Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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In case you get doubled references, purge the page. See bugzilla:7162 or the comments at several of the sections below for details.

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues. Bugs and feature requests should be made at BugZilla since there is no guarantee developers will read this page.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions: (also see Wikipedia:Technical FAQ)

• Intermittent database lags can make new articles take some minutes to appear, and cause the watchlist, contributions, and page history/old views sometimes not show the very latest changes. This is an ongoing issue we are working on.
• The search index is often out of date, sometimes taking weeks before it's updated. Because of that, recent changes are not immediately reflected on the search.
• If all the links in the articles suddenly become underlined (or the opposite), or red links instead end with a red question mark (or the opposite), or paragraphs are fully justified instead of left justified (or the opposite), it's probably because your browser failed to load one of the stylesheets (or the server sent you a wrong one). Do a forced reload or bypass your cache.
• If you have problems making your fancy signature work, check Wikipedia:How to fix your signature.
• If you changed to another skin and cannot change back, use this link.
• It has been reported that the Google Toolbar extension for the Firefox browser is the source of some strange problems (including blanking part of a page when editing it). If you have that extension, try turning it off or upgrading to a newer version. See bugzilla:5643 for more information.
• If an image thumbnail is not showing, try purging its image description page (if the image is from Wikimedia Commons, you might have to purge there too). If it doesn't work, try again.
• Some adblockers, proxies, or firewalls block URLs containing /ad/ or ending in common executable suffixes. This can cause some images or articles to not appear. Also, it's surprisingly common for people to accidentally block the image server (upload.wikimedia.org) on Firefox.
• If the section edit links are being pushed down by floated images, check Wikipedia:How to fix bunched up edit links.
• If you are asked to download a file (index.php) when trying to edit, or your browser launches an image editor when trying to edit, disable "Use external editor" on your preferences.

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

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

Trouble Staying Logged In

I'm having an awful time trying to figure out why I can't stay logged in. I thought it had a connection with some software on my computer, and it seemed to be OK yesterday, but now today, I can't stay logged in beyond navigating to another page.

Anyone have any idea

I have made sure to enable cookies

I have the same problem on both my wife's computer and mine

I have the same problem with Mozilla Firefox and IE

I DON'T have the problem at work

I have updated Java and Macromedia Flash

I thought that there was a conflict with Kodak Easyshare software, because disbling it seemed to work yesterday, but it doesn't help today. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.82.9.76 (talk • contribs) 12:24, August 13, 2006 (UTC).

What happend to watermark image id="EnWpMpBook2"?

It dissappeared this weekend systemwide in all wikis. It's used on alternative mainpage designs here, but at ka: it was on the frontpage. Does someone know the reason? Would appreciate. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 14:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

math symbols & pictures problem

Pix may be blocked - will recheck. Recent problem. I have RH9, Mozilla.

Math symbols in text, sometimes in LaTex etc often are distorted into what looks like random hashmarks or bird scratch. Many formulae can't be read because symbols in Greek, or special math symbols (like Intercept symbol, logical Not-, etc) are dropped. - I can read generic PDFs with same symbols etc.

can't find article

Hi, I uploaded an article this morning, and can't find it when I browse Google or Wikipedia search. Is there something I need to do so that the page shows up? --— Preceding unsigned comment added by Annakup (talk • contribs)

It will update eventually, just wait :-). Your article (Families for Families) will most likely be deleted as an advertisement however. —Mets501 (talk) 03:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It's been deleted (not by me) —Mets501 (talk) 03:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It looks like it was deleted due to copyright violations. --WhiteDragon 18:59, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Save Page - NOT

The Save Page button is working 1/2 the time or it does NOT work at all. Martial Law 19:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

You mean you press "save page" and then the saved page doesn't load sometimes, right? Same thing is happening to me. —Mets501 (talk) 19:22, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

You press SAVE, nothing happens....

You press the SAVE button, either nothing happens, or you get into a edit conflict - w/ YOURSELF, "Operation has Timed Out" signals. Or it freezes. Martial Law 18:33, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Category:Articles with unsourced statements

Could someone please explain to me what we gain by having a category with 21,008 pages that miss citations? --Ligulem 23:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this is raises any technical issues. If it does, I'm afraid my answer will ignore them. What we gain is a salutory reminder of just how awful WP is. There are of course several sites that set out to criticize WP, but my cursory examination of a few of them suggests that they're glorified gossip columns, larded with sour grapes; anyway, they don't amount to much. Meanwhile, that twenty-one thousand pages are labeled as having unsourced statements -- let alone all those pages that have unlabeled unsourced statements, etc etc -- yes, that gets me wondering about issues of quantity versus quality in ways that "Wikitruth" and the like do not. -- Hoary 23:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Theoretically, people who really want to help us improve will go to that category, pick a topic or topics they are familiar with or are prepared to research, and begin addressing some of our shortcomings on these articles. In practice, I don't think very many people do this (although I did spend some time cleaning up the referencing on Thomas Midgley, Jr. the other day). However, I think that category would be a fantastic starting point for an assignment for a school or college class -- the students would get an education on how fallible Wikipedia can be, and how to compare our work to that of traditional reference works, and we'd end up with an improved and referenced article out of the deal. — Catherine\^talk 19:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Interactive Map

I am sure this question has been asked before but I can't find an answer anywhere. I am working on a series of articles for buildings in a suburb. Each building has its own article. I want to show a map of the suburb (which I have) with each building marked. When a reader clicks on the individual building on the map, it will take them to the Wikipedia article for that building. I haven't seen this done anywhere before on Wikipedia - any ideas? amitch 05:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

You could try it with {{Click}} and use a borderless table to assemble it, but it won't work in all browsers (and images should really just link to the image description page). Alternately you could try {{Image_label}} to insert text links. --Splarka (rant) 07:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Ugh. Do we really want an article on every building in a city? User:Zoe|(talk) 16:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, this isn't a technical answer, but a stylistic one. You may wish to create the article on the suburb, and then include brief summaries in that article of the buildings that are the most notable. An individual article needs to meet wikipedia's notability guidlines: WP:NOTE. It's unlikely that, say, the building on the corner that used to have a laundromat but now has a falafel joint in it is really a notable building requiring an article, though it may be worth mentioning in a section of the city/suburb's article dealing with economic change in the area. Phidauex 16:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This is for a small number of very notable, historic buildings in the area. Aside from WP:NOTE, I don't think I'd have the time or inclination to do every building! I guess this questions distills down to: is it possible to show a map and depending on where the user clicks, link through to individual articles? There doesn't appear to be a clean solution at this stage. amitch 21:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Daanschr/_Maptest <-- an example of {{Image_label}} --Splarka (rant) 07:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:National parks of the United States map <-- another example base on "Click-Inline" --Donar Reiskoffer 07:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Those are pretty neat examples. It's worth noting that click-inline works on Camino, Firefox OS X and Safari while Image Label didn't work on any of the three. —Rob (talk) 11:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

"edit" only works for subsections, sends an index.php to client otherwise?

For some reason when I try to use the "edit this page" link on an existing article, or attempt to create a new one, I have an "index.php" sent by the wikipedia server to my client. Here's an example from this very page:

[Process]
Type=Edit text
Engine=MediaWiki
Script=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php
Server=http://en.wikipedia.org
Path=/w
Special namespace=Special

[File]
Extension=wiki
URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29&action=edit&internaledit=true

To actually edit the page, I have to extract the URL from the above and paste it into my browser. It seems to me that this should be some internal in-server thing causing an HTTP redirect to be issued maybe. My browser version is Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060508 Firefox/1.5.0.4

If I use the "edit" link from any section heading on a page, it does work as expected.

(Sorry if this is rather a bugzilla candidate.) --BACbKA 17:05, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you have "Use external editor by default" checked in your preferences under the editing tab? Try unchecking that if it's checked. —Mets501 (talk) 18:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This is almost worth putting in the FAQ. --Splarka (rant) 22:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I have just added it to the FAQ. This has been asked often enough. --cesarb 19:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

"Exit" from template execution?

I have a template with some nasty nested #if blocks. I can live with the nesting, but it would be kind of nice there was something like If condition then Exit

Where exit would end any further processing of the template. No more wikitext, no more parser functions would be evaluated.

I assume this, or a workalike does not exist. Correct? -Mak Thorpe 01:07, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Correct. And Starling was dragged into to implementing ParserFunctions, so I don't think this feature proposal stands a snowball's chance in hell. (of course, I could be wrong...) — Edward Z. Yang^(Talk) 02:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

There is one way to avoid nesting parserfunctions to achieve a close effect (but it involves nesting div tags, or other block element tags):

<div>
This part always shows
<div style="{{#if:{{{hide|}}}|display:none}}">
This only shows if hide is undefined, and does not require a wrapping parserfunction.
</div>
</div>

--Splarka (rant) 02:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Like I said, I can live with it. Interesting hack with the nested divs though. -Mak Thorpe 03:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The only problem with this CSS hack is that it obviously only works for people with CSS aware browsers. For them the hidden part would be visible, and if that is not the disred result it might be best to avoid it. Now most browser do understand CSS but it would be optimal if people could view it in any user-agent without unnecessary cluttering. Jeltz talk 21:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Don't use hiddenStructure --Ligulem 13:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Database problem? discrepancy

When going to Aletheia I see an older version, instead of the most recent version I see when clicking the "edit this page" tab. --Lambiam^Talk 03:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem appears to have disappeared. --Lambiam^Talk 10:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User-links alignment broken

Sorry if this has already been discussed elsewhere, but I've been having a weird new display bug since this morning: In IE with monobook skin, the top link bar (the one that contains user page - "my talk" - "my preferences" etc.) is displayed normally as right-aligned, but shifts to left-aligned the moment I hover the mouse over it. (Irritating, if you come to think of it.) It's on all Wikimedia sites apparently. Has some central style sheet been changed recently? Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Seems to have been fixed now. Thanks to whoever fixed it! Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

How to extract link structure of wikipedia.

Hi, I'm not sure sure if this is the right place to ask this... so sorry if I posted on the wrong page. I'd like to extract the link structure of the whole wikipedia to create a (pretty large) link graph and do some research. Maybe you can give me some hints where and how to start. Regards Cyc 12:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at [1], in particular, the "links" queries. (Liberatore, 2006). 13:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if you need the whole structure, it may be a good idea to download the database and perform the above query locally instead. All data is available at [2], while the db structure is explained in meta:Help:Database layout (Liberatore, 2006). 13:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Nice, didn't know it existed. —Jared Hunt August 22, 2006, 13:36 (UTC)

Actually, don't bother doing the query yourself - just talk to the creator of Six Degrees of Wikipedia, User:Kate, who has already gone to all the trouble of extracting this graph. Deco 04:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Two <includeonly></includeonly> tools

I'm not sure whether I should report this to Bugzilla, but I post this nonetheless. If you look at the special character insert tools below, there are two <includeonly></includeonly> "buttons." Nothing urgent, but I think it should be taken care of at some point. —Jared Hunt August 22, 2006, 13:33 (UTC)

No need to report to bugzilla; these tools are in fact MediaWiki:Edittools, and you can suggest changes at MediaWiki talk:Edittools. --cesarb 19:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Already fixed :-) —Mets501 (talk) 19:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. The fact that I'm not an admin; I can't edit those. :D —Jared Hunt August 22, 2006, 23:36 (UTC)

Interesting incident

Special:Contributions/203.134.131.18

My interpretation of the sequence of events here is:

• someone from that IP vandalized a page and left
• someone dropped a warning on the IP talk page (but it is not picked up)
• much later someone starts reading WP from that IP and gets the message.
• unnecessary grief follows.

Is my interpretation of the technical details of the new message process correct? That is, an IP address receives a new message flag even if they are only reading WP from that address, and no matter how old that message is? That's unfortunate, isn't it? 192.75.48.150 19:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK, your interpretation is correct. --cesarb 19:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Anontalkpagetext could be made more noticeable, such as the design I did here. Gerard Foley 20:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Creating an account is useless advice here, mind you. This has to do with people who aren't editing at all. 72.137.20.109 03:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Weird error while trying to access some pages.

For some days I've been getting a weird error while trying to access some pages on Wikipedia. It's mostly for the Main Page but I've noticed some other pages have this problem as well. I have uploaded a screenshot of the error here:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/_sleepflower/wikierror.jpg

(It's in Dutch but I trust everyone is familiar with it; it basically asks me if I want to save a file called "Main_Page" that is of unknown format.) I tried to access the Main Page here but all I got was this weird error. This has happened on and off for the last few days, sometimes disappearing and then reappearing again. It seems to be only a problem in IE, as I am using Firefox right now (I couldn't access the technical help page in IE, got the error again) and it works just fine. I use Windows XP with IE 6. Anyone know what this is? 62.163.35.231 10:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

In your preferences, under the 'Editing' section, make sure "Use external editor by default" and "Use external diff by default" are off. Prodego ^talk 13:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Um, I'm not a member of Wikipedia so I can't change any preferences. 62.163.35.231 15:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, I figured you just were a non-logged in user. When you use I.E., are you sure you aren't logged into an account (possibly without knowing it, if "Remember me" is set)? I can't think of any other way for this to happen, unless Internet Explorer is misconfigured somehow. Try resetting it's defaults as well. Prodego ^talk 16:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I am having the same problem too, got IE 6...I tried restoring to defaults and it is still not working, I can't access the main page or some articles...is something wrong with my comp...or wikipedia?

My guess is something with wikipedia and IE. Firefox seems to work just fine. I also did not have an account when trying this. Have logged into multiple machines with multiple versions of IE 6 running and all exhibit this behaviour.

The main page is working for me now...but still some of the articles are still not working for me...I don't have a account either.

I've found that it can work at times, then try the same page again and the Main_Page download prompt occurs again...

The main page isn't working for me once again as aren't some articles...what is odd...the articles not working for me...keeps on changing. This is very werid.

Sunscreen affects visibility?

After reverting vandalism on Sunscreen, I added to the offending user's talk page:

{{subst:test3-n|Sunscreen}} ~~~~

The preview looked okay, except Sunscreen was redlinked. Assuming I fat fingered it, did the copy and paste again. It was still red linked and there was no obvious problem with spelling—and it didn't seem to be a day when a word like the defied correct spelling.

A while later the red vexed me, calling for more investigation. Clicking the redlink edits a new article named Sunscreen %E2 %80 %8E (spaces added for clarity). Those codes all seem displayable, though checking UTF-8 references, I got more confused: they could be gamma, cedilla, A umlaut. Or they could be circumflex a, control, single shift 2.

1. What are those characters?
2. Which interpretation of the codes is the right one?
3. How did they get there? (I think my methods are vanilla.)

—EncMstr 18:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

E2 80 8E is a single unicode codepoint in UTF-8: the "LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK". How it got in there, I don't know. If you edit the talk page, you can actually delete the non-printing character and fix it. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Unicode character directionality indicators are displayed in watchlist pages and I'm not sure how many other contexts (MediaWiki now supports bi-directional text interfaces). If you copy the text I think you may or may not pick up the directionality indicator (which is invisible, so it's a little hard to tell if you've picked it up or not). Unexpected redlinks likely have this character at the end. I can make these go away (in Safari) by cursoring to the end of the link, making sure to be on the first closing "]" and backspacing from there. This may be worth writing a Bug report about. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

See the above section #Problems_with_images. Copy/pasting text in a wiki is often a game of chance. This may be yet another worthy of the FAQ (I've seen 3 or 4 in the last month or so). --Splarka (rant) 07:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

no user id listed at the end of my posts

Why is it that whenever I post something to Wikipedia it dosen't show my user id at the end like it does for other people. I don't know if this is called the signature or not on this system or if I haven't set it up correctly or what the deal is. Any assistance anyone out there can provide me with would be most appreciated.

e-mail removed to prevent spam —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rockerrb (talk • contribs) 2006-08-23 19:39:07 (UTC).

I'm not going to email you. You have to sign your posts with either 3 or 4 tildes (~~~ or ~~~~). The latter is preferred since it also adds a timstamp. — Frecklefoot | Talk 19:43, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you're thinking posts should be signed automagically? That would be great for talk pages, but seriously annoying clutter for articles. —EncMstr 20:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the problem is (whihc might be a good thing) is that WIkipedia handles edits of talk pages in exactly the same way as articles. This is why your messages aren't signed automatically. Jeltz talk 22:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

LiquidThreads will fix this, IIRC. Titoxd^(?!?) 07:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Showing related changes for a WikiProject

Normally, WikiProject templates are placed on the talk pages of articles catalogued for those projects, with the talk pages then automatically categorized for the project. Thus, showing "Related Changes" for the WikiProject category will show the latest changes to the talk pages of those articles. Is there a straightforward way to show "Related Changes" for the latest changes to the articles attached to those talk pages? Thanks. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 20:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The way I've seen it done before (such as at WP:CRIC) is to make a list of all the articles and use the related changes page for that. --Cherry blossom tree 21:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I already knew about that, as I've created a special watchlist page for the frequent edited/vandalized articles for a couple projects. I just wish there was an automatic way to do this for all articles catalogued for the project without having to regenerate the full list periodically. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:26, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, WatchlistBot periodically generates lists for several WikiProjects, if that makes this method any easier. --Interiot 01:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

That looks like what I'm looking for. Thanks for the lead! Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 01:53, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Multiple refs not working

In the Duke Nukem Forever page, I just tried to add three refs pointing to already existing refs - but only one of them works (#22). The other two (#18 and #19) don't show up at all, instead becoming empty refs down at #23 and #24. THis puzzles me and I am wondering where I messed up. Hbdragon88 03:40, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

The original reference (to both) has a missing "=" (the syntax is <ref name=xxx>). The subsequent reference looks fine in both cases. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I fixed the problem. Hbdragon88 07:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Severe browser compatibility issue introduced... Cannot report with Bugzilla!

Since the Bugzilla page requires registration that includes an e-mail address, I am unable to use it to submit this bug report: The Links 2.1pre4 web browser can no longer view English Wikipedia content as of August 23, 2006 (and possibly up to a month before that). Any attempt to load a Wikipedia page results in much garbage being displayed, instead of readable text. A lot of the garbage shown in the display consists mostly of asterisks (*) and periods (.) with a few alphanumeric characters and punctuation marks.

Spanish, German, and Netherlands Wikipedia are still readable, and all languages are readable in Mozilla and Lynx.

72.49.64.171 08:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Downloading sounds

Hi, I think the whole idea of Wikipedia is amazing and it has been the main source of my education for a while now. However,There's just one small complaint, I can never download your sound examples! What file type are they? Is there software I can download for this? Am I doing something wrong? Are they not Wav. files? And if not, why not? Please let me know as I am a composer/sound engineer who would benefit greatly from your examples of sine waves and ring modulation etc.

Will be looking forward to a reply

Sonny Collins

See Wikipedia:Media help —Mets501 (talk) 15:07, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Disappearing PNG images while using Firefox/Windows

Is anyone else noticing PNG images disappearing and reappearing in Wikipedia while using Mozilla Firefox for Windows? Is this a browser issue or a Wikipedia issue? (Sorry if this has been brought up before) Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

More info: The PNG image in question has a transparent background and is being used on the WikiProject Louisville page as well as project templates. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 20:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

template cite news

This is an edit request for protected template:cite news. See template talk:cite news#Moving cats and interwikis to doc subpage. I would like to have the new doc page pattern completed there. See also Wikipedia:Template limits. --Ligulem 16:16, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Done by CesarB. Thanks! --Ligulem 22:30, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Nuvola-inspired File Icons and Edit Bar for MediaWiki

I have created new File Type icons and Edit Bar icons for MediaWiki. Take a look at commons:Category:Nuvola-inspired File Icons for MediaWiki and commons:Category:Nuvola-inspired Edit Bar for MediaWiki

---

• These are a lot better, in my opinion, then those that ship with MediaWiki.
• They are of a unified theme, unlike the current MediaWiki icons.
• Some contain copyrighted icons, like Word and Excel icons. I believe they can be used to illustrate files created by those programs. If that is incorrect, I have also included alternate icons without those restrictions.
• I have also included some generic icons for file extensions I have not thought of, should they be of help, just copy them out of the generic folder and into the icons directory and rename them "fileicon-extension.png".
• These icon set is intended for use in the largest possible situations. For instance, if have included .doc images because many companies need them on their wikis, even though they are banned on Wikipedia.
• I would be thrilled if they were chosen to be included in future version of the MediaWiki software, and I give the MediaWiki Foundation full rights (where I have the rights to give) to do so.
• I don't have SVG versions, because I don't know how to use SVG software. Should someone have the skills and the Nuvola SVG icons, they are welcome to create more.
• To install on your own wiki, download the zip file from my website [3], and extract the icons in your /skins/common/images/icons directory, overwritting the old ones.
• To view them all on your wiki, you must make a little change in "/includes/ImagePage.php" Open it up in your text editior and hit Ctrl+F. Type in there "$this->img->isSafeFile()" Hit Find. Replace this string with the text "1==1" Don't forget you need to make these changes again, if you upgrade MediaWiki.
  • One little note about this. Icons were disable for "not safe files", but I don't know why. Displaying a file icon seems to be perfectly safe. Can a developer tell me why icons are hidden for non-safe files? Thanks.
• If anyone has changes or ideas, just drop me a line, w:User_talk:Michael180

---

What do you think? --michael180 18:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I quite like them. To be used on MediaWiki I'm sure that they have to all be fully open-source etc., but I don't really know about the whole system. —Daniel (‽) 21:51, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I looked at all the edit bar icons for a short amount of time and wrote down what came to my mind when I saw them. Here's what I got: Bold (correct), Web link (correct), Heading (correct, but it looks a bit like "hi"), Picture (correct, but it's not very obvious), Italic (correct), Article link (correct), Calculator (wrong, I wasn't sure on that), Sound (correct), Strike out (wrong, it's actually "nowiki"), Signature (correct). I like the icons, and they would be even better if a couple of them were made a bit more obvious. Icey 22:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I made some alternate edit bars icons in response to User:Icey. The H1 could be just H, or we could change the codes to get H2, H3, etc. What do you think. The trademakred file icons (Word, Excel) could be removed, if they are not allowed. There are alerrnates already included. --michael180 17:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Number of edits

On RfA there is usually mention of the number of edits often by type. How do I find out my stats, please? BlueValour 22:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

See the links at Wikipedia:Edit count. --cesarb 22:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Or rather see the links at Wikipedia:WikiProject edit counters#Projects. I suggest using either Essjay's or Lupin's on enwiki. --Interiot 06:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Add to search

How long does it take for a new article to make it into the search feature. I search for the title of my article and it does not show up — Preceding unsigned comment added by Involved (talk • contribs) 01:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there should be any delay. To what article do you refer? I don't see any new page-creations in your contribs list. ~ Booya ^Bazooka 06:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a delay of several days, perhaps longer. MECU≈talk 12:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

See the second FAQ at the top of this page. --cesarb 22:26, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Multi-line redirects: confirmation required from developers

• Context - Until recently, redirect pages were storing only the very first line and deleting everything else. Recently, redirect pages have been storing more than the first line.
• Question - Is this a permanent feature than can be documented, and officially used by editors?
• Complement - Some have started using this feature for adding information to redirect pages without having to pile everything on the first line (category tags, redirect templates, meta-information in HTML comments, etc.). A new change in MediaWiki, going back to the old single-line behavior, would erase all pages using the useful but currently undocumented feature. We thus need to know if it's officially implemented, or if it's a glitch that we shouldn't use.

-- 62.147.112.177 10:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Diff edits

When in a diff page, the edit buttons next to a subject heading dissapears. Has anyone else been having this problem? I am using Linux KDE with Firefox 1.5.0.4. Thanks --liquidGhoul 10:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Section edit links only appear when you are looking at the newest version. So when viewing a diff, the newest version must be on the right side. As I understand it, section editing is implemented by merging the changes for the edited section into the newest version. Merging into an older version is not supported. So this behaviour is as expected. The section structure of a page may change significantly over revisions, so the section numbering (which is used for section editing - see the url when clicking on a section edit) might be totally incompatible. --Ligulem 11:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly technically possible... It's probably not implemented because, well, how often do you need to revert only one section of someone's change? --Interiot 11:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Woops. I was pressing diff on the waychlist, but it was a very active page and a new edit must have occured between. Thanks --liquidGhoul 11:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia.org server problems

In the past hour or so, http://svn.wikimedia.org (m:MediaWiki_extensions) has been down. I've looked at some of the status sites, but it's hard to interpret the results on them. Anyone know of the best place to go to check on the most up-to-date mediawiki and wikimedia server status? --J. J. 17:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The best place to check the up-to-date status is the IRC channels. --cesarb 22:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Joining two accounts

By error I have registered twice ton Wikipedia - after some time of inactivity I couldn't log in so I have registered anew. Now I have found that I have some contribution to both accounts and also some to my IP before I have logged in for the first time. Is it possible to join the three into one account without losing any information? noychoH 19:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

No, unfortunatly accounts can not be merged together. Prodego ^talk 20:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

You could, however, REDIRECT one User page to the other and explain what happened. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:16, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The redirection shall not allow to see the contents of your talk and personal page : copy them first to the account you wish to keep. -- DLL ^{.. T} 18:50, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Link

How do I link to other wikimedia wikis?--Mac Lover ^Talk_C 20:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Well it depends what wiki you want to link to and why you want to link. Can you be more specific please? Prodego ^talk 20:41, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

For a different language wikipedia use [[xx:Article Name]], so to link to "Star Trek" on the spanish wikipedia use [[es:Star Trek]]. The link will appear on the sidebar. If you don't want the link to appear on the sidebar put a colon in frount as in [[:es:Star Trek]]. For a different project try the project name i.e. [[wikibooks:VB .NET]]. 213.94.234.66 21:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

See InterWiki for a general description, and ask here again if you need further help.-gadfium 01:53, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

See also meta:Interwiki_map for a list of possible interwiki link prefixes (you can also link to non-wikimedia sites, actually). (Liberatore, 2006). 22:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Semi Protection

On wikipedia to edit a semiprotected page a user must have a 4-day old account, but on my wiki (MediaWiki 1.6) a user only needs the account no mater how old it is. What is the cause of the difference? 213.94.234.66 21:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I think a better place for that is at mw:Project:Support desk. —Mets501 (talk) 03:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Fonts in SVG

Could someone tell me what fonts are supported for SVGs? Or more specifically, if I was to upload an SVG with DejaVu Sans (as a referenced font, not embedded) could MediaWiki render it correctly? I want to upload SVG renderings of a number of Unicode characters not in most fonts, which are currently GIF and I need to know if I can use DejaVu Sans as text or will I have to convert it to standard SVG paths (easy, but larger size than if it was text) - ^Рэд_хот 15:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok I've established by myself, that it can't. But how can font support be added to MediaWiki, especially since DejaVu Sans supports such a wide range of charachters and is free (libre free). - ^Рэд_хот 15:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Menu creation

How to create a menu on an article in wikipedia that can be expanded dynamically with a plus sign? One example is to create a detailed menu of a book, so that it will not take much space. If some one can give me a code and instructions to implement, it'll be great. Thanks in advance. TruthSpreader^Talk 15:40, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

See Template:Dynamic navigation box. Does it help ? -- DLL ^{.. T} 18:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Script?

Lately, a few times a day, when I'm accessing Wikipedia, my Firefox browser pops up a message about a script that can't run & gives me the choice of stopping it. Does anyone have any idea what might be going on here? (If you do, could you possibly answer here and ping me on my user talk page to let me know to come look? Thanks in advance.) - Jmabel | Talk 18:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Splitting a wikitable

I want to split the table at Huddersfield Town F.C.#Managers over three columns with the headings at the top of each. 'How to', please? BlueValour 21:24, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean something like this?

Name	Period	Name	Period	Name	Period
Fred Walker	1908–1910	Richard Pudan	1910–1912	Arthur Fairclough	1912–1919
Ambrose Langley	1919–1921	Herbert Chapman	1921–1925	Cecil Potter	1925–1926
Jack Chaplin	1926–1929	Clem Stephenson	1929–1942	Ted Magner	1942–1943

Regards, Lynbarn 21:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks for this. Just a supplementary; is it possible for a small amount of white background space (as opposed to a blank column) be inserted between each pair of columns, please? BlueValour 22:42, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

How's this?

Name	Period
Fred Walker	1908–1910
Ambrose Langley	1919–1921
Jack Chaplin	1926–1929

Name	Period
Richard Pudan	1910–1912
Herbert Chapman	1921–1925
Clem Stephenson	1929–1942

Name	Period
Arthur Fairclough	1912–1919
Cecil Potter	1925–1926
Ted Magner	1942–1943

The amount of white space depends on your browser page width, so it may not be quite what you wanted.-gadfium 00:07, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll have a go with that, thanks. BlueValour 00:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Editing discographies

I just changed the name of the upcoming Modest Mouse album to We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, however, I can't figure out how to change it in the box at the bottom of all the MM pages. Can someone help me out here? The "the" is clearly lowercase, so the discography box on the MM pages should reflect that. Evan Reyes 03:16, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

This box is a template, see Template:ModestMouse. When you edit an aritlce, all the templates used in the article are listed at the very bottom of the edit page. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I've fixed it, but my post here to say so and explain clashed with Rick Block's explanation above.-gadfium 03:33, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Storm may affect Wikipedia servers.

Is Wikipedia servers in Florida prepared for this thing ? IF it hits where they currently think it'll hit, the storm may take down Wikipedia. Ready for a Hurricane ? Martial Law 05:43, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi. You must be new. Let me introduce you to 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. In particular, Hurricane Charley. Wikimedia is located in the Tampa area, and they were more than prepared for what happened back then; this storm is not too likely to hit Tampa, but either way, yes, they have plans and know what they're doing. --Golbez 06:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

In fact, they did cut power to downtown Tampa during Charley, and the WP servers ran off a generator. --Golbez 06:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I was raised as a military brat USAF and US ARMY, w/ some family in classified govt. agencies. In the military, you learn to be prepared, or you end up dead due to enemy action, bad weather, disease. Martial Law 07:01, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

this storm is not too likely to hit Tampa As of 11AM EST Sunday, Tampa is right in the center of the projected track. -anon

Latest track data show it may hit Tampa head on. Hope I'm incorrect. Martial Law 02:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

How can I remove the border around an image?

I have searched and searched and cannot find the answer. I don't want a border around my image. JadedHeart 09:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't use thumb or frame.

:)	[[Image:Face-smile-big.svg|thumb|48px|:)]]
:)	[[Image:Face-smile-big.svg|frame|48px|:)]]
	[[Image:Face-smile-big.svg|48px]]

Also see Help:Images and other uploaded files. --Interiot 09:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't using either thumb or frame, and the smilies you posted also have a border around them. I don't want the box to show, I think it probably has something to do with the fact that it is a hyperlink, cuz it was purple and after I clicked on it, it was blue. So I guess my question should have been, "How do I make hyperlinks not be framed?"JadedHeart 18:33, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you using the skin "MySkin"? That skin always adds the blue/purple border around images. If that's the issue, then switching to another one (eg. MonoBook) will make the images framed as I described. --Interiot 06:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Print an article

Hi everyone, I want to print an article in Wikipedia. So I copy it in Microsoft word, but the wiki style will be lost! How can I transfer the info in wiki to Microsoft word if I don't want to change the style? (Like picture place and math formulas, etc)--MehranVB ^{talk | cont} 14:31, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The easiest way to print an article is to click "Printable version" in the toolbox when reading an article, and then just print that page. —Mets501 (talk) 14:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I know this, but I want to edit the article in Microsoft word. --MehranVB ^{talk | cont} 14:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Which version of Word? —Mets501 (talk) 14:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Microsoft Word 2003 (I have XP one too) --MehranVB ^{talk | cont} 16:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

In the article you can click on 'edit', copy the page source to word, edit it, then copy the new version to a wiki edit window in your browser, click on 'show preview' and print that... S Sepp 16:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Not receiving confirmation e-mails

Help, Mr. Wizard!

No matter how many times I click that button to send a confirmation e-mail to my address, I never receive a single one. They're not even spam-blocked; they just don't come. It's been 12 hours since my first try, and even that one hasn't arrived. I don't use a free address (e.g., hotmail, gmail, etc.), it's a standard e-mail address. I have no idea what's going on here...--TServo2049 17:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

If you're relating to your WP account : tick the appropriate in your preferences tag "Enable e-mail from other users". -- DLL ^{.. T} 19:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:European mathematicians

The Template:European mathematicians has some serious issues. Could some kind person please try to fix it? You can see what is doing to all affected categories by taking a look at Category:German mathematicians. Thanks! - GilliamJF 19:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Can I find a editor's IP?

Is there a way to determine an editor's IP? For example, I would be interested in knowing the IP that the brand-new User:Olmeque used for his/her first posts. Curiously yours, Madman 20:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

If you have a compelling reason to do so, you can ask at Wikipedia:Requests for CheckUser. However, such information is not given away lightly, so just wanting to know an IP of an editor won't get you anywhere, as that data is protected by our Privacy policy. Titoxd^(?!?) 20:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly not worth suspending the Privacy policy, no. Thanks for your time, Madman 02:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Workarounds for browser problems displaying tables and Thumbed images.

• Undoubtedly these are known bugs, but I am interested in workarounds to achieve the resulting format in both Firefox and IE. My versions are the latest as of this date: Firefox for Windows, 1.5.0.6. -Mak Thorpe 23:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

K-Dog, the bottle nose dophin, currently serving with the US Navy

Table 1. Using Windows/Linux Firefox or Safari or Konqueror, the image will overlay this table.. OK with Internet Explorer. aaaaaaa bbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbb ccccccccccc dddddddddddddddd eeeeeeeeeeeee ffffffffffff gggggggggggg hhhhhhhhhhh iiiiiiiiiii jjjjjjjj kkkkkk lllllllllll mmmmmmmmm nnnnnnnnnn ooooooooo pppppppp qqqqqqqqq rrrrrrrrrr sssssssssss tttttttttt uuuuuuuuuuuuu vvvvvvvvvvvvvv wwwwwwwwwww xxxxxxxxxxx yyyyyyyy zzzzzzzz

K-Dog, the bottle nose dophin, currently serving with the US Navy

Table 2. Using Firefox, the image now displays normally. Using Safari, the table is placed below (following) the image. Under Internet Explorer, the text following the table will not display underneath the table.. aaaaaaa bbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbb ccccccccccc dddddddddddddddd eeeeeeeeeeeee ffffffffffff gggggggggggg hhhhhhhhhhh iiiiiiiiiii jjjjjjjj kkkkkk lllllllllll mmmmmmmmm nnnnnnnnnn ooooooooo pppppppp qqqqqqqqq rrrrrrrrrr sssssssssss tttttttttt uuuuuuuuuuuuu vvvvvvvvvvvvvv wwwwwwwwwww xxxxxxxxxxx yyyyyyyy zzzzzzzz

This line should be below table 2. Under Firefox and Konqueror it will display beneath Table 1. Using Safari, it appears beneath Table 1 not overlaid on the image. Under IE, it will appear to the right of the second table.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mak Thorpe (talk • contribs) .

I took the liberty of adding Konqueror behaviour to this section.-Mr Adequate 04:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps what you're looking for is this? My guess is it will display consistently across all browsers.

Table 3. Using Safari, the image displays normally with the table adjacent (on the left). aaaaaaa bbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbb ccccccccccc dddddddddddddddd eeeeeeeeeeeee ffffffffffff gggggggggggg hhhhhhhhhhh iiiiiiiiiii jjjjjjjj kkkkkk lllllllllll mmmmmmmmm nnnnnnnnnn ooooooooo pppppppp qqqqqqqqq rrrrrrrrrr sssssssssss tttttttttt uuuuuuuuuuuuu vvvvvvvvvvvvvv wwwwwwwwwww xxxxxxxxxxx yyyyyyyy zzzzzzzz

K-Dog, the bottle nose dophin, currently serving with the US Navy

with some text following the table. Using Safari, this text is below the end of the image, creating a visual gap following the table. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

• Hey- I wish it were that easy. Does your solution answer the issue? Nope. Not at all. The goal is that the table be able to utilize 100% of the screen space without regard to whatever thumbed images may or may not have appeared before. Surely there is some way to tell the renderer- Kill all previous states- clean slate. User wants 100% of the width of the client subwindow reserved for articles. I don't care how ugly it is- I just need it to work on all major browsers. -Mak Thorpe 15:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Then, you mean like the following? -- Rick Block (talk) 17:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

K-Dog, the bottle nose dophin, currently serving with the US Navy

Text sort of goes along for a while, but now we want a full width table.

Table 4. aaaaaaa bbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbb ccccccccccc dddddddddddddddd eeeeeeeeeeeee ffffffffffff gggggggggggg hhhhhhhhhhh iiiiiiiiiii jjjjjjjj kkkkkk lllllllllll mmmmmmmmm nnnnnnnnnn ooooooooo pppppppp qqqqqqqqq rrrrrrrrrr sssssssssss tttttttttt uuuuuuuuuuuuu vvvvvvvvvvvvvv wwwwwwwwwww xxxxxxxxxxx yyyyyyyy zzzzzzzz

And, here's some text following the table.

There are worse cases. See SpyAxe. Try changing the window width; some widths look good, and for some, images overlap text. Sometimes, even the "edit" text button overlaps other text. Now that's a clear CSS bug. Remember HTML "tables", when nothing ever overlapped? --John Nagle 18:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Rick. br clear all looks like it kills the float state that was confusing Firefox or IE. Hopefully others will confirm this solution (Table 4) works just fine on Safari and Konqueror. Regards, -Mak Thorpe 23:55, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

In Konqueror, Table 3 appears with normal wrap not overlapping the image but beside it. Table 4 appears below the image.-Mr Adequate 01:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm almost 100% certain <br clear=all/> works for all browsers (it works for Safari as well as the others previously listed). I would have suggested this originally, but didn't understand what you were attempting to do. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Tables of contents have disappeared

Using Firefox, the TOCs on all Wikipedia pages are gone. (I still see them using IE.) As nobody else has complained, it is probably just me, and could be something I have inadvertently done with the browser settings, but I have absolutely no idea what that could be. Any ideas? Tupsharru 06:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

See FAQ question #3 above, and see if force-reloading a page fixes it? --Interiot 06:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It did, thanks a lot! (Duh! I should have thought of that.) Tupsharru 06:56, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Commons protection

An idea which is floated from time to time on WT:DYK is to apply for adminship on commons, as often images from Commons need to appear on the Wikipedia front page, and the current process is to save the image from commons, reupload it, protect it, and then delete it once it has gone from the front page. Adminship on Commons would save a lot of time as it removes the need to reupload the image. However, if an image is protected on Commons, does it automatically get protected on all other projects, or could I potentially upload another image to Wikipedia under the same name, thus circumventing the protection? smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 07:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Commons has historically rejected giving adminship to people on other projects unless they are also active contributors on Commons, and yes, your fear is correct, someone could just upload a local image to circumvent protection on Commons. Dragons flight 07:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki Software Like one on Wikipedia.org

I installed mediawiki software on my server and it works well. There is only one thing missing. Not every template is included. How do I install additional features so that the mediawiki software that I have installed becomes exactly like the one which is running wikipedia.org

Are there additional plugins, etc available which have to be installed.

For example, the following tags <ref></ref> are not parsed and look like tags only. The method that I have used is to iimport xml dumps using importdump.php and then browse the pages .

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.163.2.66 (talk • contribs) 13:25, August 28 2006 (UTC)

Install the extensions listed at Special:Version (Cite, ParserFunctions). --Ligulem 14:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Doubled references?

I was editing the article on High Technology High School, and I added a new reference. When I previewed the page, everything seemed right, but when I saved the page, the references were doubled. What I mean by this was that there are six references, but reference one became reference 7, reference two became 8, and so on. Has anyone encountered this before, or will it fix itself?

--BadgerOfDarkness 19:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Seems fine here. Six references, numbered 1-6. --TheParanoidOne 19:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm having a similar problem after editing Millsaps College to add a reference. I've checked twice, and there is only one set of <ref></ref> tags in the article; still, the reference is numbered as 2, and there are two identical references in the References section. Am I missing something subtle in the article body? PS Yes, I forced a reload from the server just to double-check. :-) --Tkynerd 19:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Silly, silly me. I assumed my problem at List of misnamed theorems was too bizarre to have been reported before, but obviously not. Sorry for the duplicated question below. ---CH 03:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

And few more sightings of this interesting phenomena: Iž and Prvić. Seems like references which more than one occurence get their indexes doubled, and those with only one occurence get doubled... strange... --Dijxtra 15:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

See below: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Solution to problems with footnotes and references. Errabee 15:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Miniclip ref numbers duplicated

Something has gone wrong with the reference numbers at Miniclip. The references are duplicated and the first inline reference numbers is 8. No obvious cause. --John Nagle 19:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks like the same problem reported below with several other articles. Presumably someone broke the cite code temporarily. It seems to be fixed now. --John Nagle 02:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I confirm the problem still exists as of 14:00 August 29 (UTC). It can be fixed temporarily with a WP:PURGE, but comes back if the article is edited. I first noticed the issue August 28 at 19:20 (UTC) when it was reported at WP:FN. Gimmetrow 14:09, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Hyperlink issues after logging in

Every time I log in using Monobook skin, all hyperlinks appear underlined. It's fixable by clearing my browser cache, but in doing so I lose the download time benefits of having the pages cached. (Note: I use Internet Explorer). C. M. Harris ^{Talk to me} 19:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a less drastic way: do a forced reload on a single page (like this one). It will download again only that single page, and the CSS files (which is what you want to reload). I believe even a normal reload is enough, which should not download again the images and global CSS/JS. --cesarb 19:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Having trouble with an article I just created

The article is called Parchman. For some reason the footnote citations show up twice when I save the aricle. However, upon preview there are the correct number which is three.

Something is doubling the footnote citations and I can't figure out what. Help would be greatly appreciated. I'm sure it is something simple that I'm just not seeing! Mattisse(talk) 21:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, now suddenly it is fixed, and all I did was add stub. Don't understand. Mattisse(talk) 21:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Now suddenly, the footnote citations are doubled again -- six instead of the three in the article. And all I did was add an internal link. Could it be Wiki? Mattisse(talk) 22:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Having trouble with an article I just edited: similar to previous post

This problem is similar to that just reported by Mattisse. I'm adding information with cites to Myopia, but I just noted that a number of cites are doubled or appear multiple times in the References section. I can't figure out what I may have done wrong. Thanks! -AED 21:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

In my case it either cured itself (mysteriously} or was fixed when I added a stub at the bottom. Maybe it is some sort of Wiki glitch. Now mine is fine. Try adding the {{stub}} at bottom. Mattisse(talk) 22:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I tired it but it didn't work. -AED 22:20, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm having a similar problem with an article I'm building in my sandbox. Adding a stub tag didn't work for me, either. Zagalejo 22:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The very first citation in Myopia is labeled "43". For what it's worth, I found that removing the "References" section changes it to "1"... obviously there are no footnotes then. -AED 22:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I added a mere internal link, and now the problem is back again. And that just doesn't make sense. I wonder if I should take the internal link out or revert. Very strange. Mattisse(talk) 22:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I reverted to version that was O.K. before and the footnote citations remain doubled. I think it must be Wiki, although I don't understand how. Mattisse(talk) 22:51, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I did a null edit (save the page without changing anything) and it broke again. So might have nothing to do with your edits. --Ligulem 22:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

That's what I'm thinking since there is no rhyme or reason to it. Mattisse(talk) 01:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Back Page

When I use this computer that I'm on currently, and I use the Back Page function to go to the Recent Changes page, instead of giving me the page as it looked at the time that I was last there, it gives me a refereshed page. Any ideas on why? This doesn't happen on my PC at home. I'm using IE 7 here and IE 6 at home, could that be the reason? User:Zoe|(talk) 22:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Browser settings? In IE (6), it's Tools > Internet Options > General Tab > Temporary internet Files, Settings... then choose when you want it to check for newer versions. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

That's it. It was set to check for new versions automatically. Thanks. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Strange situation with footnotes

I have an odd situation with footnotes on the United States Marine Corps article. The very first such link (1a in the references) doesn't go anywhere. Moreover, the links to the article and current version show different numbers of footnotes.

I have a feeling it's a malformed footnote somewhere, but are there any clues to where it might be?--Mmx1 23:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Having added a closequote to the name="something" field, the # of refs is back to 52. However, the first 2 backreferences (links from the footnotes back into the body of the article) are still broken. --Mmx1 23:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Further update: See User:Mmx1/Sandbox2. References are duplicated for some reason. Must be a bug in the cite code. I see the identical bug when logged in via firefox and as anon via IE.--Mmx1 23:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what's causing it, but purging ([4]) fixes it. --NE2 23:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Um, every time the page is edited, it destroys the order of the links. It didn't do that before, and you can see what it is doing to Hurricane Katrina. Can a site admin revert any change that happened to cite.php lately? Titoxd^(?!?) 02:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you describe this destruction in more detail? For instance, is it a doubling of each footnote? --Brion 10:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There are two different phenomena. In one form, the entire list of footnotes is doubled. If there are supposed to be 10 foonotes, there will be 20 (numbered 1-20), with the first footnote in the text starting at number 11. In the other form, every footnote has doubled letters in the reference section, both [a] and [b], as if a named template were being re-used. Gimmetrow 10:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

For an example of the first form, see Conservative Judaism#Footnotes (until someone clears it). Gimmetrow 11:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm having the same problem (see above #51) and also the person who wrote the note below mine {#52). So far we have received no help. Mattisse(talk) 12:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

We know how to fix it short-term. I'm leaving that one un-fixed so others know what we're talking about. Gimmetrow 12:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There should be a more pernament and long-term solution than purging individual pages. The sheer number of questions asking the same questions (including me) is amazing. —Jared Hunt August 29, 2006, 14:28 (UTC)

phtml

If you go to the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/phtml it redirects to Main Page (and uses real http codes to redirect), but if you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phtml it uses the wiki-redirect system to go to PHP.

If you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=phtml it wiki-reidrects to PHP and so does ?title=Phtml.

If you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki.phtml it http-redirects to main page.

So i'm guessing it thinks /wiki/phtml is equivelant to /wiki.phtml .

Is there any reason why it thinks a slash is a dot?

GeorgeMoney (talk) 23:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Knowing the usual syntax for regexps, and knowing that that redirect is from mod_rewrite (which uses regexps), I'd say someone wrote . (matches any character) when they meant \. (matches a literal dot). Report it on bugzilla (product Wikimedia, component General/Unknown), and a developer will fix it later when they have time. --cesarb 18:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:IPUser

Exists now, just thought I'd let you know. Happy editing--{anon iso − 8859 − 1janitor} 23:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Need help in coding, probably

Due to a second instance of vandalism in my archives by users who cannot edit my user talk page (it was sprotected after it had been vandalized multiple times by IPs of banned users) I had decided to create a subpage that I have transcluded into my user talk page. However, I do not want level two headers nor do I want sections by established users to be superceded by possibly vandalous edits by malicious vandals. Is there a way to either

1. Make it so the unprotected section forces level 3 headers for each section? or
2. Make it so the unprotected section is always at the bottom of my page, and new sections via the new section tab are placed before it?

--Ryūlóng 01:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I do not feel that unprotection is necessary at this moment in time. Ryūlóng 01:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

No. --cesarb 18:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Mysterious problem involving footnotes and citation templates

File:Cite php broken.png

I tried to make a little List of misnamed theorems, but something went terribly wrong and I can't figure out how to fix the problem. For some mysterious reason, all the arrows pointing to the place where a footnote occurs are doubled in the reference section. Only the second of each pair appears to be functional. Please fix it if you can! ---CH 02:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

After a WP:PURGE of the page, is it still there? Gimmetrow 02:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Purge the cache. Something is wrong, but that appears to fix the issue, at least temporarily. Here's a screenshot of what's going on (click on the image and zoom in at the top references). Titoxd^(?!?) 03:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems to come and go. Reloading the page was one of the first things I tried, and it didn't seem to help. To my surprise, just after making the above query, reloading the page did seem to resolve the problem, but this definitely didn't seem to help earlier today. I am still baffled, but the fact that so many are experiencing problems suggests that something in the code might have been broken by a modification earlier today. ---CH 03:09, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't just mean purge the cache. I added ?action=purge to the URL and reloaded. You probably saw the version after I did that. Gimmetrow 03:11, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

• ?action=purge has just worked for a similar problem I had. I've never encountered it before, has something changed today? Espresso Addict 04:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
• I'm thinking there may be something wrong on Wikipedia's end because this is the first time I've encountered this problem, and others as well. Any guesses? —Jared Hunt August 29, 2006, 13:53 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there's any connection, but I noticed that today I could not reproduce a certain error that has always "worked" in the past, namely leaving out the slash in a closing </ref> tag. When it "works" this error captures all or at least a good chunk of the following text, up to the next header, assuming that it's still reading the reference. However, when I tried it today cutting out the slash produced just the same results as normal in the preview, and when I returned, having cancelled the edit, my footnotes were as described here. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I had the same problem. I'm going to try the purge thing.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 16:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that worked.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 16:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

This question is very quickly becoming the MFAQ of the day. Is any permanent solution at hand? -- Lost^(talk) 16:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The permanent solution is to invalidate every page in the cache (which may be happening, job queue seems fairly large at 420k and growing), and make sure the software invalidates a page with every save. Gimmetrow 16:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I have filed bugzilla:7166, related to this issue. Dragons flight 18:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

But apperently someone beat me, see also bugzilla:7162. Dragons flight 18:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Note that it appears on pages that do not use the references comment, such as Gliding and Choe Manri. (Do you need a separate registration for bugzilla?) Gimmetrow 18:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I have added a colored box to the top of this page to direct people towards the temporary solution (and to avoid even more sections talking about the same problem). --cesarb 18:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Assistance needed at Wikiversity

Over at the English Wikiversity, we're working on a new main page design. It contains some bugs that need to be eliminated, and I'm hoping to recruit an experienced coder to take on the task. In particular, we need to add <h2> and </h2> elements to the headings in the right-hand column, and the image is off-center (and lacking the right-hand border) in IE6. Also, the original designer used a complex system of transclusion that hopefully could be simplified, and I'm sure that plenty of our code is sloppy and inefficient.

Thanks in advance! —David Levy 09:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

No one has responded, so I'm bumping this to the bottom. If anyone can help, please step forward. —David Levy 08:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Whatlinkshere strangeness

I recently checked the "What links here" for the article Arsenal F.C. (e.g. [5]) and found it now contains a lot of articles pertaining to Italian municipalities (e.g. Camporgiano), a seemingly unrelated topic. I assumed it was something to do with the navigation templates they use (Template:Province of Lucca) but I can't find any link to Arsenal F.C. within the template, nor anywhere else in the article. Checking the "Related changes" link for Camporgiano [6] produces a list of mostly unrelated articles (Arab League, Guadeloupe, MSN), none of which are seemingly linked to in the page. Can anyone shed a light as to why? Qwghlm 09:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. Strange stuff. I haven't tracked down anything yet. For example I'm also utterly puzzled why editing Pope Pius I says it transcludes Template:Comic book reference =:-P. Need having a closer look on templates to make sure nobody vandalized any template. --Ligulem 09:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I fixed a html tag error on Pope Pius I. But now we have the doubled footnotes problem there (as reported on this page already, scroll up)... --Ligulem 10:06, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Could be a database problem. Edit a page and a number of non-present templates are listed, but once the page is saved the template connections seem to get fixed. (Then a purge to fix the foonotes... ;) Gimmetrow 10:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

After checking a few articles, I wonder if the template problem is a consequence of the recent WoW vandalism. Various templates were moved around. Gimmetrow 11:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The Special:Statistics page shows that the job queue is currently huge, and all cached data and stuff done through templates is probably a couple of hours out of date. Kusma (討論) 11:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

50,000 entries on job queue is nothing dramatic. --Ligulem 11:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The job queue is now over 400,000. Could it be that every page on WP is being invalidated and recached? Gimmetrow 16:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes error?

I was just reading Wikipedia:Help_desk#Footnotes_at_Opus_Dei and thought that it was a problem on that end, solved easily by deleting cache etc. But after I editted Every Song Is A Cry For Love, the same error occured to me. The problem is gone and it's does not matter for me much, but I'm wondering if there's a bigger problem at Wikipedia's end. —Jared Hunt August 29, 2006, 13:28 (UTC)

Read this section above. Gimmetrow 13:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Solution to problems with footnotes and references

Putting this in its own section because tons of people seem to be having this problem right now.

Adding ?action=purge to the URL of the page you are having problems with (load the page, then in the address bar, add ?action=purge to the end of the URL and press Enter) seems to fix the problem with doubled footnotes and references that don't work, at least for some people. It worked for me with the Millsaps College article I edited yesterday. I'm not sure this is a permanent fix for the article itself; it may just fix your browser, but I guess it's worth trying.

Credit goes to User:Gimmetrow in the "Mysterious problem involving footnotes and citation templates" above. --Tkynerd 13:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I think User:NE2 mentioned it earlier, here. Gimmetrow 13:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

It has been noted in Wikipedia talk:Footnotes. (SEWilco 14:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC))

It is not browser specific. I tried it on two computers. It may be User or Page specific. Morphh 18:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

As I've been adding a lot of references lately to an article, I've also come across this problem. And I noticed something interesting, thay may hint at the cause of the problem. Editing a section creates a different result than editing the entire page. The footnotes or references start with those that are placed in that section or below, and then the entire article is scanned again, which results in only some footnotes or references being doubled. If you edit the entire page, it essentially does the same, resulting in a complete doubling. Errabee 14:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a good fix, but still very annoying. The doubling effect has happened on three articles I have edited references for -- starting yesterday. --MattWright (talk) 17:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I have tried the purge fix on Taxicabs of the United States but its getting worse - can anyone fix this article, please? TerriersFan 18:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems fine: 4 refmarks, 4 notes. Gimmetrow 18:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I have edited some other sections and it has fixed itself. Weird. Thanks for looking, though. TerriersFan 18:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Bot access funniness

I've recently reactivated the rambot and in the process of testing it I made these changes. This is not normally a problem, except every time I make a successful change, I get a "403: Forbidden" response code. This despite the fact that the edit happens anyway. I have no idea why and would like to know if anyone else is aware of this particular problem. — Ram-Man ^{(comment) (talk)} 15:39, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Animated GIF too big for thumb?

I uploaded this Image:Hurricane Katrina LA landfall radar.gif (6MB animated gif) file to Commons earlier. However, MediaWiki fails to produce a thumbnail (like to the right), making the image useless. Is there a hard limit on the max size to animated gifs for thumbs?--Nilfanion (talk) 19:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Expunging block log entries

Anyone know offhand if there's already a BugZilla bug about the idea of expunging bogus entries from the block log? I looked, [7] but didn't see anything that fit. This came up in this thread: User_talk:Lar#Carnildo an offshoot of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Carnildo 3 Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 21:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)