Wikipedia talk:Twinkle

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Noticeboard notification problem

I just sent out a half-dozen or so noticeboard notifications for a thread at WP:AN. I selected AN from the drop-down menu and the edit summaries indicate that the notification is for AN, yet the actual notification is linking to ANI. See [1] for example. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 18:13, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Lepricavark, How do you post that notice anyway? It tried to test it, but couldn't find any option for it. Adam9007 (talk) 18:19, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

From the user talk page, select 'TB' from the drop-down menu. Then click the 'Noticeboard notification' radio button and select AN from the top of the drop-down menu. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 18:20, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Lepricavark, Thanks. I didn't think to check TB :$. Adam9007 (talk) 18:23, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Yep. I can confirm that AN links to ANI. Adam9007 (talk) 18:24, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

 Fixed [2] though a better fix would be to have Twinkle post Template:AN-notice instead of Template: ANI-notice with a noticeboard parameter. SD0001 (talk) 12:04, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

​I'd say rather the issue is that {{AN-notice}} is insufficient, mainly since it doesn't allow for header customization. Can I Log In recently created {{Discussion notice}} and then immediately restructured {{ANI-notice}} to use it. Despite being new, is there a good reason that {{AN-notice}} shouldn't be similarly restructured? The default header is unsupported atm. In content, the two notices are barely distinguishable, and appear to exist separately mainly for convenience; it'd make sense for them to be based upon a base template. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 11:07, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Alternatively (or, rather, orthogonally), {{ANI-notice}} and {{AN-notice}} are the only two templates for which we have the adminNoticeHeading preference. We could just be rid of that, and make life simpler overall. That's probably my preference, although it shouldn't mean not doing the above. It does seem like {{ANI-notice}}} is the odd-one-out by not providing a section header. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 11:13, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

PR 1123 ~ Amory (u • t • c) ~ Amory (u • t • c) 11:53, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Following redirects for block notices

I rather embarrassingly left Ymblanter a block notice today. The LTA I intended to block had redirected their talk page to Ymblanter's, and while the correct account was blocked, the block notice was sent to the incorrect recipient. Rather than admit that I should have checked the talk page before blocking, I'm choosing to blame Twinkle instead – is there any reason that block notices need to follow redirects? Could this be changed? – bradv🍁 22:54, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

This has already been fixed. Will get deployed in the next on-wiki update. — SD0001 (talk) 04:54, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

This was a UT->UT redirect, so the (already deployed) cross-namespace check didn't prevent it. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:45, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Bot accounts, alt-accounts, etc. often redirect their user talk pages to the main account. If Amory was compromised and you blocked it, the notice would get passed on to me, which is good (or at least better than overwriting the redirect). The block will still be applied to the original user account (e.g. Amory) so following the redirect arguably makes less sense than for a warning or CSD note, for example, but that's the theory behind it. In short: it's mostly for well-behaving folks, but miscreants can abuse it; in general sysops should probably peek at the talk page before blocking. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:45, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Ideally, there should be a prompt before twinkle follows a redirect for block and warn modules. Not worth it for the deletion modules I guess. – SD0001 (talk) 10:59, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

That's a reasonable idea; there are other tools that give a warning if the page to be affected is a redirect (sort of a "which page are you referring to?" check). Don't know how problematic it would be to add, though. Primefac (talk) 15:12, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. I suggested it in April and I guess that'd be best of both worlds? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:22, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Amorymeltzer, I can't imagine a situation where I would block an account and want another account to receive a notice saying "Your account has been blocked indefinitely". In any of those scenarios, the account that's blocked should receive the actual notice, and the bot- or alt-owner provided with some sort of manual heads-up. – bradv🍁 14:58, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Word. There's (currently, though I'm working on it) no easy way to do all that at once, but mainly because there's no unified way to indicate "hey this account really does belong to that other account" (at least not reliably). ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:22, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

@Amorymeltzer:, please expedite reviewing and deploying https://github.com/azatoth/twinkle/pull/1118, which fixes this long-term security/harassment bug in Twinkle. ST47 (talk) 11:56, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

In the interim, sysops might consider adding the following code to common.js if they would rather not facilitate this LTA's harassment campaign. ST47 (talk) 12:00, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

mw.loader.using( ['ext.gadget.Twinkle'], function () {
	Twinkle.block.callback.issue_template = function twinkleblockCallbackIssueTemplate(formData) {
		var userTalkPage = 'User_talk:' + mw.config.get('wgRelevantUserName');
	
		var params = $.extend(formData, {
			messageData: Twinkle.block.blockPresetsInfo[formData.template],
			reason: Twinkle.block.field_template_options.block_reason,
			disabletalk: Twinkle.block.field_template_options.notalk,
			noemail: Twinkle.block.field_template_options.noemail_template,
			nocreate: Twinkle.block.field_template_options.nocreate_template
		});
	
		Morebits.wiki.actionCompleted.redirect = userTalkPage;
		Morebits.wiki.actionCompleted.notice = 'Actions complete, loading user talk page in a few seconds';
	
		var wikipedia_page = new Morebits.wiki.page(userTalkPage, 'User talk page modification');
		wikipedia_page.setCallbackParameters(params);
		wikipedia_page.setFollowRedirect(false);
		wikipedia_page.load(Twinkle.block.callback.main);
	};
});

As I said there, I've come around to this, especially as it seems LTAs are abusing it and sysops aren't checking talk pages. What's the security risk? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:22, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

The security risk is that Eostrix, Girth Summit, and others have effectively had their sessions hijacked to leave messages on an attacker-controlled page. If an attacker can abuse a tool in order to continue a harassment campaign even after the attacker is blocked and banned, that is absolutely a security defect in the tool. I've created filter 1082 to prevent the creation of this class of redirects on this wiki, but I have some concerns that it may be possible to bypass the filter, and of course Twinkle is used on many wikis other than this one. ST47 (talk) 13:03, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

It's not really important, but I would really disagree with sessions hijacked. That implies someone else is taking control of the account, which is not true. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:19, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Adding emphasis here, when I am CSD tagging (which I can do quite fast, even a few a minute when the pages are copies/clones by the same user, e.g. [3]) I generally don't think twice about the talk page target - up to now I assumed Twinkle did it correctly and that the creator would be notified (and other users would have a warning/speedy trail on the talk page) - there usually is little need for me to look at the user's talk page prior to CSDing (as it isn't user dependent, it is created page dependent). However with this redirect exploit - the end result is that I am bombing the harassment target at a high rate with templates/notifications that aren't intended for them. With really fast vandals - it might be me and a few other users at NPP/RCP bombing the harassment target. So yes - I've turned off the notify creator for ones I know who are redirecting their talk - but I'd prefer Twinkle not deliver these through redirects.--Eostrix  (^{🦉 hoot} _hoot🦉) 13:26, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

• It would be nice if Twinkle gave a pop-up for any talk page post via redirect, or maybe not follow redirects created by non-AC users. I just templated ST47 when CSDing attack pages by User:ST47 (9-2). In many twinkle messages it is very wrong to WP:AGF in regards to the recipient and redirects on his page. For AfD/PROD yes - but nearly all other messages are not a good faith situation.--Eostrix  (^{🦉 hoot} _hoot🦉) 12:25, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

ST47's fix has now been deployed when blocking users. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:42, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

What went wrong with this attempt to make a merge request?

[4]. It didn't put a tag on the other article or create a talk page section. Doug Weller talk 17:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

In the notice it did place, it shows extra link brackets. I assume you added them where they weren't needed when you typed in the forms. Just a guess on my part, as I know absolutely nothing about the nuts-and-bolts of Twinkle. BilCat (talk) 20:29, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

That's correct. [[Virginia Citizens Defense League]] parses as an invalid title to the API. We shoul really be modernising these page input menus, but OOUI isn't compatible with rest of the UI so it's more tricky than simply embedding an mw.widgets.titleInputWidget in there. – SD0001 (talk) 06:37, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Also invalid to mw.Title (but modified to ((Virginia Citizens Defense League)) by newFromUserInput). ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:25, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

A separate preference to toggle adding redirects to watchlist after tagging

Hello, it would be nice to have a sub-preference of "Add page to watchlist when tagging" in the "Tag" section of the preferences to toggle the behaviour specifically for redirects. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 21:44, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

@1234qwer1234qwer4: Just to clarify, you're asking for different preferences for maintenance, redirect, and file taggings, yeah? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 11:54, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

@Amorymeltzer: Thanks, I wasn't aware of file tagging as I'm not active in the file namespace outside of Commons. Yes, that is what I'd suggest. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 12:00, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Curious what others think; I think it's pretty reasonable to want to treat articles (and drafts) differently from redirects and files, but I'm not sure how often this comes up. Watchlist expiry might impact this too! ~ Amory (u • t • c) ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:43, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

September 2020 Twinkle updates, features, and behaviors (2020-09-05) @10b4f79c

Twinkle now uses change tags for all its actions! You should start seeing it immediately, and be able to filter edits and actions accordingly. Beyond that, there are a number of other improvements and bug fixes; a brief summary of some of them are below. Changes not otherwise attributed were made by User:Amorymeltzer.

• Everywhere:
  • Use the twinkle tag for all actions (#969)
    • This removes customization of the summary ad appended to edit summaries
  • Bump font size to 12px (#1034, by SD0001)
• xfd:
  • Undisable all venue options, use red text to warn for possible improper venue (#1033, by SD0001)
  • Include link to discussion page in the XfD log (#1105)
  • Don't show AfD errors that don't matter (#1093)
  • USe TLA-case in edit summary (#1110, by SD0001)
• xfd/prod:
  • Show {{Find sources}} links in AfD and PROD windows (#1052, by SD0001)
  • Handle lists in userspace logging (#1110, by SD0001)
• prod:
  • Restore notification for PRODBLP (#1102)
  • Detect non-first AfD nominations (#1095)
• block:
  • Prevent infinite blocks of IP addresses (#1097)
  • add uw-botuhblock (#1089) (#1095, by Mdaniels5757)
  • Don't confirm no restrictions if email harassment is selected (#1075)
• image: Fix bug parsing namespace in replacement (#1115)
• revert and rollback:
  • Don't add rollback links to the top history revision if there's just one user (#1070)
  • Don't attempt history links on nonexistent pages (#1068)
  • Revert multiple hidden revisions in a row (#1073)
• speedy: Follow page watch preference when deleting (#1116)
• tag:
  • Add {{Image hoax}} (#996)
  • Fix checking for wrong extension in "Should be" templates (#1114)
• protect: Ensure move protection is valud (#1071)
• preferences: Remove obsolete torev option from openTalkPage (#965)

This section should serve as a catching ground should anything not work properly or if any new bugs crop up, as well as for any feedback or suggestions. There were a lot of changes behind the scenes, so feel free to ping me. As always, input is welcome at the GitHub repo as well. Finally, if you're interested in helping out with Twinkle development, there's a guideline to help new contributors get set up — check it out! ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:31, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Technical changes

The Morebits library has added RegExp.escape for a while; this has been deprecated in favor of Morebits.string.escapeRegExp; see #1077 for more info. It also added Morebits.string.isInfinity to check whether mediawiki will parse a string as infinite (#1057).

~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:31, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

---

@SD0001: Hey there, I'm not sure if it's a result of the font size changes you made, but some changes recently now make the Twinkle font smaller in my Windows 10 Chrome browser. I thought I was nuts at first and somehow zoomed out of the page, but my normal Wikipedia browsing experience is unchanged, other than how Twinkle displays. Thoughts? Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:23, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb: Which skin do you use (vector/monobook/...)? I don't see any issues in Chrome on Windows 10 at my end. If possible, can you check what is the rendered font size using the browser's inspect element tool? Temporarily, you can try enabling the "Use larger text in Twinkle dialogs" option in your WP:TWPREFS and see if that helps. – SD0001 (talk) 18:56, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

@SD0001:} I use Vector. I know how to access the inspect element tool, but I don't know what string I'm supposed to be looking for. I see a lot of "font-size" stuff after right-clicking an open Twinkle window and selecting Inspect element, then searching for "font". In case it's helpful, my browser is set to Large fonts and 100% page zoom. Also, when I used to open the Protect Page window, the pulldowns for "Edit protection: Autoconfirmed Expires: 2 days" (for example) used to be on two lines. Now they line up, which is aesthetically pleasing, but the font size is a bit smaller now. I did tick the "Use large text" option per your suggestion, but it didn't make a difference. Let me know what other info I can give you. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:08, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb: With any Twinkle window opened, press Ctrl+Shift+C. Now hover (don't click) over any text inside the Twinkle window. A popup should show up like this which shows the font details. – SD0001 (talk) 08:09, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

@SD0001: A-ha! Thank you. I see 12px sans-serif in the Twinkle box. With my Chrome font set to Large, the article text (and on talk pages, etc) is 16.25px. If I change my Chrome font size to Medium, article text goes down to 13px but the Twinkle font stays at 12px. If I change the Chrome font size to Extra Large. Article text goes up to 19.5px, Twinkle stays at 12px. Regards, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:45, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Noted. Thanks for the info. It means Twinkle needs to mention the font size using relative percentages rather than an absolute "12px". – SD0001 (talk) 12:53, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@SD0001: Thanks for taking this into consideration! You'd make my eyes grateful. Also, the window(s) might need to scale up to accommodate different font sizes, which I don't think I was experiencing before (hence the fields not always lining up horizontally on my display). Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 04:22, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb: Yesterday I made some changes to Twinkle on the testwiki. Can you enable Twinkle over there and confirm if everything looks all right? – SD0001 (talk) 17:44, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

@SD0001: Hey there, thanks for working on it. It looks much better. The only difference I note is that the article text size is 16.1px where the Twinkle text is about 15. I'm not sure if that difference matters so much. I don't have my admin tools at the test site, so I can't do an exact test drive, but otherwise it looks pretty good! Thanks again, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:14, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

1128 – SD0001 (talk) 06:46, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

CSD deletion - alternate reasons?

I've done a couple of deletions now where there is "extra" info, most recently U.S. Route 10 Alternate (Washington–Montana) (see log if it's been recreated), but when I put in that extra info it's not adding it to the deletion summary (for example, the db-move I used above should have included "AFC submission ready for acceptance"). Is this a recent change or have I just never noticed that Twinkle doesn't do this? Primefac (talk) 16:44, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

@Primefac: It been that way for ages (ever?). The proximate reason is that Twinkle uses the summary parameter from the rendered template, and {{db-move}} doesn't handle extra parameters well, just a custom summary. I've been meaning to go through all the CSD templates and audit their deletion reasons for a while; last time I did some work on them there were some inconsistencies. Twinkle could try to customize adding parameters, but if the templates themselves would make use of the parameters provided, it'd be more beneficial for everyone. At the very least, though, Twinkle shouldn't require you to enter parameters that will be dumped and ignored. I would guess G6s are probably the worst offenders, are there others that come to mind? As a stopgap, you can select certain criteria for Twinkle to prompt you to edit the default deletion log entry before deleting, that's in your Twinkle preferences. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:15, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, I guess that shows how much I pay attention to pages I delete... G6 is the only one I would be using it regularly for. I remember there was a non-G6 deletion I did at some point last week that had the same issue, but since there's no extra summary I can't find it! In the meantime, if there's something that needs further explanation I'll just use the regular delete menu. Primefac (talk) 17:28, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

@Primefac: Check out this diff to db-move (sandbox), what do you think? That would allow all sysops (including Twinkle) to make use of the parameters in the default deletion summary. I can start a section on Template talk:Db-meta. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:38, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea. Primefac (talk) 17:43, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

merge helper

There are several articles I'm trying to propose a merger into one article. Despite removing "tag the target" check box, it keeps tagging up the target and causing me frustrations as you can see in the edit history at Atlassian. Why is this happening? Graywalls (talk) 00:55, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for just seeing this today, Graywalls, but that's a bona fide bug! I fixed it at https://github.com/azatoth/twinkle/pull/1125 and pushed it up live, should work from here on out! ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:08, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

@Amorymeltzer:, so do I have to do anything on my end to update it like reinstalling it in my user profile? Graywalls (talk) 04:40, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Nope, you should be all set! There's a small chance you'd need to refresh your cache, but you should be good to go. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:37, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Unable to add Template:Bad trace

Hello!

When I was trying to add {{Bad trace}} to File:Amber Sound FM logo.svg I got this error message: This appears to be a svg file, please use {{Bad SVG}} instead. which is very weird, since it is SVGs that can be autotraced.Jonteemil (talk) 12:15, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Yup! Bug from when I added checks for extensions to certain tags (like {{Bad SVG}}, etc.) because I'm dumb. This should be fixed now. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:36, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Repeated error

Twice in the last 15 minutes or so I've nominated two articles at AfD through Twinkle (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Baltimore Police Department officers killed in the line of duty and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Los Angeles Police Department officers killed in the line of duty) and Twinkle has failed to create the AfD page or add the discussion to DELSORT pages (while successfully tagging the article, adding the AfD to the daily log, and notifying the creator). It showed me an error message in red, though I can't remember what it said, and, I believe, said it was re-trying, though apparently to no avail. In the same time I've successfully nominated two other articles with no issues. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 13:02, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

That it was re-trying indicates a token error. 1119 – SD0001 (talk) 14:05, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks – good to know people are aware of it. I probably could've found my way to that page but find Github a bit perplexing; will try to explore further in future. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 17:01, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Uw-afd series RM

These templates are used by Twinkle, so you may want to see the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Template_index/User_talk_namespace#Requested_move_16_September_2020. Adam9007 (talk) 19:55, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Add {{subst:Welcome-anon-unsourced}}

Self-explanatory. The template is not on Twinkle for some reason. Mvcg66b3r (talk) 04:33, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

"Historic name" vs. "former name" for redirects

It's not at all clear in the Twinkle redirect tagging box that "historic name" refers to a former name of the subject, whereas "former name" refers to a former name of the subject's article (at least I think). Could the descriptions please be improved? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:29, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

From the documentation of {{R from historic name}} and {{R from former name}}, both appear to refer to former names of the subject, the difference being whether the name has historical significance, like Ceylon, or not, like Rubber (band). However, there are plenty of cases where one could argue for either, and a few which seem blatantly wrong. For former names of the article, we have {{R from move}}. Certes (talk) 22:41, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Certes: Hmm, thanks for the clarification. I think the twinkle descriptions could still be improved, since if they gave me the wrong impression they probably are others as well. I also wonder if these really need to be separate; have they been considered for merging? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:33, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm rarely sure which to use, and my choices may be based on opinion rather than fact, so I'm not sure we gain much by distinguishing them. Certes (talk) 10:04, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Certes, I've nominated for merging at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2020_September_23#Template:R_from_historic_name. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:31, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Error Deleting page: Failed to delete the page: The tag "twinkle" is not allowed to be manually applied.

Hello, I am updating Twinkle for viwiki. I don't know what this error is? Alphama (talk) 03:45, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

@Alphama: Create the tag named "twinkle" first, using Special:Tags (you'll need to be an admin). Twinkle on enwiki recently switched from edit summary ads to using tags. – SD0001 (talk) 04:40, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Template:R avoided double redirect

"R avoided double redirect" should have a parameter for the redirect avoided. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 08:26, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Query

Hi, this is a small query, today when I used twinkle after a long time to revert an edit I saw from my controls it dosent have (tw) in it after the summary, is it just my problem or has twinkle been updated?Antila ✉ 08:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)