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 Bugzilla (How to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported to securitywikimedia.org.

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, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212

Database lag

Rising steadily for the past few hours. Up to 681 seconds now. Equazcion ^(talk) 10:19, 2 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Any info on when this might be resolved by? Jenks24 (talk) 10:48, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

It took a minute for the page to load. This is getting out of hand.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 11:13, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I just saw it go over 800 seconds! Roger (talk) 11:32, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Over 900 seconds now. Counter-vandalism editing gets rather hard when it takes more than 15 minutes for an edit to appear in your watchlist... Fram (talk) 11:52, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

942 seconds now. Editing in general gets hard when your watchlist doesn't want to load.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 11:56, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

If you want the lag message to display minutes/seconds also, I just made a script for that -- see User:Equazcion/LagToMinutes :) Equazcion ^(talk) 12:02, 2 Jul 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't work right. I'm getting 280000 minutes and 21 seconds.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 12:34, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

1030 1057 1133 seconds....is this a record?--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 12:21, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Caught is at 1000 even. W0OT! Is the number a 32-bit variable or a 64-bit variable? We wouldn't want an overflow after 9.10194444 hours... :) --Guy Macon (talk) 12:23, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

It's no record :( Highest I've seen is just over 9,000 seconds (!) Equazcion ^(talk) 12:27, 2 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Is there a point at which editing will (have to) be shut down to protect the integrity of the database? What are the server geeks saying about the problem? Roger (talk) 12:28, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Well toolserver replag (edit counter) is at "4 hours, 24 minutes, 14 seconds" --Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 12:45, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

PS. If anyone had tried my script above, it had a bug when the seconds went over 1,000, but it's been fixed now. Equazcion ^(talk) 13:02, 2 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Operations is now aware of the replication lag problems. They are investigating. You might want to keep an eye on server admin log with regards to resolution of the issue. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:04, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

It's largely a false alarm, although it does seem to cause very slow loading of watchlists. IIRC there are five database slaves, and only one of the five is actually lagged; the other four are fine, so most of the time you will actually get an up-to-date response from the server. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:25, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

So far every single time I've reloaded my watchlist, the lag message appears accurate. The last change that appears in the list is from the time just before the lag amount showing. Equazcion ^(talk) 13:28, 2 Jul 2012 (UTC)

(/d) Yes, it's only db12 DB overview. BTW, check infra status to see how many problems operations is dealing with that you are actually NOT noticing as a user. :D Makes you wonder how often they fix stuff and we never even thank them for it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:32, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Hey I'm not complaining. I look at database lags kind of like forced relaxation :) Equazcion ^(talk) 13:37, 2 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if I look at my watchlist it only shows changes from about 40 minutes ago. But if I actually load a page it shows the current version, not a 40 minute old version. Looks like the code is written so that Special:Watchlist always reads from the slowest slave. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:52, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

That's the way it always is with database lags. I've never seen the lag actually cause old versions of pages to show up. It just affects the watchlist display (far as I know). Equazcion ^(talk) 13:54, 2 Jul 2012 (UTC)

"just affects"? Heh, for me, the watchlist is god. Having it work this badly (and it was having problems yesterday, too) is heresy.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Lag reached 1,483 seconds. --Meno25 (talk) 13:36, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Is it just me or has this been happening a lot more since WP switched from Godaddy to the new provider? Kumioko (talk) 13:42, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I doubt there's any correlation, since that switch only affected who the domains were registered with. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the databases. the wub "?!" 15:46, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed was about to say the same thing.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 15:53, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• @Equazcion: the script doesn't seem to work in Monobook, but I think you knew it might not. Bishonen | talk 14:57, 2 July 2012 (UTC).

Loading my watchlist: <!-- Served by mw3 in 30.838 secs. -->

Now 2027 seconds. This could be related? If they are changing the times on all the edits made so far today?--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 15:28, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I was about to ask if the leap second could have caused this as well.Edinburgh Wanderer 15:42, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Update: We now at 36 min. lag and loading the watchlist reports <!-- Served by mw33 in 30.903 secs. -->—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 15:48, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

The cause is not really known yet. The server is running some scripts to get the last remaining Sha1's of revisions populated, but that should not take that much resources to cause this. Another operations guy should be waking up soon and hope is that he can properly debug the problem. The lag has been going down a bit the past half hour though (without apparent cause). Unfortunately this db server is also serving up all the watch list requests, so it's a bit annoying for the editors. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:04, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

It's not just lag. Getting many "general error" screens when trying to log in or edit. North8000 (talk) 16:25, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's not just watchlists that are affected, but contribs lists too. For example, Special:Contributions/Redrose64 shows my most recent edit as being to Cardiff Central railway station at 15:48 UTC, but I'm certain that I've made at least six edits since (to Swansea railway station, Llanelli railway station, Carmarthen railway station, Whitland railway station, Template:POV, User talk:MSGJ). --Redrose64 (talk) 16:26, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

And page histories are similarly affected/afflicted, too. Bishonen | talk 21:23, 2 July 2012 (UTC).

• Appears lag might be sloooooowly coming down? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 16:31, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

  Still taking longer to load though. <!-- Served by mw42 in 31.096 secs. -->—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 16:55, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Update: Replag decreasing at a rate of about 15 seconds per minute. I estimate 4 hours, 27 minutes, and 44 seconds until replag is cleared at current speed.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 17:08, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Now lag is 1,255 seconds. --Meno25 (talk) 17:14, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Replag down to 10 seconds now. Yay. Now to fix the errors.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 19:07, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Toolserver replag

OK, up-to-date watchlists and contribs, at l(e)ast(!), which is good; but still an ever-growing replag on the toolserver:

Caution: Replication lag is high, changes newer than 6 hours, 42 minutes, 25 seconds may not be shown.

What is causing this and why is it not decreasing at all for days? Jared Preston (talk) 17:48, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Update: "Caution: Replication lag is high, changes newer than 9 hours, 18 minutes, 10 seconds may not be shown."

Why is the replag getting higher? Does anyone know when/if the server-problem will be fixed in the next few days? Jared Preston (talk) 20:15, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

No idea what its means but tool server says High replag because of inserting of many SHA1-hashes. Its getting worse rather than better.Edinburgh Wanderer 22:08, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

See, I don't understand it either. The only hashes I like are these ones. Maybe someone has dropped some on the server, now up to 10 hours, 33 minutes, 20 seconds. Jared Preston (talk) 06:22, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

You should try corned beef hash some time.  :-) But this is the "technical" discussion area, and it is a rather technical issue. The Wikipedia database that stores old page revisions had a new field added to it recently to make it easier to determine whether two past revisions are identical or not, so that we can identify reverts. Now the servers are in the process of filling in this field, which previously had been blank, and all these changes need to be copied to the Toolserver (which is a separate system from Wikipedia). The flood of changes is overloading the Toolserver and causing the high replag. Unfortunately, according to the Toolserver admins, it could take another week or two for this process to finish. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:55, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Just so you guys know, this isn't happening with me. Hadger 18:58, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Hadger, can you confirm that by checking this link? Thanks for the help, Russ – I can cope (just about) with a week to ten days! Jared Preston (talk) 19:48, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh. That's what you were talking about. I thought that you were talking about watchlists and contribution pages having that appear. :) Hadger 19:30, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

It's now on the way down, having peaked at around 10:00 UTC today with just under 140000 secs (38+ hours), the current figure is about 130000 (36 hours). --Redrose64 (talk) 21:10, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

It appears to have been steadily going up all month, and now at over 160,000 (44+ hours). However, the edit counter tool lists only 16 hours. Why the discrepancy? GoingBatty (talk) 03:19, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

There are two database servers for enwiki on the Toolserver (rosemary and thyme), and they are lagged to different degrees:

[2:31pm] <Earwig> @replag
[2:31pm] <tsbot> Earwig: s1-rr-a: 17h 13m 22s [+0.26 s/s]; s1-user: 2d 34m 37s [+0.22 s/s]

— The Earwig ^(talk) 18:34, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Looks like the lags are continuing to increase and are now over 18h 41m and 2d 19h. On July 5, Russ said "according to the Toolserver admins, it could take another week or two for this process to finish." Is there any update from the admins? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 16:19, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Not from the admins, but I've done my own analysis. Unless something is done about the cause, the replags are likely to continue increasing at least until the end of July, and probably for a week or two after that on s1-user. This is all due to a massive database update; eventually, it will get to the end of the database, but in the meantime all Toolserver tools are suffering. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 23:43, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

The replag has been racing up, in spurts, for the last 48 hours or so. When will this upward spiral end? Please help! Jared Preston (talk) 15:50, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Certianly be good if we could get an official update on this.E W 18:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Although the replag graphs continue to climb, the notice at the top of X!'s Edit Counter has now disappeared. This time yesterday it was showing 14 hours and some minutes, a figure which hadn't changed by more than two hours in over a week. I suppose that this means that rosemary (or thyme?) has caught up, but thyme (or rosemary?) hasn't. I've looked at the diagram and lists on tswiki:Servers but it's not at all clear which is which. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:57, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

<Dispenser> @replag
<tsbot>     Dispenser: s1-user: 1w 1d 6h 10m 35s [+0.53 s/s]; s2-user: 11s [-0.00 s/s]; s3-rr-a: 24s [+0.00 s/s]; s3-user: 24s [+0.00 s/s]

thyme is default server and is on duty as the s1-user server which hosts user databases and is slowly drifting behind. rosemary is on duty as s1-rr server, which does not have access to user created databases or temporary tables (actually, use ENGINE=MyISAM when defining temporary tables to workaround InnoDB permissions bug). — Dispenser 17:01, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Currently it is over a week, the table I included is somewhat dynamic, updated hourly, and may be easier to read then the info Dispenser posted. For the record, a week has 168 hours. So as of this post, 199 hours is 8 days and 7 hours. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:45, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

The replag managed to go down to zero yesterday evening, as Redrose noted, but now it is climbing back up again (please see X!'s Edit Counter for reference). Currently above 10 hours! Jared Preston (talk) 06:52, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

This was due to apparently some configuration changes, see jira:MNT-1258. — Dispenser 17:23, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Do we even have a rough idea how long it is likely to take for the other to start catching up.Blethering Scot 23:24, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

My educated guess: replag on thyme will continue to increase at least through August 5, and possibly a couple of days beyond that. After that, it should start to decrease, but how long it will take to recover completely is beyond my ability to predict. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 23:29, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

The main thing is it starts catching up, from the last time it wasn't actually to bad once that process started. The last time did they not reach that point around the same time seems to be a big gap this time, might be my memory of it.Blethering Scot 23:38, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps a bit after August 5.  ;-) --j⚛e decker^talk 06:38, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits numbers continue to get further and further out of synch; it looks like BernsteinBot is using thyme, with increasingly inaccurate results. The replag graph shows the numbers continuing to increase. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it's affecting some of the tools that help ferret out unreferenced BLPs, which is why I'm noticing. Plus side, it's making our efforts to erdicate unreferenced BLPs look effective, at least for the moment.  :) I'm not looking forward to the inevitable hangover, though. --j⚛e decker^talk 01:13, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit conflicts

I don't know if this is related to the above at all, but over the last day or so I've had some crazy edit conflicts. The two most memorable:

• a.) the edit conflict page popped up showing no conflict, but having the orange "you have a talk page message" banner too. I clicked to see the talk page message (to a new tab) but no messages, though it sent me to an IP page and it showed an IP at the top, instead of me being logged in. But when I clicked on the "edit" button in the original window gain, it showed me as logged in.
• b.) apparently had a three-way edit conflict, and though I got the conflict screen, the amazing thing was that my edit was already saved to the page (showing my full signature).

There have been several others conflicts of various types.

Not to mention seeing the wikimedia page fairly regularly.

And yesterday the database "read only mode" notice was up for several minutes.

Hope this helps. - jc37 17:23, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

And not only did I edit conflict with meno above (lol@ irony), but it took several minutes (with the wikimedia screen and even the browser "can't connect to server" screen for several minutes) in order to post the above. I connected to other websites just fine in the interim. - jc37 17:30, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

It wasn't an edit conflict but something wierd just happened at an RfA. I wanted to comment on an oppose and the entire page got messed up and then the server gave up so I had to wait before it came back. When I hit Rollback, it blanked the page and said it reverted it edits by me to the last version by a user that didn't even contribute to an RfA. Things returned to normal after I used a previous version and restored the RfA from there but I'm curious to know what that was especially the Rollback message that was created in the edit summary.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 17:42, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Weird; Special:Contributions/Flynnster14 shows just eight edits, and none of them are to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Zagalejo. At least ClueBot didn't come around and warn you for blanking pages :-) Nyttend (talk) 19:21, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

That's a plus, assuming ClueBot wasn't having issues as well. I can't figure out why Rollback acted the way it did. Maybe the foundation staff could figure it out.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 20:27, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I found this.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 20:32, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Any chance this is related to the leap second? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:32, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

No, leap second fun was yesterday. Max Semenik (talk) 22:19, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

"My preferences" tabs not working

Under "my preferences" none of the tabs across the top :- Appearance, Date and time, Editing etc. are doing anything. No matter which one I select it stays on "User profile". Is this just me, or a general glitch? - Arjayay (talk) 14:43, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Mine are working fine. (Windows 7, Firefox 14) Dismas|^(talk) 15:11, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I think I saw some mention this a couple of days back - you're using Internet Explorer? Which version? - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 10:47, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

IE8 (can't upgrade with XP) Tabs still not working - Arjayay (talk) 15:13, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried a hard refresh of the page ? See bypassing your browsercache. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:06, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes - Refresh, reboot, remove temporary files, wait 4 days - still not working. - Arjayay (talk) 07:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

9 days now and it is still not working - any other ideas? anywhere else I should be reporting this? - Arjayay (talk) 15:30, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I still haven't seen other people with IE8 confirm this, I'd like to see confirmations before reporting. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:56, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I have the same problem with Chrome (latest version for now). Adress in adress field changes, but nothing happens. Updating page shows needed page for a second, but then page Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-personal appears again. --AJZ (talk) 09:03, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I have discovered that my preferences are not working. I've recently acquired a new computer: Windows 7 with IE9. I did every instruction to the letter as indicated on the prior page to this one: I've cleared my cookies, refreshed, cleared cache, removed temporary internet files. logged in and out, fretted and fumed! The preferences tabs appear, but no matter which I click, I'm just moved further down my "User Profile" page. Fylbecatulous talk 03:42, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

It seems the problem is in wiki engine. --AJZ (talk) 04:48, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

And what, precisely, does "It seems the problem is in wiki engine" mean?
And, more to the point, is it likely to be fixed in the forseeable future? Arjayay (talk) 15:24, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, with my upgrade, I'm hankering to use a gadget or two that just laughed at my old XP. thanks Fylbecatulous talk 15:29, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

It means that this problem can only be solved by fixing MediaWiki engine, not browser or anything else. --AJZ (talk) 03:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I use Chrome on XP, and have not noticed the issue. Chris857 (talk) 03:46, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Those who experience the issue could mention the skin they use, if changing the skin and language helps (like this: ...Preferences?uselang=en-gb&useskin=modern) and if resetting all preferences helps. — AlexSm 04:05, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I think I'm using Vector - but as I can't get the Appearance tab to work, I can't check this.
I followed the link above, but just get the front (User profile) page and none of the other tabs work.
I did consider trying "restore all default settings" - but if it doesn't work, I'm left in a far, far worse situation. - Arjayay (talk) 07:53, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

If it is any help, My preferences are just as stuck on Wikimedia Commons - Arjayay (talk) 08:02, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

This is the funniest thing ~ I feel now as I did when I worked in a control room and agents would call in with some nebulous problem for me to sort and solve (with no clues to parse). I too believe I'm using Vector, but I can't find out since I can't check my preferences. (Ditto negatory response following the link above) Neither can I change the one skin I have (unless there's a secret path to circumvent having to make alterations in "my preferences"). Is there? Who's on first? Fylbecatulous talk 16:09, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Not important anymore but you could just switch to another browser to fix your preferences or use other projects. — AlexSm 16:37, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Possible solution: in IE go to menu Tools and uncheck "Compatibility View". There is also a button in the to address bar that could be easily pressed by accident. — AlexSm 16:37, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the ideas - but none worked
As stated above - it doesn't work in Commons - and it doesn't work in "Other projects" either.
Compatability view was not checked - so I tried checking it - no change - so I unchecked it again.
Any other ideas? Arjayay (talk) 15:17, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Even if you can't get to Preferences → Appearance, it's quite a simple matter to determine which skin you're using. Try out each of these links: and see which one produces an unchanged view of this page. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:59, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Aha! By taking a tour of the links provided above (nice skins), I've determined that I indeed have Vector. I had already experimented with compatibility view to no avail, BTW. Fylbecatulous talk 23:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Try using F12 to bring up the IE developer toolbar after switching a tab failed, and see if you can find the error console somewhere. (I don't know much about IE). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:51, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Workaround
By pressing control when clicking a "My preferences" tab, the tab opens in another window, where it can be altered and saved - and these changes are implemented. Hope this works for others. (I'm sure someone will say this is obvious, and I should have tried it last month)
However, it is unrealistic to hope other editors realise / re-discover this in the future, so the root cause of the problem still needs to be identified and overcome. Has a bugzilla report been filed? (sorry I don't understand how to do bugzilla reports) - Arjayay (talk) 08:59, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

That workaround actually works, yes indeed it does. Thanks so much; it wouldn't have been obvious to me... Fylbecatulous talk 13:49, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I think I got it. This change was recently made. It might be the culprit. I have filed bugzilla:39192 to deal with this. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:59, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much - If I read that report right, the change was tested on Chrome, Safari, Firefox and 3 versions of Opera, but not even one version of IE - surely Wikimedia shouldn't be allowing changes to code without testing on IE8 + 9? - Arjayay (talk) 11:50, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

That is just the original message, if you read the review comments you see that IE was tested at some point. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:49, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for filing a bugzilla report :) Fylbecatulous talk 13:49, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Citation template problem

When using the citation template (Firefox 15.0) three things happen.

1. It works.

2. Nothing happens when I click Insert, but Preview works.

3. When I click Insert the citation is placed at the top of the section I'm editing.

I was ignoring this until someone at said I didn't add sources, showing this diff. Dougweller (talk) 20:50, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

• I have Firefox 14.0.01 and Windows XP. I used to have that phenomenon of the citation template not inserting anything, and then sort of solved that by switching out of my Modern skin to something else, and then back again. However, I was editing earlier in the day, and it flipped back to that non-insertion and then starting inserting again.
• The inserting it at the top of the section, instead of where it's supposed to, has been driving me nuts since at least July 18 when I reported it Here. Nobody replied to my post.. And it hasn't been just the citation template where it happened. It would also happen if I clicked my pointer in a spot to type, and what I typed would jump to the top of the section or somewhere else. Haven't had that today. Both things have happened to me, also. Maile66 (talk) 21:44, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I suspect you are referring to the cite button on the editing toolbar; see WP:REFTOOLBAR. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:42, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

In my case, the jumping around and inserting in the wrong place is not limited to that Cite Button on the toolbar. It has happened with Provelt. And it has happened, as I indicated above, when I'm just typing. Like if I decide to insert a few characters of typed text in another paragraph up there, I would click in the place where I want something inserted and type, and it would insert at the top of the section instead of where it's supposed to. Hasn't happened today. But it's certainly happened over this past weekend, and before. I can at least date it back to my July 18 post. Maile66 (talk) 20:20, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

And it just now did it, so it's still happening. I was doing an insert from the Cite template on the toolbar, at the end of a paragraph. When I clicked on "Insert", it jumped to the top of the section and inserted it in front of the "==" before the secton header.Maile66 (talk) 12:18, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Render server error

Book tool output for this book still failing rendering book output. Sctechlaw (talk) 07:41, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

render error text

An error occurred on the render server: RuntimeError: command failed with returncode 9: ['mw-render', '-w', 'rl', '-c', 'cache/a1/a1c55a0e1e5b1067/collection.zip', '-o', 'cache/a1/a1c55a0e1e5b1067/output.rl', '--status', 'qserve://localhost:14311/a1c55a0e1e5b1067:render-rl', '--template-blacklist', 'MediaWiki:PDF Template Blacklist', '--template-exclusion-category', 'Exclude in print', '--print-template-prefix', 'Print', '--print-template-pattern', '$1/Print', '--language', 'en'] Last Output: /index.php?oldid=430028393' 77.0026441036% laying out The Cardinal77.0026441036% laying out The Cardinal2012-07-31T07:34:55 rlwriter.info >> rendering: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=430028393' 77.0026441036% laying out The Cardinal77.0026441036% laying out The Cardinal2012-07-31T07:34:55 rlwriter.info >> rendering: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=502746659' 77.0026441036% laying out The Agony and the Ecstasy2012-07-31T07:34:55 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'file:Agony and the Ecstasy 1965.jpg') 2012-07-31T07:34:55 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'file:Agony and the Ecstasy 1965.jpg') 77.0026441036% laying out The Agony and the Ecstasy2012-07-31T07:34:55 rlwriter.info >> rendering: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=502746659' 77.0026441036% laying out The Agony and the Ecstasy2012-07-31T07:34:55 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'file:Agony and the Ecstasy 1965.jpg') 2012-07-31T07:34:56 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'file:Agony and the Ecstasy 1965.jpg') 77.0026441036% laying out The Agony and the Ecstasy2012-07-31T07:34:57 rlwriter.info >> rendering: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=504069669' 77.0026441036% laying out Assassin's Creed: Lineage2012-07-31T07:34:57 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'file:Assassins Creed Lineage Cover.jpg') 2012-07-31T07:34:57 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'file:Assassins Creed Lineage Cover.jpg') 2012-07-31T07:34:57 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'File:aclbts1.jpg') 77.0026441036% laying out Assassin's Creed: Lineage2012-07-31T07:34:58 rlwriter.info >> rendering: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=504069669' 77.0026441036% laying out Assassin's Creed: Lineage2012-07-31T07:34:58 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'file:Assassins Creed Lineage Cover.jpg') 2012-07-31T07:34:58 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'file:Assassins Creed Lineage Cover.jpg') 2012-07-31T07:34:58 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'File:aclbts1.jpg') 77.0026441036% laying out Assassin's Creed: Lineage2012-07-31T07:34:58 rlwriter.info >> rendering: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=386818719' 77.0026441036% laying out Medici (board game)2012-07-31T07:34:59 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'File:Medici game.jpg') 2012-07-31T07:34:59 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'File:Medici game.jpg') 77.0026441036% laying out Medici (board game)2012-07-31T07:34:59 rlwriter.info >> rendering: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=386818719' 77.0026441036% laying out Medici (board game)2012-07-31T07:34:59 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'File:Medici game.jpg') 2012-07-31T07:34:59 rlwriter.warning >> invalid image url (obj.target: u'File:Medici game.jpg') 77.0026441036% laying out Medici (board game)2012-07-31T07:35:03 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'License' 77.0026441036% laying out License77.0026441036% laying out License77.0026441036% rendering 2012-07-31T07:35:03 rlwriter.info >> start rendering: u'/home/pp/sandbox/cache/a1/a1c55a0e1e5b1067/tmpFuLpyp.rl' 2012-07-31T07:35:04 rlwriter.info >> memory usage after laying out: 732.09375 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering 77.0026441036% rendering in function system, file /home/pp/local/bin/nslave.py, line 64

Anybody? Could this be a problem related to article templates? — Sctechlaw (talk) 02:45, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Remove all browser 'Rollback' links everywhere

Hi, I'd like to remove all "Rollback" links everywhere from my browser. I have the following in my common.css:

 .mw-special-Watchlist .mw-rollback-link {
    display: none;
 }

which removes the Rollback links from my Watchlist, but I don't want them anywhere. I want to keep Rollback permission for Huggle but not for any other use. Can this be done? Thanks... Zad68 20:03, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I think all the rollback links have the same CSS class, so if you just delete the ".mw-special-Watchlist" pit, it should work everywhere. Seems to for me at least. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:07, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Works!! Just as advertised. Cheers!! Zad68 20:12, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

• As more and more people are using hand held/touch screen devices to use Wikipedia (especially when they are away from home), I think having this as an option in preferences might be a good idea. - jc37 20:10, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

• Yes please! I'd actually like to disable Rollback only on my mobile device. Is there some sort of JavaScript thingie I can put in that says, If I'm on a mobile device, then remove the Rollback link? Zad68 20:12, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

try the following

@media only screen and (max-device-width: 480px) {
  .mw-rollback-link {
     display: none;
  }
}

It means, "only apply to screens with a maximum width of 480px" —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:17, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm actually not using an iPhone or iPad. WP:NPOV fail! :) Can this be done in a more general way, such as checking for mobile connectivity? I know that Wikipedia detects when I'm connected via my mobile device browser and offers the mobile version, so I know Wikipedia can tell when I'm connected mobile. What's the if-statement clause for that? I think that would 100% do what I want. Thanks in advance.... Zad68 13:18, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say you were. your mobile device screen is larger then this ? Raise the number.. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:53, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Just making an iPhone vs. Android joke. Actually my mobile device has 1280 x 720 native resolution and reaches into desktop resolution range. It'd be better to make this determination on an explicit "is it mobile?" check instead of making an assumption based on screen resolution. Zad68 15:21, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia down?

About a two-three minutes ago I was unable to access wikipedia. I checked downornot.com and it claimed wikipedia was down everywhere. What happened?--92.251.179.11 (talk) 21:24, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

well, it was down... or were you expecting some sort of conspiracy, where it was only down for you and someone changed the website downornot.com just to get at you ? :P —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:26, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well it's up now! Secretlondon (talk) 21:30, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It appeared to be that all Wikimedia sites were down. At the time I had been deleting my cache and cookies, I thought it was my fault – that I had accidentally deleted Wikipedia too, haha! Jared Preston (talk) 21:28, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd love to have that kind of power! Secretlondon (talk) 21:30, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

With great power comes great irresponsibility. — Richardguk (talk) 21:39, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#What just happened?. It's time to throw somebody into the village stocks. Ryan Vesey 21:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

It's back, for me - but the css doesn't appear to be loading. Looks like the Internet from the eighties. pablo 15:19, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Back to normal now. pablo 15:25, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Categories in Google Chrome

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T41047

Categories are showing weird for me in Chrome. Some categories are on two lines for some reason. It changed suddenly a few days ago. Firefox and IE are showing them correcly. Any fix for this? --Mika1h (talk) 22:45, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. I too use Chrome (on XP), but have not seen the issue. Chris857 (talk) 01:18, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Scratch that, as I just found it occurring on Alice Dalgliesh. (At 100% zoom) all appear correctly except for "1893 births", where it is on two lines, but the space seems wide enough for it to fit on one line (just like the above picture). 1024x768 screen resolution, occurs at 200% zoom, 100% zoom. 175% zoom and 50% zoom affect other cats.Chris857 (talk) 02:32, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm seeing it too--just started today for me. Mackensen (talk) 03:03, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I see it too in Chrome 21. Looks like a measuring error in the layout fase. We probably need to file an upstream bugreport about this. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:56, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I've submitted a report on bugzilla. Chris857 (talk) 02:13, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I just realized that I've been seeing something very similar in tables of contents (TOCs). For example, in Leucophoenicite, "4.1 bibliography" displays on two lines, whereas it occupies only one line in IE. Chris857 (talk) 02:30, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I've been noticing this as well, especially in motorsports results tables. Some cells with a longer-then-normal driver's name used to display on one line in Chrome 20, now they display on two lines in Chrome 21. I get the feeling tables in Chrome 21 now might need to have a width explicitly set to avoid this problem - unless it's an unintended Chrome bug. TheChrisD ^{Rants•Edits} 11:19, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Cannot be reproduced in Chromium nightly build, so likely folks will just have to wait for Chrome 22. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:10, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I have that too. In Chrome on Win Vista. Weird, but not really a problem for me. --Nnemo (talk) 07:12, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The position of the vertical bar schocks me much more. --Nnemo (talk) 07:33, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Detect parental controls software before all visits to wiki pages

The article on bronies is being blocked by my parental controls software. I request that all visits to wiki pages should start with a scan for parental controls software. If it detects parental controls software, the software will be removed. See WP:NOTCENSORED. -- 96.50.22.205 (talk) 01:29, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

That's ridiculous. Wikipedia doesn't censor it's own content, we don't stop people from censoring content on their own. Ryan Vesey 01:48, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, I don't want my browser changing or removing other software on my computer. Chris857 (talk) 02:01, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Would it even be possible? If it is, it is probably illegal. Ryan Vesey 02:03, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

This comes pretty close. "It was discovered that any website could force users with the plug-in to open any program on their PC." Chris857 (talk) 02:11, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

It's not possible. In regards to Chris857: Its unlikely that everyone with parental control software also has software with remote execution vulnrabilities in it, and even then we're not going to start hacking people's computer simply because sexually explicit images want to be free. Bawolff (talk) 13:30, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Pages in category

Is it possible for a template to reveal the number of pages in a category and all of the subcategories? Specifically, I would like to use it on Category:Articles without infoboxes. Ryan Vesey 04:04, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

This {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Articles without infoboxes|R}} will generate this: 0. Is that what your looking for? Kumioko (talk) 04:10, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Nope, that just displays the one that are specifically in that category. The real number should be somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000. Ryan Vesey 04:12, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

As another note, there are so many pages in that category, it breaks catscan. I might need to have a couple of templates modified to add the articles to an all category. Soon, the category may become a subcat of Category:All articles that need to be wikified. Ryan Vesey 04:16, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

After looking at those cats, the count is right for this one. You might be right that there are as many or more articles that need an infobox however they need to be tagged as such to be in this category and there not tagged yet. I would actually say that there are likely to be more than 100, 000. The other problem is that there are some articles even at the FA level that don't have infoboxes because some folks don't think they are necessary nor bring value to the article. I personally don't agree with that however that view does exist. Kumioko (talk) 09:23, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Template trouble

Resolved

I have been working with the {{request edit}} template set and have run into an issue I cannot figure out. The page Template:Request edit is showing up in Category:Requested edits. There is no call to that category (or any other) in that template page. That page calls (as default) the subpage at Template:Request edit/request when it is used. The subpage calls the category, but from within a noinclude block. How do I remove the template from the category? --Nouniquenames (talk) 04:28, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

It's now fixed with this. -- WOSlinker (talk) 06:28, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much! --Nouniquenames (talk) 15:29, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Odd sound file

File:02 Calma Pueblo.ogg- Does this actually contain malicious code? Is it an mp4 file, or an ogg? Why is it so big? Thanks to anyone who can help. J Milburn (talk) 13:10, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

It is unlikely that it actually contains malicious code. We put that warning for any file that is not on the list of "safe" file formats. What most likely happened is someone took an mp4 file, changed the extension thinking that is all one needs to do to convert to ogg, uploaded it (somehow it got past the upload screen even though its extension doesn't match its type, or perhaps are file type detection subsequently got better), and here we are. Bawolff (talk) 13:22, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

The file was uploaded just two days ago. The first version was a regular ogg file but the second version was the MP4 file of the entire piece of music. I made a complete mess while trying to delete the second version, as it's a copyright violation; no matter what I did, even if I reuploaded a new version or bypassed my cache, Wikipedia still showed the long copyright-violating version, so I've deleted the file completely for now. Graham87 04:48, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Nyttend just undeleted the original version of the file, as I was trying to do, but my computer still showed the longer copyright-violation version when I used the play sound button or tried to download the ogg file. I finally had a brainwave to try a different browser (Firefox instead of IE) and the problem was solved! Graham87 15:38, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Hey thanks for all your help. I tried uploading a smaller version of the file and it went a little crazy. The only problem now is it is still a copyright violation because it is 124 kbps, when it should not be above 64. Any ideas? Basilisk4u (talk) 16:46, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Try re-uploading it again, but make sure that you select the right file in the "source filename" box. After you've uploaded a version with lower resolution, ping me on my talk page. But I don't think the difference between 128 and 64kb/s is such a big deal that the original file needs to be deleted immediately. Graham87 08:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Proper licensing of gadgets and user scripts

I started a topic on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Proper licensing of gadgets and user scripts which may be of interest for those watching this page.

Best regards, Helder 18:21, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Overlinking vandalism.

Occasionally a vandal will come along and disrupt an article by needlessly linking every single word in a sentence or two. I am guessing that most such efforts are merely tests, but they do tend to bump up the disambiguation link count, and can confuse readers and reduce readability. I'd like to see the bots that routinely revert additions of curse words and the like to add this to their repertoire. Such vandalism should be fairly easy to parse by a bot, since it typically includes putting links around common words like this and and and the. If not solved by a bot, perhaps at least a report could be compiled somewhere so that suspicious edits following this pattern can be swiftly identified and reverted. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:13, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

How to hide bots from watchlist

==Watchlist==

Is there a way to auto-hide bots in my watchlist, i.e. so it displays the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Watchlist&namespace=&hideBots=1 automatically?--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 16:36, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Try looking in your preferences and please do not add new sections like this: there is a special "New section" ("or "+") tab on top of the page. — AlexSm 16:45, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I should have realised, on both counts.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 16:49, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Also note WP:HIDEBOTS. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:29, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Bypass upload wizard when clicking redlinks

Hi there. I'm looking for a way (preference, script, etc.) to get it so that when I click a redlinked file page it takes me to the blank page in the file namspace (like it used to), rather than to the upload wizard. This would be tremendously useful to me, as getting to that page is a much easier/convienant way to view the file's deletion rational than any of the alternative methods are. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:18, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Example: If I click on File:47th_Dai_Abdul_Qadir_Najmuddin_.JPG, I want to be taken to this page. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:19, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll second that - it would be quite useful. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:51, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Here's some script to put in your Special:MyPage/skin.js or Special:MyPage/common.js:

$("a.new").filter("[href*='Wikipedia:Upload?wpDestFile=']").each(function(index, el) { el=$(el); el.attr('href', el.attr('href').replace('wiki/Wikipedia:Upload?wpDestFile=', 'w/index.php?action=edit&redlink=1&title=File:')); })

— This, that, and the other (talk) 09:52, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I think it's better to be redirected just to wiki/File:.... It looks better, it shows file usage and if implemented globally (on some project) there is no confusing for newbies edit window. — AlexSm 15:06, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Multiple editors have complained about this situation for several years now. Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 99#File redlink should not lead to godawful upload form is a recent one with some technical discussion. Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 77#Redlinked files linking to upload page has a link to an underlying bugzilla item and a .js solution. DMacks (talk) 20:01, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Editing my watchlist

When I click on the "View and edit watchlist" link, I get a Wikipedia error page. It says, "Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon. Please try again in a few minutes." On the other hand, if I try the "Edit raw watchlist" link, the page doesn't load; I just get a white screen.

I have almost 24,000 pages on my watchlist. I want to whittle down my watchlist, but I don't know how, if neither link will work.

Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 17:49, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Well....you could go to some of the pages on it (by looking at the basic watchlist screen) and manually remove the star in the article by clicking on it...bit slow but with over 10,000 pages it might not let you load it anyway.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 17:51, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain what you mean by "manually remove the star in the article by clicking on it"?

The only way I can currently remove any pages from my watchlist is to open them and click the "unwatch" link.

Is there any other way that I can view ALL of the pages on my watchlist, such as an option on the Toolserver site? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 17:58, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I meant..though with 24,000 it might be a while.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 18:17, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

The star refers to the the way a page is unwatched in the default Vector skin. You must have another skin. Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Morriswa?useskin=monobook and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Morriswa?useskin=vector. If unwatch works in your skin then there should be no advantage in Vector. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:19, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, Help:Watching_pages#Size_limitationsuggests that you should reduce it manually, though does not exclude the possibility of other methods.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 18:23, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

I have the Monobook skin. What other methods are there? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 18:25, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:POPUPS has an unwatch feature when hovering over a link. Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts#Watchlist includes a link to user:js/watchlist. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:06, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I know that it does. However, with nearly 24,000 pages, I can't remember them all. If I could, I would be able to type them in and unwatch them that way. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 09:55, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Does Special:Watchlist display correctly? If so, you can at least use part of the feature. Get into the habit of unwatching pages as you check the listed edits, unless you're strongly interested in the page. This will (slowly) reduce your watchlist size); to prevent it increasing quickly, switch off all the "Add pages ... to my watchlist" options at Preferences → Watchlist, and when editing a page, only check "Watch this page" if you're strongly interested in it. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:43, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Template coding technical assistance needed

See Wikipedia talk:Template messages/User talk namespace#Template:Db-attack-notice needs modification. Thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:13, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Is the search algorithm in Wikipedia different than on Commons?

I was looking for a file named JohnLloydMiller.jpg on Commons, and the search failed.

I leaped to the conclusion that there was no such file, but this is wrong.

The same search on Wikipedia works

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=JohnLloydMiller.jpg&button=&title=Special%3ASearch

It looks like a search in Wikipedia assume that if you search in the File namespace, it should look for files whose name starts File:xxxx, but the exact same search in Commons fails?

This seems hard to believe. Am I missing something?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 00:15, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

The Wikipedia search finds File:JohnLloydMiller.jpg which was uploaded to the English Wikipedia 26 July 2012‎. The Commons version at commons:File:JohnLloydMiller.jpg was uploaded 4 August 2012‎ and hasn't been indexed by the search function yet. A Commons search does not search files uploaded to Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:44, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I didn't expect the Commons search to find the enwiki version, but you answered my question, the Commons search didn't work becasue the index hasn't been updated. Arghh, I should have figured that out myself, but it happened so long ago, it didn't occur to me that it is still the same day. Thanks.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:43, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Reference bubble

Hello,

Now, when I fly over a reference link, I get a bubble with the ref above my mouse, and that is great !

But what happens when I fly over a ref link which is near the top of the view ? The reference goes above the view, where I can't see it. This is not very clever. In such case, it would be nicer to hatch the ref bubble below my mouse. Look at this screen photo.

Thanks for improving that, and keep up the good work !

--Nnemo (talk) 04:16, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

This is ReferenceTooltips, shown in Preferences → Gadgets as "^(D) Reference Tooltips: hover over inline citations to see reference information without moving away from the article text (does not work if "Navigation popups" is enabled above)". It was added to the gadgets list with this edit (see Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals#Reference Tooltips and Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 87#Gadget proposal), and switched on by default with this edit (see MediaWiki talk:Gadgets-definition#ReferenceTooltips on by default). I believe that the discussion page for the gadget is at User talk:Yair rand/ReferenceTooltips. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:00, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Edits lost when logged in as user, but retained when I log out and become anonymous

Sometimes, over the last week, my edits have been lost upon "Save" (i.e. the page goes back to the old version, there is no record of my edits in the history, and I can't recover my edits). However, if I log out to become an anonymous IP user and make the exact same edit on the exact same page, using the exact same browser, then it works and my edits are saved.

Has anyone else noticed this? It doesn't happen on every page, but when it does happen on a particular page it will continue consistently on that same page. Logging out and then logging back in doesn't help. Grover cleveland (talk) 07:04, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

There was a report of this on bugzilla: bugzilla:39065. So far no indication of why happening, or even how prevalent issue is. Bawolff (talk) 14:33, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Site errors when moving

A week or so Bwilkins got a site error when moving the Syrian Civil War article, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive238#Site errors in middle of move. Today I moved the article and, although in both cases the move appears to have gone through, I also got a site error. Yesterday the same thing happened (site error, but move worked) when I moved 2011–2012 Egyptian revolution. Now, I'm not suggesting this has to do with moving pages related to the Arab Spring, but is it perhaps because both articles are very big and have a decent amount of subpages? Here is the site error I got:

Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:MovePage&action=submit, from 10.64.0.130 via cp1014.eqiad.wmnet (squid/2.7.STABLE9) to 10.2.1.1 (10.2.1.1)
Error: ERR_READ_TIMEOUT, errno [No Error] at Sun, 05 Aug 2012 11:57:49 GMT

Can anyone explain this or pass it on to someone who may be able to resolve it? Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 12:08, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

When you move a page, you only get a response from the server, after the move is done. Basically in order to present you the "it succeeded" page. However if the move takes longer then 10-20 seconds to execute, the network setup behaves as if the request failed. The operation is continuing (so the move did not fail), but you just didn't get to see the result. You often see the same problem on complex pages when editing, the response of the server takes so long to generate, the timeout error is presented before you get to see the new version of the page. The problem is that it is very difficult for the squid server to distinguish between something that takes very long, and something that cannot reach another server. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:27, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Substitution error occurring after posting deletion sorting templates

Resolved

Recently an error has been occurring when posting delsort templates, in which rather than the delsort notice posting, a message is posted that states "This template must be substituted!" despite the "subst:" prefix being in place.

Example – When posting: {{subst:delsort|Business|~~~~}}

This is what is being displayed:

—Northamerica1000^(talk) 01:22, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I've fixed it. User:Czarkoff made an edit to the template but didn't use {{issubst}} correctly. I've fixed that with this edit. -- WOSlinker (talk) 06:40, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you – The templates are posting correctly at this time. Northamerica1000^(talk) 06:48, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia goes awry again

I am just wondering what the error with Wikipedia now. Why is it also only displaying Times New Roman with the Main Page a mess? Purging the pages does not help. It is only on secure that everything displays normally. Difficultly north (talk) 14:28, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia down

Summary: A fiber cable connecting the main Wikipedia datacentre with the rest of the world was accidentally cut by construction. Workarounds have been put in place, but this required considerable time before they were finished and effective (about an hour). Operations should slowly return to normal now. DNS entries were changed, so if you experience trouble, likely this is due to slow DNS updates between you and Wikipedia. If you are still affected, at some unpredictable point in time, it will also be fixed for you.

Let's get in first. Down, down, down, down, down. You can check the status with http://status.wikimedia.org/ Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 14:32, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Based on IRC chat, it seems like a line got cut by a construction worker in Tampa. Ryan Vesey 14:33, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

As a note, the current error notice gives a link to irc chat that uses irc:// that is fine for those with clients, but not for a majority of the people who see it. I would suggest changing that to a webchat.freenode.net link. This issue was raised on IRC as well. Ryan Vesey 14:34, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Official Twitter updates found at https://twitter.com/Wikipedia. A wikipedia status site telling you everything is working just fine. http://wikistatus.ezyang.com/ :) Now would be the time to donate, except the donation server is down. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 14:37, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Red status lights have changed to yellow http://status.wikimedia.org/ Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 14:41, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Secure Server works like a dream :) --Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 15:19, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Aren't big data centers usually fed by cables going by two different routes? Anway diffs have been working fine for me since I started this afternoon's session (New York) almost two hours ago. Jim.henderson (talk) 18:55, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Consider this an opportunity to give backhoe fade and backhoe fading some attention. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 19:15, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

• Ah, this might be why it's responding slowly right now? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:12, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
  • There was another issue today (likely caused indirectly by the issue yesterday), where one of the internal links in the Tampa datacentre got overloaded, causing significant responsiveness issues. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:36, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Diffs not working

(Extracted from section above as appears to be a different problem) Diffs are not working on either the normal or secure server - is this a general problem related to the "down"? or is it (like "my preferences" above) only affecting me and a few others? - Arjayay (talk) 18:35, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Diffs have been working fine for me. Ryan Vesey 18:44, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

They flash up momentarily and then the text disappears leaving a selection of grey bars and white boxes with blue lines around them - but no text. Arjayay (talk) 18:53, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Diffs still just flashing up momentarily and disappearing leaving a selection of grey bars and white boxes with blue lines around them - but no text Arjayay (talk) 08:23, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm getting this problem too. Not even the flashing, just the blank diffs. Enhanced diff display also non-functional. Popups is working, though. IE8, Vector skin. --Stfg (talk) 13:51, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm also using IE8 and Vector - Out of interest Stfg, are your tabs under "My preferences" working? The "My preferences" problem above predated the "outage" that seems to correlate with the diffs not showing - Arjayay (talk) 15:58, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, my tabs under "My preferences" are working fine. --Stfg (talk) 17:01, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I've got the same problem, using IE8 and monobook. I deleted emptied my monobook.js and diffs were working again. I'd prefer to keep those skripts, they were working fine so far. I hope this is helpful to find the problem. --Trigonomie (talk) 15:22, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

This is on the german wikipedia right ? I just tested your scripts (at least on Safari on Mac, since I have no windows and no IE. I could not find any glaring issues with it. No idea. but you have so much scripts, I would not be surprised if there is something broken on specifically IE, because scripts break all the time, especially if you don't maintain them (that's why gadgets are better for most users than installing skin scripts for themselves). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:04, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

My diffs are still not working - and as shown above, it is not just me. Lack of diffs makes fighting vandalism particularly difficult. No-one has made any suggestions of what might be wrong, or if it should be reported elsewhere. Some help would be appreciated.
Interestingly, I had an edit conflict when trying to post the above - and the diffs on the edit conflict did work - does this information help track it down? - Arjayay (talk) 15:33, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Some more diagnostics: templates {{diff}} and {{diff2}} have the same problem; the diff shown by an undo from the history page shows the same problem; and emptying (not deleting, just emptying) my vector.js and clearing cache (Ctrl+refresh) had no effect. Popups are displaying just what they always have. This is desperate: any more diagnostics wanted? --Stfg (talk) 16:16, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Please try to empty both: your common.js und your vector.js --Trigonomie (talk) 16:32, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Emptied all my .js files hard refreshed and rebooted - no change whatsoever - Arjayay (talk) 17:27, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello Trigonomie. I've now emptied both vector.js and common.js. Then cleared my cache (Ctrl-refresh) and also done the action=purge job described at Wikipedia:Bypass your cache#Forcing the server to re-render. Still the same problem, I'm afraid. --Stfg (talk) 17:59, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

... and I've just tried it with several other skins: Classic, Monobook and Simple, for none of which do I have .js files. All the same. --Stfg (talk) 18:24, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

OK, any tech editor who knows what the JS console or IE developer tools are and of course has a Windows machine, would like to take a look ? I know there's few Windows using tech editors around, but please try to help your fellow OS users. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:04, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I was able to recreate those "empty boxes" in IE8 by enabling wikEdDiff in gadgets. Can it be so simple? Hard to believe the affected users didn't try checking diffs in any other projects. — AlexSm 20:32, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Alex. Disabling wikEdDiff has restored basic diff view to full function. I'll leave it disabled for now, but it is actually very difficult to use basic diff view when people insert or remove paragraphs breaks. To cause this, something must have happened in the last couple of days to disrupt the interaction between wikEdDiff and whatever else is in the black box. Is there a plan to resolve it? Regarding "Hard to believe ...", we non-experts don't always know where to look. Thanks again. --Stfg (talk) 21:14, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

No, it’s not that simple. DE is my homewiki. I have no problems here. In my opinion it is due to the fact that (some) scripts are processed not properly any more. WikEdDiff is no option in dewiki, WikEd is not checked. --Trigonomie (talk) 05:18, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I have determined the culprit: [1]. --Trigonomie (talk) 08:21, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

(e/c)So, I just need to solve the "My preferences" tabs not working problem above, which has been outstanding since 21 July, and then I can go back to the basic system - hardly a solution. As User:Stfg says above, basic diff view is, er, basic, and has several limitations.
I first discovered this problem just after the "down" on 6 August - are the problems related? will they be resolved when the database lag catches up? has a bugzilla report been filed? (sorry I don't understand how to do bugzilla reports) - Arjayay (talk) 08:28, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I had started composing my reply before User:Trigonomie's last addition - but it allowed me to post my comment without an E/C. If we have "the culprit" can it simply be reversed? - presumably the change was made to improve something else and this is just collateral damage? - Arjayay (talk) 08:35, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I notified the maintainer of the gadget. I don't see how this problem can related to users having trouble with the My Preferences btw, that's likely a separate issue. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:44, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Forcing creation of a section without a heading

Is there a way to force/trick MediaWiki into creating a numbered section (e.g. a div or other block element) that does not have a corresponding H# heading? This would be very useful for making individually editable glossary entries using template-structured glossaries per MOS:GLOSS. The technical problem is that a H# heading, e.g. something in ===Heading here=== markup, cannot be inside a <dl>...</dl>-based definition list structure, as used by template-structured glossaries. Nor vice-versa (you can't put <dt>...</dt> markup inside a heading). One could get around this issue by breaking entries out into templates and transcluding them, and having an edit link template edit the template page, but this would violate the principle that we don't use sub-articles or effectively "hide" article content in templates. My guess is that there is not an extant way to do this, but also that it would not be hard for developers to implement. My experience with MW's bugzilla tells me that a request to add such a feature, however, would be ignored for several years as too low-priority. So, I'm hoping there's an existing means of pulling this off already. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 06:04, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit protected template request

Is there any chance someone can please take a look at the edit request for Template talk:WikiProject United States? Its been open for 10 days now and only admins can edit it because the rest of us with hundreds of thousands of edits and years of experience on Wiki can't be trusted to do it. :-)Kumioko (talk) 10:54, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm an admin but don't know anything about the WikiProject and eight changes sounds like a lot to review. You could try asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:22, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I understand and I would but unfortunately the vast majority of the active members of the project are not admins so we cannot make the change. All we can do is put it out there and wait which usually takes a couple weeks for someone to get around to it. Which is also the reason there are so many at a time. Its starts as one or 2 and then after a couple weeks the list grows. Kumioko (talk) 13:10, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Facebook link previews

If you share a Wikipedia page on Facebook, the preview image is invariably the MediaWiki logo. Regardless of how one feels about Facebook, this is stupid and annoying.

While this is clearly the result of some poor heuristics by Facebook programmers (in the absence of other cues, they seem to grab the last image on the page?), I was wondering what could be done to address the issue on Wikipedia. One way might be to add some attributes to the main image within an infobox. However, this seems to be very difficult without getting parser functions to hack through HTML and add an attribute, maybe with regular expressions. This immediately seemed like a bad idea to me, but I was wondering if there was any precedent for doing this. I don't see anything in the docs that I would trust to work properly on arbitrary HTML, but I'm not a wizard with wikitext, so maybe there is some way.

Of course, even if it worked, this would also cause lots of chaos on Wikipedia's side because we'd have to regenerate every infobox, and the cost is almost certainly not worth it.

The easiest alternative seems to be to pester Facebook to special-case what their sharer does for Wikipedia pages. I've already pinged Kul Wadhwa, the Wikimedia employee who manages the relationship with Facebook, as well as people I know who work at Facebook. But I just wanted to be sure that there wasn't an easy fix on our end, if anyone asks.

NeilK (talk) 12:07, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Related recent Wikitech-l thread (there were other discussions too): "Facebook grabs the Mediawiki logo instead of the site logo". Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:32, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, HaeB. The OpenGraphMeta extension would at least make the preview be a Wikipedia globe or something. I guess there is no reasonable way to get the Infobox image, though. NeilK (talk) 12:43, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

You could mark the infobox image with a particular CSS ID or a magic word, surely. --MZMcBride (talk) 13:08, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there's no hack for doing this in the page. The preview is considered metadata of the entire page, so it has to be a <meta> element in the head (there was a <link> hack, also in the head, which seems to be deprecated.). Also, given that the image property of the Infobox can be arbitrary wikitext, I am not sure we could reliably add an attribute without recourse to really evil parser functions. -- NeilK (talk) 08:43, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't Facebook allow you to choose a thumbnail now? In addition, could we face any legal trouble if a non-free image was used as the thumbnail in the link to Wikipedia? Presumably it is all FB at that point, but I wanted to throw it out there. Ryan Vesey 21:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The preview choice doesn't come up for me on Wikipedia pages. I'm not sure why. As for licensing - Facebook is doing these previews for every site on the internet, not just us. -- NeilK (talk) 08:43, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Feedback tool

Why do some articles link to the feedback tool (eg, Clifton Gardens, New South Wales, List of rice diseases) and some ask for page rating (eg, Mazeppa (opera), Quinoline-4-carboxylate 2-oxidoreductase)? SpinningSpark 18:11, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Articles that link to the feedback tool are either in Category:Article Feedback 5 or Category:Article Feedback 5 Additional Articles. You can add the 2nd category to any article you wish. Ryan Vesey 18:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Spinningspark: didi you follow "What's this?" links to WP:Article Feedback Tool (which says "deployed on almost all pages") and WP:Article feedback (which says "only about 5 percent") and found that the explanations are not clear enough? — AlexSm 18:22, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Since I would probably not have posted here if I had that information, then no it is not clear enough and your rhetorical question seems only to have been asked in order post the sarcasm which followed. And yes, I did follow the "What's this?" link first - it goes here and does not contain any of the information you claim. SpinningSpark 19:34, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

• Hey guys :). So, at the moment the deciding factor is a randomised lottery; we've deployed the new version (with the feedback box) to 10 percent of articles - the rest have the old version with the page rating. We're waiting on features engineering to fix up the code a bit; they worry that if we deploy the new one to 100 percent now, bits are going to fall off the servers and explode. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Mobile View bug?

Accessing Wikipedia pages by Google search on my up-to-date iPhone 4S using Safari shows up in desktop view instead of automatically switching to mobile view. Can anyone confirm this for me? Scott523 (talk) 20:13, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Go to Wikipedia:Enable mobile version and click the link. Ryan Vesey 22:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

-Clicking the link takes me to the desktop version of Wikipedia's homepage. Scott523 (talk) 19:53, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Linking to italizied titles

How do you link to an article which is italizied when there is a different article titles conventionally. I found a broken link (Fuzzy Wuzzy) that in the past targeted to the second link on the disambiguation page (which at some time was moved to Fuzzy Wuzzy in italics). I am at a loss as to how to repair the link. How do I link to this sort of title?--BirgitteSB 01:54, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

There are no "italized page names". The other page is Fuzzy-Wuzzy with a hyphen in the middle. It's displayed title is italized with {{Italic title}}. — AlexSm 02:04, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I just knew it would be something ridiculous that I was failing to see! Thanks.--BirgitteSB 02:34, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Creating a map

I'm sorry, I've just joined, but would like to know how I can create map illustrations. It seems there is a standard map used to create an svg file. Where is this map and what is the recommended software? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kneesdata (talk • contribs) 07:52, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps is a good place to start. Secretlondon (talk) 08:04, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

It obviously depends on the type of map. What sort of map do you want to make? Secretlondon (talk) 08:05, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

And Inkscape for svg maps. Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Resources/Software, but you can base them of things like free GIS data using QGis. Secretlondon (talk) 08:07, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Take a look at WP:USRD/MTF - it's geared towards U.S. roads, but there are some good tutorials. --Rschen7754 08:09, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. I would like to make world and continental maps with colour codes for certain data sets, eg colouring countries with <0% growth differently from those with 0-5% and 5%+. To be honest, Wikipedia is a bit of a mystery when it comes to this sort of thing. I've occasionally edited without an account, but would like to enhance the economy sections which are often outdated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kneesdata (talk • contribs) 09:42, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

We have maps that already have country outlines. Filling them with colours should be pretty easy. Obviously you'll need a source for your economic data. PS You sign your comments ~~~~ Secretlondon (talk) 09:51, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

This might be what you are looking for. Secretlondon (talk) 09:55, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

There's actually a tool that's really helpful with this, but I can't find it at the moment. Perhaps someone else will know? - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 11:09, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

commons:Category:Blank SVG maps and commons:Category:Blank maps contain more blank maps. (Kneesdata: Wikimedia Commons is the image repository of Wikipedia, which allows a single file to be used in all Wikipedias and Wikimedias. MKFI (talk) 13:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Preferences/gadgets

"Preferences/Gadgets/Appearance/Add page and user options to drop-down menus on the toolbar" doesn't seem to be working properly for me today. I wanted to protect a page, but the option to do so wouldn't appear on the drop-down, only the option to unprotect the page (it was already unprotected). The behavior was inconsistent - some pages it would give me the option, and some it wouldn't.

I was trying unsuccessfully to protect List of Hollyoaks characters (2010). I had to uncheck the check box and use the option "Change protection" on the unnamed drop-down arrow to execute the action.

What's wrong?--Bbb23 (talk) 00:25, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Whether it says "unprotect" or "protect" it takes you to the same place, and doesn't automatically put the action through. It was saying "unprotect" because that page was move protected. But that does mean the gadget could use a better name for that option. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:35, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Someguy, I appreciate the explanation.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:50, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Public Art

Articles that use Template:WikiProject Public Art on the talk page all show categories which once existed, but have been deleted. Should these categories be created, with a caution, such as I have seen elsewhere on categories that are sometimes empty, that they should not be deleted even when empty? Or possibly, maybe the template is incorrectly done, and the categories should not exist at all. I hesitate to create the categories again, so I am posting here instead. --DThomsen8 (talk) 16:27, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Have you asked the person who carried out this edit? --Redrose64 (talk) 16:52, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Markblocked

Anyone have any idea why the MarkBlocked script isn't working for me anymore? I'm using Vector and Firefox 14 and the error console displays no errors when loading a page, but links to blocked accounts aren't marked for some reason. The interesting thing is that the problem seems to be limited to enwiki; the script works fine in other projects, including Commons. Has anyone else run into the same problem? Jafeluv (talk) 19:51, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

The script works fine (I personally make sure of that) but the way you're trying to call it doesn't: mw.loader needs a full URI. Follow your own instructions. — AlexSm 03:12, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

That was actually a test edit, the actual call is in my global JS page and as I said it does work on other projects. But you're right, it's not a problem in the script. After some testing it seems a replace script in my vector.js is causing it... Jafeluv (talk) 06:26, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

New Deployment of Page Curation

A new version of the Page Curation suite has been deployed. This updates Special:NewPagesFeed and enables a new curation toolbar (which is activated when reviewing pages from the feed.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Error when deleting files: "inconsistent state within the internal storage backends"

I have run into errors when trying to deleting images File:Mintransporte.png and File:ClaremontDesign.png, which were both nominated at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2012 August 2. The error message looks like this, and it deletes the image description page, but not the actual uploaded image. Any help? — ξ^xplicit 00:40, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

We are in the process of transitioning to a new media storage backend (Swift). Some files didn't get copied over into the new system, so this error showed up when you tried to change them as the two systems must stay in sync until we git rid of the old one (NFS). The migration bug that left out some files was tracked down and those remaining files are being copied over. These errors should become rarer and then stop within a few days. Aaron Schulz 05:45, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I also manually re-deleted those files after the backends were synced for those files. Aaron Schulz 05:46, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Table cell should be pushed higher

Can someone explain why or howto: the 2nd cell is not pushed larger by the font-size. Situation is that {{braille cell/core}} sets the font-size within the cell (span the text), not in wikitable code (style between pipes).

A

A

A

-DePiep (talk) 10:18, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Counting all articles in a category

Is there a tool or method that will count the total number of pages in a particular category including the entire "tree" of subcategories? AWB just gives the number of articles and subcategories in the "root" category. The category I'm interested in is Category: 2012 Summer Olympics. This question arose from the discussion at Talk:2012 Summer Olympics#Article imbalance. Thanks Roger (talk) 12:08, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Category (recursive) gives the number in all subcats from the tree, not just the toplevel. Fram (talk) 12:19, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You can use the PAGESINCAT magic word. For example, {{PAGESINCAT:2012 Summer Olympics}} returns 85. (edit conflict × 2) Nevermind, I forgot that PAGESINCAT wasn't recursive. Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:20, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

That only grabs the top level category. Ryan Vesey 12:20, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I asked this same question a couple days ago and there didn't seem to be a solution. I was dealing with maintenance categories so I just made a larger category for all the articles. That said, you might be able to use WP:Catscan and set the depth to 2 or 3 however many you need it. It will break if there are too many articles though. Ryan Vesey 12:20, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh yes, for maintenance cats (monthly ones) I usually make an "all" category as well, it is sometimes much more handy than the monthly cats. But for general cats, this isn't really a good solution of course. Fram (talk) 12:32, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

One of the reasons that {{PAGESINCATEGORY:}} doesn't recurse is because category loops are permitted, hence {{PAGESINCATEGORY:}} could be infinite.

Even if each category were counted once each, it's permitted for pages to be in two different branches of the same tree (e.g. Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics is in both Category:2012 Summer Olympics events → Category:Summer Olympics events by year → Category:Summer Olympic events; and Category:Athletics at the Summer Olympics → Category:Summer Olympic events), so the total could well be higher than the real figure. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Why is this title triggering the blacklist

I recently tried to move Delta Opioid receptor to δ-opioid receptor, but the move page tells me that the title " δ-opioid receptor" is on the title blacklist. However I'm looking through that list and it doesn't look like there are any regex rules on that page that should be triggered by the new title... Why is it getting triggered? flaming () 13:50, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

.*[^\P{So}¦§©®°¶№™☀-⚲✁-➾`].* <casesensitive> # "Other punctuation", with some exceptions (may need more, this is a huge character class); note that single-character titles are permitted by the [[MediaWiki:Titlewhitelist|title whitelist]]

That what I get with my crud JS blacklist matching tool. — Dispenser 13:55, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Weird, I didn't think greek letters were in the "symbol (other)" character category... Thanks flaming () 14:08, 10 August 2012 (UTC)