might complicate things (or not, I really don't know). Another advantage of this is that it changes the URL displayed in the browser window from "Bi-musicality#Bimusicality" (if you click the first displayed link) to the more correct "Mantle Hood#Bi-musicality". Indeed, there is an argument that the actual redirect could be bypassed altogether, leading to:

Bi-musicality

see Mantle Hood#Bi-musicality

For some more examples, see Category:Messier objects, where the redirects are well-organised and so don't really need this extra level of explanation, but I think the advantages in cases where such explanation is needed outweighs considerations like this. Some other examples and possible displays:

Bibliography of J. R. R. Tolkien

see Bibliography section of J. R. R. Tolkien

Or even (delink first line, double link second line):

Bibliography of J. R. R. Tolkien

see Bibliography section of J. R. R. Tolkien

To sum up, even if the more nuanced displays described above are not possible (I prefer the final display format given above), the destination article is always in the first "#REDIRECT" part of the redirect page, so I hope a simple "display of the destination article for redirects, when redirects appear on a category page" (ie. when redirects are categorised), should be doable. Do people here think this is doable? If so, can anyone submit a bugzilla request on this? Carcharoth 10:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Anything is possible, but is it necessary? Most of us had no idea what a red link was at some point. If there are many redirects in a category, you could manually add a comment like "listings in italics are redirects", but I don't even think that is necessary. For the most part, people will click on redirects that are listed and end up at an article and not care that they clicked on a redirect. The downside of the formatting you propose is that it will clutter up category listings when there are numerous redirects. If there were an entire category of redirects it would be a mess. This kind of formatting is great for a book because you actually have to look elsewhere to find what you want. Since everything here is automated we don't actually have to "see" anything at all, you just click on the link and you get there. Telling people to see a different listing might be very confusing, especially in the cases when the alternate listings are not in the category (like the J. R. R. Tolkien example). -- ☑ SamuelWantman 10:48, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I see your point about more text cluttering up pages, but I do find the anchored redirects very confusing. At the least, couldn't the redirects display like they do in "what links here":

Name of redirect page (redirect page)

That at least would indicate that the italicised pages are redirects. Carcharoth 11:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Having just created and populated Category:Burns, I'm having second thoughts about my proposal above. Any input on how well that category works (a mix of redirects and articles), plus whether the main proposal is useful, would be appreciated. Carcharoth 16:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

rev:22156 --Splarka (rant) 07:12, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Due to high database server lag, changes newer than 229 seconds may not be shown in this list.

Is it possible that this new feature is actually the cause of all this lag? It seems the more stuff that gets crammed onto the special:contributions page, the more the servers lag--69.118.235.97 13:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

What new feature? --brion 13:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I think the database reports how far behind its information is anyways. I would say that the lag is just more visible now. ^(H) 14:09, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Check current database lag. (I've known it to go over 300 even without the new feature.) --ais523 14:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Also have a look up here. Mfb52 07:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:Coord in Classic skin

There is a problem with the template "Coord" (and related templates) when viewed using the classic skin. I copy below discussion from Template talk:Coord. I cannot find a "Classic skin talk page", so I am posting this here on VPT. -- SGBailey 18:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This will need to be fixed at MediaWiki:Standard.css. I'm surpised it was added in the first place, since it is broken in Firefox/Mozilla as well. The declaration is pretty much the same for Standard and MediaWiki:Monobook.css, except that Standard has top: 7em and Monobook has top: 3.7em Since it looks like the space at the top of this skin can be variable, I don't know that there is any "top" value that will work across the board in Standard/Classic. It probably only works on pages with no interwiki links. Mike Dillon 18:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

---

Languages and page position

Using Classic skin and Win XP with MSIE7, the coordinates are up near the top right of the page. Unfortunately, so is the list of interwiki language links. If the language list is more than one line long, then the coordinates get zapped by the ---- line or by the link text itself. Can the coordinates be placed level with the page title, but on the right and below the line? (If requested, I'll upload a picture of what I'm talking about.) -- SGBailey 19:07, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, this also applies to {Coor} -- SGBailey 19:08, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is a typical example of the problem. The "Coord" appears to be in a fixed relationship to the search box in the top right. File:Coord clash.png -- SGBailey 08:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Since it isn't just coord which is affected, it might be better to bring this up on the talk page of the relevant skin. Andy Mabbett 09:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

---

This change, to remove the FA star from the Classic skin, was at my request before I was an admin, with similar reasoning. Classic doesn't have a consistent 'top' for coords due to the way that interwikis are worked out, so the recent change to MediaWiki:Standard.css is inadvisable. --ais523 16:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Lupin

The rollback and filter recent changes script does not appear to be working properly. Navou 02:41, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

As the script is not part of the MediaWiki software, you're unlikely to get answers here. --Deskana (talk) 02:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I figured that may be the case, however, since a number of users use this script to maintain the integrity of the encyclopedia proper, I think it may fit the element of exigent per the page header for this page. Navou 02:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki cue for deleted edits

Is there a way to change the interface, short of a software change by developers, to make it more explicit to users w/o the sysop bit when a page title has deleted edits? At this point I'm not talking about access to Special:Undelete, but something changes the page header to show the link for certain access levels, and I was wondering if an explicit link to the deletion log entry could be substituted in that space for normal/anonymous users. -- nae'blis 15:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

There's no way without either expensive (in the sense of causing too much server load) client-side scripting or a change in the software to give a link to the deletion log iff it has entries for non-admins. The change in the software would be the only practical way to implement this. If you want a link to the deletion log on every page, regardless of whether it's been deleted or not in the past, that's easy enough, but you don't seem to want that and I don't think it would be a good idea. --ais523 16:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. I agree that's not useful, but I see that some other wikis have enabled deleted edits for all users, so maybe I'll look for that configuration option... -- nae'blis 17:07, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

You would need to modify $wgGroupPermissions in your LocalSettings.php. I assume that you mean for a private wiki; for Wikimedia wikis showing deleted edits to everyone is pretty much out of the question. Your original suggestion for the software change is probably not that hard to implement. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

'Upload file wizard'

Shouldn't that probably read ' File upload wizard ' ?--VectorPotential^Talk 18:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

There's some discussion at MediaWiki talk:Sidebar (and numerous other places, it seems). --- RockMFR 20:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

404 for Image:Map of Finnish Petsamo.png

I'm getting a 404 for Image:Map of Finnish Petsamo.png (the actual image, not the image description page). I tried reverting to an earlier version to see if that would fix it, but that causes an internal error because it can't find the image file. —Bkell (talk) 23:05, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

It should be fixed now. I did sort of a manual revert (to 20:41, July 19, 2005 . . Sonitus (Talk | contribs) . . 250×320 (12,563 bytes) (changed colour of towns so it doesn't seem as if the USSR annexed them in 1940 as well) ) by opening the old version (clicking on the date link), saving the file to my computer and then re-uploading it with the same name. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 23:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Cross Vector Product "A x"

Hi

It is Abbas Naqvi.

I am creating a profile for the trajectory, in 3D.

The starting equation contains the "Cross-Product-Operator", as put by the Author...represented by (say for an arbitrary vector A) as "Ax", while "x" as the "Cross Vector Operator".

I am confused as it is the "A" is being used as a Rotation Vector, so if I put an arbitrary values to A's 3D components, what is meant by the "Ax" as a whole.....

SAbbasNaqvi 07:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Please ask such questions at Wikipedia:Reference desk. This page is to assist editors involved in editing Wikipedia, or readers having problems reading Wikipedia. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:13, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

History problem on DVD region code

Hello. I've some history problem with DVD region code, using this page: [7]. On firefox browser (logged), I see a lot of "Regional Coding Enhancement FAQ" external links in the diff, but not in the article. And If I check individually the changes, nobody did such change. In IE, WP mixes two articles, using the title "Viperidae, DVD region code". The old article start (after taxobox template ) with "Viperidae (Vipers) is a family of poisonous snakes found all over the world.", which is not in the latest Viperidae articles ("poisonous" -> "venomous"). FYI: Firefox: Served by srv75 in 0.360 secs., I.E. Served by srv128 in 0.274 secs.. Cate | _Talk 15:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

How did you obtain that diff? The diff and oldid parameters link to revisions for different pages. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Check this diff: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red&diff=134404062&oldid=134339933 :-) Cacycle 04:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

hmm. It was in the history, with "current". But now that I check, maybe I copied wrong the URL (a missing final "1") into IE and in this request. But in the firefox I tried a lot of times, (also after an hour) and the problem remained: multiple repetition of text + link. Anyway, nice the last diff, I thinked that the revision was in unix epoch, without caring to much. Cate | _Talk 16:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

There is some sort of problem with the diff tool which sometimes causes this, which we haven't yet been able to isolate and debug. Any given instance should go away afer a few days at most, when the bad copy expires from cache. --brion 18:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Logo - errors

segment copied from archive, initially copied from end of Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Wikipedia Logo.

• There are at least 2 major character errors in the current Wikipedia puzzle-globe logo, and other minor problems.
• User talk:Ambuj.Saxena/Wikipedia-logo is the most centralized discussion/link compilation that I know of. (There's even a petition at that link's projectpage)
• Nohat has explained the problems with correcting the errors. But noone seems to have a solution.
• Somebody with patience and brains (and either delegating or computer-graphics skills), needs to adopt this problem as a personal mission, lest it remain unsolved for another year. --Quiddity 02:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a trademarked image. You have to consider those implications as well. You may want to ask whether there would be any issues replacing the old logo with a corrected one. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

This got archived before I had a chance to ask, Where else should I ask/suggest/prompt/prod for action/assistance with this issue? I don't want to spam everywhere potentially-relevant, but I'm unsure where to go next. It's been mentioned at various VPump pages, relevant userpages, and metapages. The only other places I can think of are image talkpages, and the various mailing lists (but which one/s?). Thanks for any help. --Quiddity 19:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Probably WikiEN-l (very high traffic) and Foundation-l (more relevant) would be the ideal. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

wikipedia-l would be more sensible than wikien-l, given the subject matter.

James F. (talk) 15:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a Coding Question

Does anybody know what part of the JavaScript makes WP:ARV (source) only compatible with FireFox? Is there a way around it? --əˈnongahy ♫Look What I've Done!♫ 20:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

list of new pages

There is a template that can be placed on a user page which allows you to select a listing of newly created pages. This template can reach back to number 4000 and beyond. I can't remember it exactly. Does anyone know? Thanks JodyB _talk 22:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Probably {{Special:Newpages}}. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

You can put {{Special:Newpages/number}} to change the number of pages shown in that list. However, I've tried and it won't let you put in as many as 4000 but it works with something like {{Special:Newpages/100}} Tra (Talk) 23:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

No, that's not is. There is another one which gives you an option to select the number you want It's something like newpageslist If I find it I'll post it back here. JodyB _talk 23:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Here it is. It's a template {{newpagelinks}} JodyB _talk 23:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick question

Hi Do wikis save each revision as a full text, or they just save the current version, and store the differences for previous revisions additionally. (HUN)Villy 12:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe it's full-text. --Golbez 12:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Thaks :) (HUN)Villy 13:04, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Yep; although I'm not that knowledgeable with MySQL, I believe that every edit that is made adds a new row to the revisions table consisting of the user that made the edit, the edit summary, the timestamp, the full text of the revision, and other goodies. Gracenotes^T § 13:48, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

There are variations, including multiple compressed revisions in a block. --brion 18:04, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Automated?

Hey, can anyone who's knowledgeable with javascript confirm that the code at User:Gracenotes/Sandbox (run on an api.php page) is semi-automated (that is, each edit requires human intervention)? This issue was brought up at my RFA, and I would appreciate if someone could actually go through the code. Thanks, Gracenotes^T § 13:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's what I see:

1. Each edit requires a click on the article name in the returned API results
2. If {{R from shortcut}} is found, the edit is aborted
3. Otherwise, {{R from shortcut}} is added to the end of the article text and saved without further intervention

I probably would have written it to submit the edit with wpDiff so that the third step required confirming the diff and an explicit click on save, but I can confirm that every edit requires a click to initiate and it doesn't just run through all results without intervention. Hope that helps. Mike Dillon 15:01, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I just took a closer look at the API results and since the revision text is shown before making the click, the value to be added by a diff is minimal. The only reason to diff would be to make sure no intervening edits were made since the API results were generated, but the chances of that are pretty small, so the no-diff workflow seems fairly safe in this case. Mike Dillon 16:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. I appreciate your opinion on the matter. Gracenotes^T § 01:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Downloading User Contributions

Is there a way to download all of my user contributions and import them into an excel spreadsheet? I have over 5,000 but can only get 500 at a time. Thanks! JodyB _talk 14:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the MediaWiki API could be useful here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=usercontribs&uclimit=500&ucuser=JodyB Far as I see, still limited to 500 entries, and you need to feed the ucstart parameter from the previous page to the next page in order to traverse the list, but you can select a machine-friendly output format, and it's at least a start. Femto 15:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, you could request a bot flag to get 5000 entries at a time... uh... I don't think that it would pass, though. :( Gracenotes^T § 17:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is your contribs set to show 5000, or if you tell me what format you would like the api to give you, I will get that for you (sysops can search 5000 at a time too). Prodego ^talk 21:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Really? I saw that being suggested at the talk page of the API page on meta. That's good. Gracenotes^T § 21:22, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Voice of All's RC patrol tool lets you view 5k at a time. --əˈnongahy ♫Look What I've Done!♫ 21:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

en.wikipedia.org

I tried to access WikiPedia through the english prefix, but I get this page. However, yesterday from 16:05 - 16:23 GMT, that address worked. I think the site is trying to kill WikiPedia. Wait---I just got WikiPedia. I found the bad site at 17:50 GMT, but WikiPedia now works. Does anyone know why this happened?

^^ Don't delete! --Cricket Boy 17:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This site is en.wikipedia.org. -- brion 18:03, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It may have just been the internets borking. Nothing to worry about. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Did you misspell something? Gutworth 02:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

varargs for parserfunctions?

Is there any technique for parsing a variable-length argument list for a named parameter? For example, parameter foo can have any combination of 7 options. CMummert · talk 19:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe this could be of assistance? --əˈnongahy ♫Look What I've Done!♫ 20:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

CMummert... hm, what do you mean? I'm a bit confused. Gracenotes^T § 01:29, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Example. I want all these to work (maybe with different syntax, since I don't know how to do it).

{{template|foo=bar}} foo has argument bar

{{template|foo=baz}} foo has argument baz

{{template|foo=bar,baz}} foo has arguments bar and baz

This would be useful for categorizing using templates. I could do it if StringFunctions were active but apparently they aren't. CMummert · talk 03:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

{{#switch:{{{foo}}}|bar=result1|baz=result2}} As far as I know, one parameter cannot take 2 values. To have both bar's result and baz's result, use two separate #if:'s. –Pomte 04:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The switch you had before would work (you need the fourth option as baz,bar as well). But in the application I have in mind there are 10 or so possible parameters, and so it isn't feasible to include every possible list of options. I can use different ifs, certainly. But that makes it harder on the template users, since they have to say baz=true|bar=true. CMummert · talk 04:44, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

You can reduce that to baz=|bar=, if that's still intuitive for template users, with {{#ifeq:{{{baz|}}}|{{{baz|anystring}}}|result|}} or some more efficient comparison.

{{template|bar|baz}}, {{template|baz|bar|bay}} etc can be done with the same #switch on each of the 10 numbered parameters, like a for loop, but that seems to require a lot more checks and I don't think it's worth it. –Pomte 06:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

watchlist - permanent watch for Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines ?

I have an entry for Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines in the *article* section of my watchlist. It looks like it is stuck there... Bug? or Feature? (I don't know for how long it is there, for months for sure) - Nabla 20:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Check that it's spelt correctly; a misspelling in the namespace might cause it to count as article-space. Unwatching and rewatching should hopefully solve the problem otherwise, but this is just general advise as I'm not sure what else could cause it. --ais523 12:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

No... It is spelled correctly. (un/re)watching have not solved either. - Nabla 16:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's the redirect Policies and guidelines that is actually on the watchlist. --Derlay 21:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Not that either... - Nabla 16:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I've proposed that redirect for deletion. –Pomte 00:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I used Watchlist/clear... It was needing a cleanup anyway. It worked. Thanks for trying to help! - Nabla 16:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Print screening a page

Are Wikipedia pags allowed to be print screened, then the image uploaded onto Wikipedia? If so, what license would i put up? E.g. C or GDFL-self? Simply south 10:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

{{Wikipedia-screenshot}}. (Choose 'None selected' in the licence box and type the tag in manually.)

Make sure that there are no fair-use images on the page you take the screenshot of, give links to any other images on the page (because they'll have their own copyright status), and crop off the logo if it doesn't add to the image (because it isn't under a free licence). It's probably also advisable to link to the history of the page it's a screenshot of, to make sure that the GFDL part of the licence is fulfilled. --ais523 12:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The very last option in the dropdown box at Special:Upload is "Wikipedia web page screenshot". Use that. --Quiddity 23:42, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Make a feature

I want to send a massage to all my group members. wikiproject or etc.

For example:

• I participate "wikiproject A"
• I want to send a massage to wikiproject A's all members's talk pages.

Make a template, please! -- WonYong (talk • contribs • count • logs • email) 12:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

What do you want to put in the message, and how many people do you wish to send it to? Tra (Talk) 12:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

nothing. I only suggest a new feature. -- WonYong (talk • contribs • count • logs • email) 13:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried the talk page of the project? ^(H) 13:29, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Mmm... massaging template... er, sorry, was distracted. For a fairly large WikiProject, it is standard to request an AWB bot to spam a message onto the talk page of all participants of a WikiProject (don't remember if it's opt-in or opt-out). For a relatively small WikiProject, the spamming could probably be done by hand. Gracenotes^T § 19:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

How to translate system message?

some system messages are korean

some system messages are english

How to translate english system message to korean? -- WonYong (talk • contribs • count • logs • email) 13:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about English Wikipedia with your language set to Korean in your user preferences. In general, system messages are translated on-wiki by editing a page in the MediaWiki namespace that has the same name as the message being translated with the language code appended with a slash. For example, to update the Korean translation of the message that shows at the top of the watchlist (MediaWiki:Watchdetails), an administrator would edit MediaWiki:Watchdetails/ko.

If you're talking specifically about the sidebar, it would take a little more work to make it translatable. I brought it up for discussion at MediaWiki talk:Sidebar#Sidebar labels and elsewhere, but I can't seem to get anyone interested in fixing it. Mike Dillon 14:44, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If people want to see what this looks like without changing user preferences, the uselang parameter can change the language for a single page view. For example:

1. //en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)&uselang=ko
2. //en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Watchlist&uselang=ko

As you can see, some of the interface is in English and some in Korean. Mike Dillon 14:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If you make them all, I will move them into the mediawiki space for you, but this is the English wikipedia after all. Prodego ^talk 17:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Request

• following is curruent status:

navigation -> 둘러보기

Main page

Contents

Featured content

Current events -> 요즘 화제

Random article -> 임의 문서로

interaction

About Wikipedia

Community portal -> 사용자 모임

Recent changes -> 최근 바뀜

File upload wizard

Contact us

Make a donation -> 기부 안내

Help -> 도움말

• following is my suggest:
  • (english menu -> new suggested korean menu)

navigation -> 둘러보기

Main page -> 대문

Contents -> 목차

Featured content -> 특집 문서

Current events -> 요즘 화제

Random article -> 임의 문서로

interaction -> 의견교환

About Wikipedia -> 위키피디아 소개

Community portal -> 사용자 모임

Recent changes -> 최근 바뀜

File upload wizard -> 파일 업로드 마법사

Contact us -> 고객센터

Make a donation -> 기부 안내

Help -> 도움말

-- WonYong (talk • contribs • count • logs • email) 01:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the default translation of "Main page" is already "대문" (MediaWiki:Mainpage/ko). The reason that the default translation is not appearing is due to a technical issue, but bugzilla:6332 would have to be fixed in order to both pick up the default translations and implement the English Wikipedia consensus of having "Main page" instead of "Main Page".

To fix the other ones (except MediaWiki:Uploadwizard/ko), something like my suggestions at User:Mike Dillon/Sidebar would have to be implemented, otherwise the localizations would break whenever people decided to change the English version. Mike Dillon 03:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

"Contact us" could also be changed at MediaWiki:Contact/ko, along with "interaction" at MediaWiki:Interaction/ko (although the English default of "Interaction" should probably go at MediaWiki:Interaction as well). Mike Dillon 14:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

IMHO some of the translations look misleading. I might comment later on in detail, but no guarantees... --Kjoonlee 04:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Permanently delete articles

How can I permanently delete an article in mediawiki so that not even an admin can retrieve it? ie, totally purge it from the database. This is for a mediawiki server at my workplace on which someone posted sensitive material. Thanks.Rlevse 16:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

You should look at WP:OVERSIGHT and make a request via e-mail from Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. Oh sorry, for your own server - you will need to look at m:Extension:Oversight. Warofdreams talk 17:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Alternatively, you can remove the edit directly in the database. Prodego ^talk 17:44, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If you delete an article the normal way then wipe the archives table in you database, you'll leave almost no trace (the delete log will still be there). Gutworth 00:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The above link doesn't work. This is the correct one. mw:Extension:Oversight. Harryboyles 10:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to 'completely purge the article from the database, you'll have to do it manually. Not even the Oversight extension will help there (it still stays in the database). Jayden54 18:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Images

I can't get images to display on Wikipedia, Meta, Commons etc. It works fine on other websites using similar images, using Firefox 2 and Windows XP. Thanks, GDonato (talk) 19:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

From the FAQ at the top of this page, "it's surprisingly common for people to accidentally block the image server (upload.wikimedia.org) on Firefox." Could this be the problem? Warofdreams talk 01:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so as I'm having the same in IE, and I don't see anything to indicate image blocking. GDonato (talk) 09:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Mistake

I'm not quite sure if this is the right place for this, but I was making my Simple English Talk page, and when tramslating my wikipedia talk page to my Simple english talkpage, I ended up translating the talkpage on Wikipedia, instead of my talkpage on Simple English, so I was hoping someone was able to git undo my mistake|edit. Please §→Nikro 22:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I've put your talkpage on the English Wikipedia back to how it was before. For the Simple English Wikipedia, you will need to create a separate account there and then create your talk page. Tra (Talk) 22:57, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Ecotheme for Wikipedia

Hi,

The current default theme 'Monobook' and other themes use white colour.

Inline with Blackle for Google, can we have a theme for Wikipedia that can help save energy?

Regards,

Harshal 05:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Does it really save enough energy to be worthwhile? Particularly with LCDs, where the big use is the always-on backlight? --Carnildo 06:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

In developing countries like India, CRTs outnumber LCDs and the situation might remain same for at least next few years.

In either case, having an option of Ecotheme is a good idea. Making it default theme is a separate issue.

Regards,

Harshal 07:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)