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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sidriley (talk | contribs) at 20:43, 15 January 2009 (→‎Midi files: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. This page is not for new feature requests. Bugs and feature requests should be made at the BugZilla or the Village pump proposals page because there is no guarantee developers will read this page. Problems with user scripts should not be reported here, but rather to their developers (unless the bug needs immediate attention).

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.

Proposed enhancements to table sorting

Hello all. I've been working quite a bit with tables and noticed that one of the features that has been on the table sorting todo list is "don't break on colspans/rowspans (bug 8028)". Well, with the recent problems I was having with sorting (also covered above), I grabbed a copy of the wikibits.js script and started playing with it. Well one thing let to another, and I believe I've come up with a robust implementation that supports both rowspans and column spans. To summarize, I've made the following enhancements:

  1. Before sorting, rowspans will be exploded, so that rows are self contained and can be sorted without garbling the table structure.
  2. During sorting, colspans are recognized and counted when retrieving column values, so that the proper sort value is retrieved from each row. Each column in a colspan range is treated as having the same value. Colspans are preserved, they are not split.
  3. After sorting, some cell ranges may be recombined under certain restrictive conditions (still being refined). Also, the class="autorowspan" option can be applied to columns or the entire table to enable more aggressive rowspan combines, such as combining cells in the newly sorted column that were not originally combined.

I know I've put the cart before the horse, but I'd like to know who to contact to get the changes reviewed for possible inclusion in the official script. I realize there will be significant testing required as well as discussions regarding how some of its features should best work, and that it may be a long slow process.

If anyone is interested in taking a look, the source is in User:Tcncv/sorttables.js and I have a few test tables [[]User:Tcncv/Table Sort Demo|here]]. The only prerequisite is that you add importScript('User:Tcncv/sorttables.js'); to your monobook.js file (or whatever skin you use). You can also try it with your own tables by changing the class="wikitable sortable" attribute to class="wikitable tcncv_sortable" in the table definition, and optionally adding class="autorowspan" to one or more column header cells.

Currently it works well under Firefox 3.0.4, and most of it works under IE7. (Recombine does not work, but I expect to get this fixed shortly.) I plan to test in IE6 and an old version of Netscape, but will need help testing with other browsers and versions.

I'm looking forward to your feedback. -- Tcncv (talk) 06:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be nice if there were a centralized location for continued discussion of modifications to this file, like there is for MediaWiki:Common.css or MediaWiki:Monobook.css. As it stands now, discussions are hidden in the inner bowels of Bugzilla. SharkD (talk) 08:54, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well that's were changes to the mediawiki software are made, so that is where that discussion belongs. Requirements: Testing of the script on IE 5 and later, FF 2 and later, Opera 9 and later, and Safari 2 and later. A diff file between the original wikibits.js and a "new" wikibits.js, submitting the diff (aka patch) trough bugzilla with a description, testcases, and testresults. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I'll take a look around Bugzilla. I'm new to that arena, so any pointers would be appreciated. I'll also work on improving and formalizing my test cases. I will need some help with getting it tested in all of the browser versions.
I'm also still looking for input from the user/editor community. If anyone out there has worked on complex tables to which they'd like to add sort capabilities, but have not done so because of lack of rowspan/colspan support, please let me know and I'll take a look. -- Tcncv (talk) 15:23, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But, the fact is that discussions on the topic are being made here. There's three discussions on this page at this very moment, one more that I know of in the most recent archive, and probably countless others if you search farther back. Bugzilla is great when you have concrete changes that are ready to go. But it's not so great for planning or (as I mentioned) coordinating efforts. Note also that the page doesn't necessarily have to exist on Wikipedia; it could just as easily exist on the WikiMedia wiki. SharkD (talk) 04:07, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Updated proposed enhancements to table sorting

I've updated my proposed sortable table enhancements to include support for multi-row headers plus rowspan ad colspan support in these headers. This appeared to be a useful feature based on my experience and a review of the Help talk:Sorting and m:Help talk:Sorting pages. To see the enhancements, you will need to add "importScript('User:Tcncv/sorttables.js'); to your monobook.js file (or whatever skin you use). You can also try it with your own tables by changing the class="wikitable sortable" attribute to class="wikitable tcncv_sortable" in the table definition, and optionally adding class="autorowspan" to one or more column header cells. (No not add this to main space tables, as this is not yet live.)

Again, I am looking for feedback. If you like what you see, if you find problems, or have some specific table layouts that you would like supported please let me know. (Also, let me know if you know of a better place for this discussion.) -- Tcncv (talk) 05:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bizarreness

In this diff [1] I am shewn as having inserted "British recording studios" after a pipe in the category, yet I did no such thing. I simply inserted a pipe with nithing after it to force the entry to the top of the category. Is wikipedia now falsifying edits? DuncanHill (talk) 19:39, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's called the Pipe trick, and I just used it in this comment when I typed [[Help:Pipe trick|]], yet the MediaWiki software will have saved it as [[Help:Pipe trick|Pipe trick]]. --Amalthea 19:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
... and I see you fixed it already, just as Wikipedia:Category#Priority sort keys recommends. --Amalthea 19:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Aaarrggh! I don't want it saving things I haven't typed! DuncanHill (talk) 19:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So how did you get that fancy signature and timestamp after your comment? --Splarka (rant) 08:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
By typing something which I knew would, and is widely advertised as being used to, generate specific text. DuncanHill (talk) 13:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pipe and a space force it to the top. Don't forget the space!~ JohnnyMrNinja 08:56, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, I learn something new every day oO -- lucasbfr talk 16:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Remove fundraiser banner on all projects (not only English Wikipedia)

Some time ago, I unified my accounts for all Wikimedia projects (English Wikipedia, Commons, Wikibooks, Bosnian Wikipedia etc). Works great.

Some time after that, there was a new fund raiser action. I donated a small amount of money. However, the fund raising banner did not go away. Searching whether it can be turned off, and how if it can, I realized that every registered user can suppress it from showing. Later I realized that it only works for English Wikipedia, and not for any other Wikimedia projects (Commons, Bosnian WP etc).

In "my preferences" on English WP, tab "Gadgets", there is option called "Suppress display of the fundraiser banner". However, this option does not exist in preferences of other Wikimedia projects.

I do not know who is responsible for that, but it would be nice if equivalent option were available for projects other than English Wikipedia, or if setting in English WP would affect all other projects.

Dzenanz (talk) 13:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The gadget in preferences is just a quick way to add a bit of CSS to your personal stylesheet suppressing the banner. Similar personal CSS could be used on other Wikipedia projects, but this would have to be done on each project separately. I don't know if it would be technically feasible to have a way of suppressing display on all projects at once. Algebraist 13:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So, some master admin (does such a thing exist) on each project should be responsible to add such an option to preferences (and, of course, implement it)? I was not surprised much that it has not been implemented on Bosnian WP, but it is also not implemented on Commons nor German WP Dzenanz (talk) 13:31, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You could add the appropriate CSS rule to your browser's user CSS to hide the banner on all projects, if you so desired. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 14:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that does not solve the problem in general, but it will solve it for me. I am somewhat familiar with CSS, so can anyone post here this piece of style sheet that controls fundraising banner? Also, does anyone know how to apply user CSS to GoogleChrome? I recently switched from Firefox to Chrome :) Dzenanz (talk) 14:53, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What I do it to have scripts that should run for me on all wikis in User:Happy-melon/global.js (which includes an import rule for User:Happy-melon/global.css, and then include everywhere an import rule to get that script for whichever wiki (see eg mw:User:Happy-melon/monobook.js). So I only need to make one edit to get my portable code everywhere. One of the rules in my global.css is to suppress the fundraiser banner (among other things). Works for me :D Happy‑melon 15:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the fundraiser is now over, so there's not currently a banner to hide. --brion (talk) 23:23, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can we persuade you to use the same CSS ids/classes next time? :D Happy‑melon 23:25, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Brion, it looks like the banner is back. Bug? -- lucasbfr talk 16:12, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And someone has removed the gadget to suppress it. DuncanHill (talk) 16:15, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And now it's restored. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:28, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nice, I didn't dare doing it because I was not sure whether the gadget would be re enabled by default. Thanks :) -- lucasbfr talk 16:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it was a pleasant surprise for the banner to disappear just as quickly as it reappeared. Wasn't sure if it was the gadget or its actual removal until I checked out my preferences. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why am I constantly being prompted with a Captcha requirement?

Resolved
 – ukexpat (talk) 02:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Despite multiple edits, I'm still being required to enter a Captcha phrase at times when I add links or undo edits by vandals which re-add links. I've got more than 10 edits, is it a length of time with an account requirement? AnyPerson (talk) 05:12, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Only registered users whose accounts have less than ten edits and are less than four days old are required to fill out a Captcha. So you will have to wait another two days. Graham87 09:05, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I wasn't aware of the time requirement. I'll just have to wait. Sigh.  :) AnyPerson (talk) 02:05, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. A slight correction: to avoid seeing the Captcha, an account must be at least four days old and have at least 10 edits. So a seven-week-old account with one edit will still see the Captcha until their tenth edit is reached, if that ever happens. See Wikipedia:User access levels #Autoconfirmed users. Graham87 15:15, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Associating user id with talk page id in wiki dumps

I'm processing the most recently finished en-wiki-...-stubs-meta-history.xml dump for a research project and have run in to the following questions:

  1. Is there an easy way to associate someone's user id with their talk page id (as well as their user page id)?
  2. If a user changes their user name, does their associated talk page keep the same page id? How about subpages of their talk page (eg. User talk:User_Name/old)?
  3. How does user name changes affect user name collisions over time? For example, the user name "0" has had several different user ids associated with it over Wikipedia's history. If an user edited "User talk:0" who were they talking to, the current (as of the dump) user id associated with "0" or the user id whose user name was "0" at that time?

Please let me know if there is a more appropriate forum for this question. Thanks for the help!

Andlarry (talk) 19:05, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a sysadmin, but I'll take a stab at these based on what I know from doing work on page histories.
  1. Not that I know of, but there is probably a weak correlation. Circumstances that can affect this include:
    1. The user and/or user talk page was created a while after the user's first edit/account creation. In my case, I created my user page three months after creating an account, and my user talk page was created one month after my account creation.
    2. The user or user talk page was deleted at some point, but not to make way for a page move (see below). When a page is deleted, it loses its old page ID, and when it is undeleted or re-created, it gets a new page ID as if it is a brand new page. This can be demonstrated on-wiki by using the whatlinkshere function, which orders pages by page ID. For example, in Special:Whatlinkshere/Fleishhacker Pool, one would expect the swimming pool article to be listed first, as it was created in March 2002. However it is listed at the end because it has been deleted and restored several times.
  2. Yes, assuming the user and talk pages were moved with the page move function, which preserves the page ID, even when a deletion is required to make way for a move. For an on-wiki demonstration, see Special:Whatlinkshere/Biscayne Aquifer and note that Miami is listed near the top even though it was deleted to make way for page moves from Miami, Florida several times. You might also be interested in the effects of username changes before the advent of the user rename tool for bureaucrats. The user's settings and watchlist were transferred, but their edits were not. For example, see this diff - the second edit of that diff is ClockworkSoul's first recorded edit.
  3. That depends on page moves. When my username was Pianoman87, I received messages addressed to User talk:Pianoman87, but they are now in the page history of my current user talk page. Currently, the user with the most recent user ID will probably get a message posted to their user talk page, but I'm not completely certain of this. I just tested this on my old username, and I received a new messages bar when I logged in to that account. Also see the contributions of that account, and note the earlier contribs, which were edits that were deleted when I was Pianoman87 but undeleted when my username was changed. User:0 seems to have been used as a placeholder username in the phase II software, so that's why it would have multiple IDs.

Hope this helps. Graham87 06:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, renaming a user now changes the username in all deleted edits by that user, so the above problem with early contributions attached to my old username, Pianoman87, isn't an issue for users who were renamed since late July 2007 (I changed my username in March 2006). Graham87 07:00, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Qui

I run Internet Explorer (newest version, i think) and use Qui- however, it seems to be broken- it always dispays "Offline" whatever I put into the /status subpage. I'm not sure what the problem is, but can anyone help me fix it? Resident Mario (talk) 20:14, 10 January 2009 (UTC) 2 minutes later: oh it came on! Why did it take so long?[reply]

Actually, that's one of many problems that for some reason keep popping up. The others:

  • When I load the page, the images for the "2009" template blink on and off rapidly
  • When editting, sometimes the scrollbar for the edit part is a lot smaller then the text- scrolling down reveals more code and shortens it.
  • There is an archived }} on my user page, next to the Blue text at the top, tghat I cannot seem to remove.
  • number 2 also sometimes happens with the userbox stack near the bottom.

Resident Mario (talk) 20:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another 2 minutes later. And now I am offline again. WTF? Resident Mario (talk) 20:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh god, I tried to add on a new image and it's like it didn't even exist.24.185.37.213 (talk) 21:39, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried using Firefox? The problem might have to do with your browser. —Remember the dot (talk) 21:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't have Modzilla. Since Internet Explorer is covered by about 70% of the Internet-surfing population, bugs in Wikipedia due to this browser is bad indeed. 24.185.37.213 (talk) 23:14, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The problem could be with something specific to how Internet Explorer is configured on your machine. Or, it might be a problem with your Internet connection. Since no one else seems to be experiencing the problem, it's probably something on your end. Why not give Firefox a try just to rule out browser issues? —Remember the dot (talk) 23:20, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other then Qui, the other issues only appear on my main page for some reason- the template displays no questions asked at User:Resident_Mario/2009 (altbiet Qui almost certainly is), so i dont think it's a Browser issue, or else this place whould have been flooded with "My Wikipedia is not working!" After all, statistically, Internet Explorer is 70% or somethingResident Mario (talk) 23:37, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you asked on the Qui talk page to see if other users are having the same problem? – ukexpat (talk) 01:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Qui does not support Internet Explorer (I don't have Windows), nor is Qui in any way part of "Wikipedia". It is just a tool that I wrote, and that some folks can CHOOSE to use. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing double redirects

I'm pretty sure there are bots out there fixing double redirects, since Mediawiki no longer fixes them automatically (see WP:Double redirects and User:Redirect fixer). However, I'm curious as to which bots they are, and how often they run. This question occurred to me because of the recent merger of WP:CONTEXT and WP:BTW into MOS:LINK, and it seems that none of the resulting redirects have been fixed yet. Could someone fill me in? Thanks,--Aervanath talks like a mover, but not a shaker 16:35, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:RussBot fixes double redirects with manual assistance. I'm not sure which other bots fix double redirects. Graham87 04:16, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How to make a scrollable div scrolled down to the bottom by default

Does anyone know a way to make a box such as User:Army1987#Guestbook display the bottom of its content, instead of its top, when the page is loaded? -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 16:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure. You can scroll a window using the scrollBy method, but it doesn't seem to work for elements of the document. SharkD (talk) 06:27, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I found it. In pure HTML, what you need to do is change the scrollTop property of the DIV element. SharkD (talk) 06:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is that settable via CSS? If so, why not add a new class to MediaWiki:Common.css, then use the class on the DIV? Also, this seems to be a Microsoft extension, is there a W3C equivalent? —Locke Cole • t • c 06:51, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I just did some tests, and I'm not at all sure how you could modify this property. Wikipedia doesn't allow users to attach events to HTML elements for security reasons. And, there's no corresponding CSS attribute. You'd need to file a report on Bugzilla to have the feature added to the site's own scripts. SharkD (talk) 06:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It could be done in Common.js, but I'm not sure if it would be accepted. Its encyclopedic value is rather limited... :D Happy‑melon 11:12, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Are scrollable HTML elements used anywhere else on Wikipedia? If so, the functionality could just be tacked on there. SharkD (talk) 22:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not that I'm aware of, and they're explicitly proscribed by MOS:SCROLL in article content. Can't think where they'd be useful in the encyclopedia, certainly not autoscrolled. Happy‑melon 22:57, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The "Traffic stats" link in the navbar to the left should now be "http://stats.grok.se/en/200901/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)", and not "http://stats.grok.se/en/200812/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)". Which system message does one edit to change this?  Sandstein  22:53, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Say again? Where is this link, exactly? Happy‑melon 23:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Got it. It was in User:Smith609/toolbox.js. Happy‑melon 23:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Stupid of me - I forgot that this is produced by a monobook.js extension, not the default skin.  Sandstein  23:24, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First table-flipping work in progress

As discussed here, I've created an example of a table-flipping script. You can find it here. I've only tested it in IE7 and FF3, and would like it if people with different browsers would test it. SharkD (talk) 05:02, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me in Safari 3.1.2. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:39, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nice script. Works in Opera 9.50 (I presume in latter versions as well) and Google Chrome 1.0. SoWhy 15:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Using IE6 here. Are whole portions of the flipped table supposed to disappear? Any cell that comes after the threshold of centering does not show. — Edokter • Talk • 21:18, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's the whole point of the script. :) SharkD (talk) 22:11, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the project's page on Bugzilla. SharkD (talk) 06:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Error message in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_gearing

I get the error message *Failed to parse (Cannot write to or create math output directory): in bright red.My adopter says he doesn't have a problem in viewing the page.What gives?EaswarH (talk) 13:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me too. Try WP:PURGE or WP:NULL, and give us your browser/OS if it still doesn't work. Happy‑melon 13:39, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Bypassing my browser cache didn't work,but WP:PURGE worked.I see math formulas now.What was the problem?EaswarH (talk) 13:53, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like it was a problem with the Wikipedia servers, thnot your computer. The only recent activity in the server admin log is about problems with the server db18. I don't know if that had anything to do with your problem though. Graham87 15:02, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is due to a borked setup on a couple of servers. Should be taken care of pretty soon. You can do a purge or null edit on any page you see it turn up on and it should re-render fine. --brion (talk) 19:23, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite sure where to best report this so I'll try here...

On the page Special:LinkSearch there is a link to the crosswiki linksearch tool, however the link appears to be out of date. It currently goes to "http://toolserver.org/~eagle/linksearch", which is a 404. The correct link is "http://toolserver.org/~eagle/crosswiki.php". Could someone either fix this, report it to the appropriate people, or tell me where to report it.

Thanks! --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have requested the necessary change here. Good spot! haz (talk) 15:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
 Done EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New messages banner still there

My "You have new messages" banner hasn't gone away since someone at the DOF left me a note. There was a file move at the servers on the second but my banner keeps popping up whenever I sign in. Anyone else noticed that? I have a bugzillia account and if it's not just mee I'll file a bug.--Ipatrol (talk) 20:53, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you purged? – ukexpat (talk) 22:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

About Template:Section template list

Resolved

In the first two lines of Template:Section template list, there seems to be an error in spacing (and grammar), the details about Template:Catmore may belong on a second line. Could someone who is knowledgeable about templates repair this for us?

{{Cat also}} is used for small sets of see also (list of other categories) for information in the end of text on category pages or talk pages, etc. Template:Catmore (edit talk links history) "The main article for this category is..." Thanks. --Funandtrvl (talk) 01:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Like this? --Amalthea 02:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for fixing it!! --Funandtrvl (talk) 05:09, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Anytime. --Amalthea 11:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can't edit pages while logged in

Resolved
 – ukexpat (talk) 03:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When I click on a red link or the "edit this page" button, a window opens up saying "You have chosen to open index.php" and the editing page doesn't load on the browser. If I log out of my account I don't have this problem. It's happening in Firefox and IE, and I haven't changed any of my settings or anything. (for some reason, if I click "new section" I can edit pages, like this one) --Ships at a Distance (talk) 02:28, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Go to your preferences under editing and check that 'use external editor by default' is turned off. I know you didn't change anything, but this setting is known to sometimes be activated by evil gremlins in a not-understood way. Algebraist 02:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That fixed it, thank you so much for helping! --Ships at a Distance (talk) 02:38, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Special:BlockMe

Yes, there is a special page called Special:BlockMe. I stumbled upon it by chance. Currently it says "This function is disabled. ". Does anyone know what function it served? A way for administrators to give themselves a wikibreak? 140.247.249.150 (talk) 06:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe Special:Blockme was used by the open proxy detecting function of mediawiki, before it was disabled due to the increasing traffic of the site. Prodego talk 06:20, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l/2004-April/012058.html PrimeHunter (talk) 15:12, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So anyone could have blocked themselves using Special:BlockMe if they knew their own IP address? weird, even if that wasn't how that feature was actually used. There's some discussion of admins blocking themselves at Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy/Archive_1, but no mention of Special:BlockMe. 140.247.240.98 (talk) 17:12, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And somehow despite this, there are still people who think a {{CURRENTUSER}} variable would be a good idea… — CharlotteWebb 17:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming CSS classes

Sounds like a Bad Idea, but I think we (read I) have made a huge mistake in adding the CSS classes to {{FA-Class}}, {{Category-Class}}, etc, in mixed case. Where the classes are currently assess-FA, assess-Category, assess-Disambig, etc, we'll be saving ourselves a lot of grief if we make them lowercase: assess-fa, assess-category, assess-disambig, etc. They're not very widely used; most of those appearances are assess-FA-text associated with MediaWiki:Gadget-metadata.js (which should also be updated, I'll talk to Pyrospirit separately), so this is more of a "speak now or for ever hold your peace" post. Happy‑melon 11:17, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've made the relevant changes to the gadget. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 21:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Table Background

Resolved

Hi. Ive put all my Userboxes in a table, and then I've nested this table into another cell. My only problem now is, there is pieces of white between the first tables cells. I've looked in the Table Help file, but I couldn't figure it out. Ive even look at table background colour stuff. Id appreciate any help or suggestions! :) Slapsnot (talk) 13:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The white is gone, but it's looking weird now since you removed the width and alignment. --Amalthea 13:51, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much Amalthea! Im busy editing it a little more. Ive removed some stuff, so that the Userbox can be centred to the blue box. Slapsnot (talk) 13:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Anytime. --Amalthea 13:58, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template updating

I've talked with a couple other users, so I know it's not just me, but, for example, I've updated Template:Bear Lake County, Idaho, adding communities for articles I've started, but they don't show up in the box. This has also happened to me with Template:Ted Kotcheff and, as I mentioned, I know others have had this happen as well. Is this a server problem, or something I can do something about? Thmazing (talk) 20:45, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In short: view the article , edit the template, look at the article again, and it doesn't look like you edited the template. I've had this happen to me also. I should note that everything displays properly when I view an article that I've not seen before editing the template, or when, after looking at the first article again, I edit the article and view it after saving. Is this perhaps vaguely related to, when we have a template that places articles into a category (for example, stub templates) and we change the category, how it doesn't immediately make them move into the new category? Nyttend (talk) 23:29, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:NULL vs WP:PURGE. Happy‑melon 23:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WP:PURGE it or make a WP:NULL edit and you'll see it right away, or just wait and it'll be updated eventually. Nyttend, it's related, but not the same – with transcluded categories, a cache purge won't help, but a null edit will. --Amalthea 23:36, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aarhus page, with scandinavian characters, and at least two pages with asian characters on them, suffer from a 'edit this section link' drop, ie, there is a collection of 'edit' links about halfway down the page that 'came from' preceding sections. The non-english character aspect is not in itself the cause, as I have seen asian character pages that didn't have this problem. But so far, no pages that had the problem, and no non-english characters.

Aarhus page, Demographics section, second sentence, first cite

Showing this with nowiki turned on. Aarhus is also a major part of the larger [[East Jutland metropolitan area]] with 1,200,000 inhabitants that makes East Jutland the second most-populated area in Denmark, after the [[Copenhagen]] area.<ref>[http://www.dst.dk/TilSalg/Boghandel/Befolkning.aspx Danmarks Statistik] 2006a {{da icon}}</ref>
The above displays the url as the visible link, despite the space and following text with brackets in black outside of the link. Other such links on the page work correctly. It displays properly as a ref link, in the citations, not as a direct link.
Anarchangel (talk) 21:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On your first point, see WP:BUNCH. The link problem was caused by linebreaks in the link. Fixed. Algebraist 21:11, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Help Desk history

I am a member of imdb, and one of the features is a help desk history.

Going through my contribuions to find what Help desk questions I have asked is a real pain. Does the site, or can the site, have a better way to do that?

One thing I'm trying to accomplish is to see how I could have asked each question in the proper place.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:28, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you talking about the "help desk" service at imdb, or our own help desk here? There's nothing we can do here about services on another website. Happy‑melon 21:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm asking how I might find my Help Desk questions here, which on imdb just requires a single click once you are on your page.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 22:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We can search for Vchimpanzee on the Help Desk archives. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 23:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can also filter your contributions in Wikipedia namespace [2]. As far as I know, there is no built-in way to find all edits of a user to a page (maybe there are external tools for that). It's possible for logs, but not edits. It may be useful, so I suppose it has been requested. Cenarium (Talk) 00:59, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is one inbuilt way, via the API: ...&rvuser=Vchimpanzee&titles=Wikipedia%3AHelp%20desk. See also bugzilla:10788. --Splarka (rant) 08:36, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:32, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Transclusion errors?

Recently, an article that was named Dickie Moore was renamed to Dickie Moore (ice hockey). A problem has been discovered with this move, if you take a look at Special:WhatLinksHere/Dickie_Moore, you will see a lot of articles that should NOT link there. Rather, these links should be shown on Special:WhatLinksHere/Dickie_Moore (ice hockey). I've noticed that if you click on one of the pages from the former and do a null edit, it disappears and properly moves to the correct what links here page. Is this a caching issue with Wikipedia? We've noticed the same problem exists with Claude Julien as well. Please advise --Pparazorback (talk) 23:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The job queue is rather long at the moment, so this sort of thing will take a while to sort itself out. In the meantime, it can be fixed immediately with a null edit, as you discovered, but since this just puts more strain on the servers, it should be avoided unless there's some pressing reason. Algebraist 23:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
AWB seems perfect for this... flaminglawyerc 04:54, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Search Engine Question

Has something changed with the Wikipedia search engine? I frequently use the pre-defined searches from the Wikipedia:Lists_of_common_misspellings. All of them are returning no results. Similarly, typing any misspelled word in the Search box on the left hand side of the page returns no results. I haven't changed any of my preferences. All these processes were working fine yesterday. Sorry if I'm missing something obvious. Thanks. JimVC3 (talk) 01:04, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. It seems to be working now. JimVC3 (talk) 01:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason RMI connections across the cluster started failing producing outage in search and then came back again about a half an hour later. I'll keep an eye on it. --rainman (talk) 11:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image behaviour differences Wikipedia and Commons

Resolved

I refer to the image File:Grid 99, 100 int red 50 int yellow (940).svg.

It has no, that is, a transparent, background.

When rendered via a page in Wikipedia over the top of another image it correctly reveals all of the underlying image.

When rendered via a page in Commons over the top of another image it incorrectly hides all of the underlying image, as though it has a white background.

I have raised this with examples at Commons so any comments or suggestions there please.

Peet Ern (talk) 07:05, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Left a reply. Commons has some CSS. --Splarka (rant) 08:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to Commons:User:Edokter. Apparently the problem is with IE6. Wikipedia runs a script to enable transparency in IE6, but Commons does not. IE7 and Firefox are okay. Peet Ern (talk) 03:21, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that certainly isn't a bug with mediawiki or how it is set up or styled! You could have mentioned such an old crappy browser ^_^. --Splarka (rant) 08:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Privacy problem: posting of IP address in 'recommended messages'

In a recent discussion here, User:Od Mishehu said that the autoblock message has recently been modified so that it doesn't reveal the IP. But he said "in other blocks the recommended message does". Does anybody know which recommended messages reveal the IP address? Lightmouse (talk) 13:33, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can anybody suggest a better place to ask? Lightmouse (talk) 13:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WP:AN? Almost everyone there is an administrator and can go to Special:Block and look around... Calvin 1998 (t·c) 15:05, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I asked there twice and got referred here. Shall I ask there again? Lightmouse (talk) 16:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can see a list of all MediaWiki messages (and their values, default and current) here: Special:AllMessages (warning: large page). —Locke Cole • t • c 17:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. It is a bit complicated for me. Is there anybody out there that can investigate based on the comment by User:Od Mishehu? Lightmouse (talk) 19:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone with more knowledge of the subject please fix Template:RMlink? When the article to be moved is a WP: page, it doesn't understand ([[Talk:Wikipedia:Ethnic and cultural conflicts noticeboard#Requested move|Discuss]]). Its not going to set anything on fire, but it is probably very confusing to people who don't know why they can't link the discussion. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 15:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing wrong with the template; you can override the namespace by setting the 4th parameter to "Wikipedia talk" so that the discuss link will point to the correct location. — Edokter • Talk • 15:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, that will set the wikilink to point to "Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia:Ethnic and cultural conflicts noticeboard#Requested move". To fix this template, we either need StringFunctions (which aren't installed at the moment, go vote for bug 6455) or we need to separate the namespace into its own parameter, which is a can of worms in that changing the syntax of live templates can get ugly. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 16:00, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see the problem now. The template is mainly designed for articles. Maybe a seperate template for other namespaces makes more sense. Hacking this one to accomodate every namespace will be quite cumbersome. — Edokter • Talk • 22:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

does there exist a tool to...

Does there exist a tool to see an article's What links here minus blue links that occur in the article? In other words, I want to see what links to an article that the article itself doesn't already link to. Kingturtle (talk) 18:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not really, you'd have to get the two lists from the API and compare manually. Alternatively, if both of these features are available from AWB, you could get its list comparer to wrap that process nicely for you. Happy‑melon 19:58, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
this is out of my realm of skills. Is there anyone out there who can create such a tool? Kingturtle (talk) 21:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm actually in the process of constructing such a tool, but my Toolserver account request hasn't been handled yet. Would you like me to upload it to some other home for it in the meantime? I'd have to tweak it to use the API, but I'm sure that wouldn't be a problem. haz (talk) 22:08, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That'd be great. It will be a very useful tool for me. Thanks, Kingturtle (talk) 03:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
AWB (Windows-only) will do this, and I think you can use it to generate lists without being approved for editing with it. --NE2 03:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why does my signiture not work?

Even though I sign with the four tildes, the bot comes and says <unsigned>. Why? More 19:20, 14 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SlamMeMore (talk • contribs) [reply]

Because your signature links to User talk:SlamMe, not to User talk:SlamMeMore, so the bot doesn't recognize it. --Amalthea 19:26, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. As said when you asked at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 December 12#My name, you have to change your signature. It's changed at Special:Preferences. You didn't believe me then but we have some experience here so please take our word for it and fix it. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:43, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Now it works like this, wchich is better, it guess. 330066"><b>More</b></font>]] (talk) 05:40, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It links to the right page so SineBot should acccept it, but it looks confusing. If you want help creating a formatted signature then say what you want it to look like. The easiest way to get a correct signature is to uncheck "Raw signature" and leave the Signature field blank. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Recently the Permanent link on the left side of the screen has been changed to omit the title=.

For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Louis_XV_of_France&oldid=260401947 is just http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=260401947. Including the title is convenient because you can see from the link which article it points to. I copy those so I can reference articles in the state it was when I read them, or read them in the state I noticed them.

Was this change discussed? MeekSaffron (talk) 21:04, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would imagine that it's because it could then be thrown off by a moved page (ie: the oldid is valid, but the title is not). However, that's just me shooting in the dark and could be quite wrong. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:05, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I tested it. Eadred of England was Edred of England, moved in November 2008. I edited a link to a December revision to say Edred_of_England, which works. Even putting in a nonsense title, E1 of England, works.
It's a reasonable idea, but that wasn't the reason. MeekSaffron (talk) 21:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It was changed in this revision due to bug 16659. Tra (Talk) 23:03, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can see the reason for avoiding permalinks like http://hi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%82%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%B6%E0%A5%80_(1992_%E0%A4%AB%E0%A4%BC%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%B2%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AE)&oldid=188492 for non-ASCII languages, but having the page name can be very convenient when it displays normally or with a limited number of conversions. And if the page is deleted then you can no longer see which page it was without the name. The software actually claims it was the Main Page! For example http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=263146657 which according to Google cache was a permalink to Jeevithathil Ninnum Oru Aedu before it was deleted. Would it be practical to include page name in "ASCII language" Wikipedia's or something like that? PrimeHunter (talk) 23:27, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Excepting the long-ASCII example, removing the title makes it less useful. Shorter, but not "prettier" in my opinion. I registered there and requested a reversal, or asking if the "prettify" could be done to only if 10+ ASCII conversions. I would be fine with 2 types of permalinks in the toolbox too, but I think a conversation among more people would be preferable. MeekSaffron (talk) 00:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

reporting error

and supplying link https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Kgb_(company)&diff=cur&oldid=prev —Preceding unsigned comment added by Harlequence (talk • contribs) 07:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There has not been a page called Kgb_(company). Where did you get the url from? Maybe the error message should ask for that. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:52, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It probably should. The message is MediaWiki:Missing-article, FYI. Algebraist 13:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clock gadget

I have the clock gadget enabled. I just noticed that it is now displaying two clocks in my personal toolbar, one slightly smaller than the other, the smaller one with "UTC" following it, both showing UTC, and both do a server purge when clicked. Disabling the clock removes both. Has someone been monkeying around with the gadget? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 17:22, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Belay that question - it appears that he second clock is a Friendly enhancement - Wikipedia talk:Friendly#friendlyclock!. – ukexpat (talk) 17:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I came here just to ask why a clock started showing up without any apparent reason. –Capricorn42 (talk) 19:05, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Superscript", "Insert hidden Comment" and "Insert a table" are showing up as plain words. The symbols are not there, unlike with the rest of things along the top of the edit box when you edit a page. D.M.N. (talk) 18:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with main.css

I'm experiencing problem with loading some pages, mainly diffs. The styling of the diff table is missing about half the time. Since that styling is defind in skins/monobook/main.css, I suspect there is a problem serving that file. Anyone else experiencing that problem? — Edokter • Talk • 19:50, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The same thing is also showing up on Finnish Wikipedia. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 20:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, the format of diffs is completely borked for me. I have a screenshot if it is needed. Regards. Woody (talk) 20:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a local thing apparently, and I can't see any local MediaWiki changes. Woody (talk) 20:16, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like the system administrators are having issues with the servers: Server admin log. Woody (talk) 20:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was just going to suggest that. I've had issues with pages partially loading and pages loading without the styles. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 20:30, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Diff Layout

I have just checked a diff of an article on my watchlist and usually the new text is highlighetd a green colour but at the moment it is not, also the text at the top of the page is aligned left with the Revision as of... pushed right over to the left side. Have I done something or is there a bug I am using Opera, but saying that I tried it in IE and it was the same thanks. BigDuncTalk 20:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See above. Woody (talk) 20:17, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Midi files

I would like to upload and embed a MIDI file in an article. I know OGG is the Wiki standard, but how am I supposed to convert a MIDI file into an OGG file? I can't find a converter. Can someone help me? --Rattlehead (talk) 20:43, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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