Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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

Newcomers to the technical village pump are encouraged to read these guidelines prior to posting here. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk.

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Why no secure login (only)?

I'm puzzled about why WP doesn't use HTTPS for logins. I know that I can choose HTTPS for the entire session, but that's way overkill. OTOH, secure login is fundamental. I think that ALL logins should be secure. Passwords shouldn't be traveling the internet as open text.

Or am I missing something?

Leotohill (talk) 04:15, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I once asked this, and was basically told that it is a problem of human resources at this point. The developers can't shake their normal operations long enough to do the sysadmin work required to get this rolling (in a controlled and checked way, that doesn't bring the entire site down). Basically, make it a priority for the Foundation, and it might tell the sysadmins to focus their time there. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:38, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Also (correct me if I'm wrong here), because you would be viewing some pages without HTTPS cookies would still be vulnerable to packet sniffing, meaning although a man in the middle couldn't steal your password they could still take over your account. --Chris 13:24, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

What's the size of Wikipedia in Gigabytes (GB) with everything included?

What's the size of Wikipedia in Gigabytes if you include everything from talk page archives, to User pages, to Afd debates and the historical versions of every single article?

Is there a way to find out? EconomistBR 19:13, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Would probably need measured in Terabytes or higher. –xeno^talk 19:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Database download, in January 2008 it was 2.8 terabytes. That's compressed, and doesn't include images or other media files. The full history dump hasn't worked since then, so it's harder to get figures. Algebraist 19:18, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't include deleted revisions either, I would gather. –xeno^talk 19:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

2.8 TB! Thanks for the quick response. That's cheap, that's less than $500 in hard disk space after 8 yers. I thought Wikipedia occupied more space something like 10-15 TB.

If one considers the fact that Wikipedia's total expenses were over $3 million in just one year, the hard disk cost becomes even more negligible.

I guess I don't have to feel guilty about my signature taking up space. EconomistBR 02:21, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about that... but that figure was from January 2008, without images. So it's a lot bigger than that. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 02:32, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I recall that images were something like 20 TB as of some time ago. I forget if that counts only the full sized version or also the space taken up by thumbnails. Dragons flight (talk) 02:39, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

If I'm reading it correctly, "All pages, current versions only" takes up 9.4 GB, as of 2009-07-08 .[1] That probably doens't include files hosted on Wikicommons.   Will Beback  talk  21:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

HTML5 Tweaks

Just fyi ^demon^{[omg plz]} 00:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I don't understand technical matters well but how would adapting to html5 be beneficial? Would load times become shorter in newer browsers? -- penubag  (talk) 08:14, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Eventually, yes. Moving to HTML5 will also have benefits for our video and audio support (new HTML tags <video>...</video> and <audio>...</audio>, which are becoming natively-supported in almost all browsers). The schema is also more durable: it's harder to produce malformed markup, which causes tools like Twinkle to choke and die. And all it requires is for us to get rid of a few attributes that have been deprecated for years anyway. Happy‑melon 11:37, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I get it, so we can be more compliant with new technologies. Thanks for the explanation, HM -- penubag  (talk) 23:27, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

But HTML 5 ins still in draft! How can we use webpage technologies which are not finalised yet?--RekishiEJ (talk) 16:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I love the idea that they could suddenly decide to change the whole specification, but it ain't gonna happen. It's not really how the W3C works. So yeah, we're safe on that one. - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 16:24, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. The odds of them up and changing the spec significantly (especially in a breaking way) is very very unlikely. Furthermore, the changes I made have been standardized for quite some time (not unique to HTML5), we're just catching up :) ^demon^{[omg plz]} 17:24, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

re-direction

Recently, when I Google a topic, and then click on the resultant link, I get redirected to such sites as Toseeka.com, findadditonal.info, findlifespan.info, and on and on. How do these links get into Wikipedia? It happens so often now that I have to copy and paste the actual link from Google, rather than clicking on the header. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iintgrty (talk • contribs) 00:58, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Wikipedia is responsible for these links. If your searches are made at google.com and the displayed url says wikipedia.org but the clickable link doesn't go to wikipedia.org then it sounds like your computer has been infected with malware designed to drive traffic to certain sites. Try running an updated anti-virus/spyware/malware program. Maybe List of antivirus software is of help. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:29, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

There's some more info at this site, though I personally don't advise downloading that particular program (SpyNoMore) unless you're sure it's safe. Interesting information though. There's more information if you search on the internet, but make sure you use an anti-spyware program you trust, rather than something that's advertised on a whim. Look around for something you feel secure with, or ask tech-savvy friends for advice. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 16:23, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've heard of this virus before; it exists. However, I strongly advise against going to that website: Web of Trust blocks it, so the program is potentially spyware in itself (e.g. SpySheriff). I can't be sure, but you really do need to be wary with those kinds of "anti-spyware" sites. The Earwig (Talk | Contribs) 17:07, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Seeing as Web of Trust blocks it, I've removed the link and added a vaguer comment. You've got to be careful with these things and I don't want to give the wrong advice. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 20:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Playing ogg files

I have associated ogg files with Windows Media Player, but when I click the play button (either in an article or on the file page), it tries to play it in QuickTime. And it says I need to install XiphQT. I have installed XiphQT (and rebooted), but I still get that message. It seems what I have to do to get WMP is go to file page and click on the the file link.

• Is there a known solution to my XiphQT problem.
• Is there a way to associate play buttons with WMP? I don't see anything in preferences.

I use IE6 on WinXP Pro. —teb728 t c 01:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

File display problem

File:ISO 639 Icon new.svg is not displaying correctly on my user page. I tried posting just the file and it still wouldn't display correctly under preview. I'm using Firefox as my web browser. Mjroots (talk) 09:14, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

This is an SVG file. Normally, wikipedia will serve you a PNG thumb that is generated, because many browsers don't support SVG unfortunately. HOWEVER, it is known that the SVG renderer that wikipedia is using has some problems esp when it comes to rendering text in the SVG. There is some information about all this on commons. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:42, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

In this particular instance, the <text> tag is causing problems, if that helps. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 16:20, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

What <text> tag? The full coding to produce the image and text is this:-

{| cellspacing="0" style="width: 238px; background: #F8F8FF;" | style="width: 45px; height: 45px; background: yellow; text-align: center; font-size: 14pt;" | [[Image:ISO 639 Icon new.svg|42px]] | style="font-size: 8pt; padding: 4pt; line-height: 1.25em;" | As of 1 July 2009, this user has [[Help:Starting a new page|started]] '''[http://tools.wikimedia.de/~escaladix/larticles/larticles.php?user=Mjroots&lang=en 333 new articles and 150 new lists], ''' on the English Wikipedia and '''[http://tools.wikimedia.de/~escaladix/larticles/larticles.php?user=Mjroots&lang=de 8 new lists]''' on the German Wikipedia. </div> |}

It previously displayed correctly on my page. Mjroots (talk) 20:11, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

This is the file on its own. It is currently not displaying correctly here, but if you click on the image it displays correctly see here]. Mjroots (talk) 20:16, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, the actual image is stored here. You can see it in Firefox, but I don't know about other browsers. Anyhow, the code actually used to generate the image (in SVG format) lies thus (notice the <text> tag):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="400" height="180">
<path fill="#0000C8" d="M21.394289 0a200 200 0 0 0 0 180L67.712434 180a160 160 0 0 1 0 -180ZM330.228757 0a160 160 0 0 1 0 180L378.605711 180a200 200 0 0 0 0 -180Z" />
<path fill="navy" d="M87.754733 15a135 135 0 0 0 0 150L119.532615 165a119 119 0 0 1 0 -150ZM280.467385 15a110 110 0 0 1 0 150L312.245267 165a135 135 0 0 0 0 -150Z" />
<text x="350" y="141" font-size="150" fill="navy" font-family="Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif" font-weight="bold" transform="scale(0.57 1)" text-anchor="middle">new</text>
</svg>

The problem, as said before, lies in the software Wikipedia uses. Since not all browsers can show SVG files, Wikipedia converts it to a PNG thumbnail. This is what is ultimately displayed abovew and also what you see here (both thumbnails at different sizes). The issue is that the PNG converter isn't very good, and leaves some images looking really ugly as thumbnails, such as this one. The solution? Try and hurry along browsers which can't do what they're supposed to. Until that happens, you'll have to use a different file or fix the current one. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 20:56, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Is that handling of SVG files something that was changed recently? If so, that change might explain why it used to work for Mjroots. —teb728 t c 21:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The general method hasn't, but I don't track development enough to know specifics. The MediaWiki software may have changed and so might its converter (ImageMagick, for example, is in continual development). So I'm personally not sure, but it's certainly possible some code has changed recently. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 22:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikimedia actually uses rsvg (due to mw:SVG benchmarks probably). And while the rsvg settings/fonts/software don't change that much, a bunch of pre-generated thumbnails were deleted during the recent server probs to make space, so thumbnails generated from long ago (I think the last rsvg change was October 2008, so before that) may suddenly start looking different now. --Splarka (rant) 07:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't show up in Firefox 3.0.12 on Linux here, but it does if I edit the file to remove Helvetica from the list of fonts requested in the file; in this case, it probably depends on which fonts you have installed. A list of fonts available on Wikipedia's servers is at meta:SVG fonts. Anomie⚔ 23:32, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Image captions can be too wide

I realized today that, if an image caption is wider than the image it follows, the caption is simply cut off. Examples: text: [2], math: [3]. I realize that it is very difficult in CSS to make a floated div have the width of the content inside it. Is there any way we can work around this issue, though? — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen that before. I guess I've never seen one word that was longer/wider than the image size. Would you suggest making the thumbail box wider and have the image itself stay small? If the box becomes wider, the image might as well be so, as well. As for a fix in the meantime, I'd suggest hyphenating a long word if the thumb must remain that small. hmwithτ 16:05, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The first is because it's a single word; it's effectively a non-issue in areas that actually matter, like the actual article namespace, since there's practically no conceivable reason to have a massive single-word caption for a very narrow image. As for the math, well, the argument could be made that equations like that shouldn't be relegated to the captions, but instead put in the body of the article proper. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:23, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Such an argument could be made, but since the argument would be wrong it scarcely matters. Algebraist 17:33, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

...that's nice. I didn't say it would be right. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:39, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I only included the text example to point out it is not a problem unique to math. But the math formulas are the more problematic case, because there is essentially no other way to say "tableau for $\{(a\vee \neg b)\wedge b,\neg a\}$". Making the image bigger would solve the problem, of course, but I was hoping for a more elegant fix. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:40, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

It is due to the width style on the thumbinner div of the thumbs. This is done to force the width of the thumbnail surrounding. We will have to experiment a bit to see how much this is actually a requirement.... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:46, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Test of new template html with fixed width and style "overflow:visible;". UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

OK, clearly this forced width is a requirement, or your captions won't stay within the thumbsize width of course... I have figured out a way to perhaps slightly improve this. We could set "overflow: visible" on the thumbs, like I have done on the image to the right. It's hardly ideal, but at least the content is not "cut off", it just causes collisions. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:33, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Is it just me, or has the job queue slowed down?

Used to be that when a template changed caused pages to be sorted in a new category, the categories would get updated in a few days. At most, a week.

Lately (the last few months) I've been seeing stragglers show up over a month after the original edit. Did somebody change the job queue processing mechanism?

Last winter, we would regularly see the job queue get up into the hundreds of thousands, even a million or two, and yet all the categories would still pick up in a couple days. Recently, the job queue seems to over an order of magnitude smaller (rarely over 10k), and yet pages don't show up in the category for over a month?

What gives? DeFaultRyan 16:32, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

My monbook.js stopped working in Firefox 3.51

Still works fine on my other machine. Any ideas? Rich Farmbrough, 20:46, 30 July 2009 (UTC).

Oh, Javascript is enabled. Rich Farmbrough, 20:47, 30 July 2009 (UTC).

Anything appearing in the error console? Algebraist 20:51, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I've found the problem. Line 1055 currently reads

document.getElementById('p-cactions').children[1].insertBefore(y,x.nextSibling);

But x is not a child of getElementById('p-cactions').children[1], so the line makes no sense. Change it to

x.parentNode.insertBefore(y,x.nextSibling);

instead. Algebraist 21:43, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

OK thanks! Can you explain why it does work on my other machine? Rich Farmbrough, 21:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC).

Because node.children was introduced in Firefox 3.5. Earlier versions used node.childNodes instead, which lead to the (correct) code a few lines lower being used. Algebraist 21:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, seems odd to me that Javascript is so strongly bound to the version of browser. Thanks again. Rich Farmbrough, 23:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC).

Traffic stats and stats.grok.se

What is stats.grok.se? Is it run by 'pedians? Anyways, I wonder if they could set it to display the current month, and not put the focus in the text area, making it hard to go back by pressing backspace. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:07, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Run by User:Henrik. --Splarka (rant) 07:59, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

It defaults to the most recent full month, i.e. last month, but is rarely updated right at the first of the new month. Nor does the new month appear in the drop down right away, and around this time of year he/she tends to disappear on vacation, and not update for quite some time. You can manually put August into the URL, changing http://stats.grok.se/en/200907/Wikipedia to http://stats.grok.se/en/200908/Wikipedia for example. 199.125.109.77 (talk) 01:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Patrol log in dumps

Is it possible to add the patrol log to the "hewiki-20090730-pages-logging.xml.gz" dump? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yonidebest (talk • contribs) 10:09, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Possible bug

Lately I have noticed that the article alert bot's reports are not hiding properly anymore, and I have traced the error to the following line of code in the individual peer reviews (see here for details):

:{{PR/header|Cross Game| Wikipedia:Peer review/Cross Game/archive1|July 2009}} 

Notice the ":" which causes HTML Tidy(?) to insert an additional </div> (see View\Page Source):

<dl>
<dd>
<div class="noprint plainlinks pr-header"></div>
</dd>
</dl>
<p> ... </p>
<p>...</p>
</div>

Is there a way to edit {{PR/header}} or {{al}} to avoid this problem?

G.A.S^talk 10:51, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh how wonderful, somebody decide not to implement a header right. Unfortunately, I can't just simply fix it for all the new PR because we weren't removing them when archiving. So, I've implemented a workaround fix. — Dispenser 17:32, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:Stack results in broken layout in Opera 9.0

The Template:Stack template claims to be an easier-to-use version of Template:FixBunching. However, unlike Template:FixBunching, in Opera 9.0, the current version of this Template:Stack shoves the entire article way down the page, leaving lots of whitespace. See the photo manipulation article for an example. Clearly it must be possible to fix this, since Template:FixBunching doesn't have this problem. Can someone please fix this? Thanks. —Lowellian (reply) 21:33, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

This was due to the forced clear used in that template. Older Opera hates floating clears on tables and divs. I've fixed it now i think. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:35, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Blocking abuse filter proposal

See WP:VPR#Blocking abuse filters?. Prodego ^talk 22:09, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Watching the use of a template

Ideally, what I'd like is this: when I look at my watchlist, every time someone pastes this template or any of several others on someone's user talk page, I'd like it to appear in chronological order on my watchlist just as if someone had edited an article on my watchlist.

Obviously I could do that if it were about editing a template, simply by watchlisting the template, but this is about using the template.

Almost as good would be that this would not appear in my watchlist, but in another "special" page. I'd click on that page, and I'd see all of today's uses of that template on people's user talk pages, and if I scroll down, it would not just be today's, but yesterday's, etc.

How can I do this? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:50, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Sort of this: Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:User_talk_pages_with_Uw-coi_notices. Anticipating "That isn't exactly what I wanted" -> but it is possibly closest without watching every change to User/talk namespaces; and "Is there any way to filter out changes that aren't adding or removing the template?" -> not on-wiki, you'd have to make a bot or toolserver tool or something. From here on out you get diminishing returns to the effort put in, sadly. --Splarka (rant) 07:18, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Maybe we need to improve our technology to make it possible to do exactly what I requested. But what you suggest is definitely useful. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:44, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

See Bugzilla:7148. --Splarka (rant) 07:12, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Problem using the NoTitle Extension with version 1.15.1

I get the following error spammed at the top of every request:

Notice: Use of undefined constant MAG_NOTITLE - assumed 'MAG_NOTITLE' in /usr/local/httpd-2.2.12/htdocs/mwiki/extensions/notitle.php on line 28
Notice: Undefined variable: action in /usr/local/httpd-2.2.12/htdocs/mwiki/extensions/notitle.php on line 36
Notice: Undefined variable: action in /usr/local/httpd-2.2.12/htdocs/mwiki/extensions/notitle.php on line 36

I've triple checked and the code is code as well as the require statement needed in LocalSettings.php.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks, Rhugga

Rhugga (talk) 17:30, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not the support helpdesk for the mediawiki software. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:43, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Oops..... too many browser windows open.... posted in wrong one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhugga (talk • contribs) 18:59, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Odd category behavior

Go to Category:Scouting. Click the arrow beside Category:People associated with Scouting. Mouse over People associated with Scouting and its subcats. Notice the links to the subcats are different (if you click they are broken). Mouse over other cats and subcats of Scouting. They all work except for People associated with Scouting. But if you actually click on People associated with Scouting and mouse over the subcats, the links are correct. Can you fix this? — Rlevse • Talk • 20:16, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. Try purging. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:06, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I did. It does it in FF and IE. And it only does this on the secure server (do you use that) and only on this one subcat. When you mouse over the links in that cat/subcat on the secure server, watch the path that comes up in the lower left of the browser, you'll see the problem. Very odd. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:02, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

(copied from Gadget's talk page as we can't figure it out). — Rlevse • Talk • 10:45, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I filed a bugreport bugzilla:20040 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:39, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Watchlist bug?

If I add a redlinked page to my watchlist, and then move an unwatched page to the former name, it gets removed from my watchlist. Presumably this is a bug in the way the "Watch this page" checkbox on Special:MovePage works. --NE2 12:36, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

page ends mysteriously

Can anyone work out why about half of Wikipedia:Articles for creation/2006-06-16 doesn't show (invisible past the heading for the section on Colonel R.E.B. Crompton)? And, if so, can you fix it? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 18:07, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

{{afc b}} was substituted instead of transcluded, which wasn't terminating the collapsible box properly; the rest of the content was being put inside it. Fixed. 67.175.50.253 (talk) 18:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Nicki Minaj

Why is the discography in Nicki Minaj appearing below the external links and references? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:18, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

 Fixed – you didn't close the table properly. The Earwig (Talk | Contribs) 20:41, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Wasn't me, but thanks.  :) Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

My ego will probably make me regret doing this but...

Why do I get rollback? I am not in the rollbackers group, never requested rollback permissions, and was never told I got them, YET I CAN USE ROLLBACK. I use Opera 10.00 and Twinkle. I mean, having rollback is somehow cool an' stuffs, I read WP:ROLLBACK and I understand it and I believe I only used it once outside of the sandbox anyway. I just want to know why I got it, and if it is a mistake, well, so long for rollback. =P -- RUL3R^{*flaming | *vandalism} 00:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

It is not a mistake. One of Twinkle's features is its own version of rollback. It is slower than 'normal' rollback, and provides a different type of edit summary, but it is, for all intents and purposes, rollback. The Earwig (Talk | Contribs) 00:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Yup, just read that, sorry for wasting time. Thanks. =) -- RUL3R^{*flaming | *vandalism} 00:33, 3 August 2009 (UTC)