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Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by PrimeHunter (talk | contribs) at 02:24, 31 January 2009 (→‎Images on Bad Image list cause the next paragraph (or more) of text to vanish?: This is also reported in bugzilla:16039). 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.

I'd like to suggest that links to Google machine translations be provided next to inter-language wiki links in the WP sidebar. SharkD (talk) 03:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why are machine translations desirable? {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 03:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, using computerized translation isn't preferable when you're talking about an encyclopedia like this. It's inaccurate to say the least, and Google translations are not as open as Wikipedia in terms of suggesting better translations manually.
That said, I'm waiting for a reason from SharkD. HУтaяtalk2mecontribs 20:44, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This would probably be more useful to editors - you could compare an article with, say, its French version and see if there's any information in the French version that's missing in English. Maybe this feature would be best implemented as a user script or gadget. Tra (Talk) 23:06, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The reason is that I'd like a simple way to search on other language wikis when I suspect that reliable information might be found there. There are a lot of Japanese video game stubs that could use expanding. SharkD (talk) 08:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I thought the Google toolbar had this kind of functionality? — Blue-Haired Lawyer 23:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have a javascript that adds a translation link to any wiki page where wgContentLanguage != wgUserLanguage (so of course you have to be logged in—go-go SUL…). — CharlotteWebb 04:02, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have to load the target page first before this link becomes available? SharkD (talk) 08:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkle and Huggle problems

Twinkle and Huggle are sometimes overwritting warning templates when placing a new warning.[1][2][3][4] The folks at Twinkle/Bugs suggested this. Is this a known problem; is there a workaround or noticeboard I should know about? PS: I'm using Google Chrome... this never happened to me (that I know of) with Firefox, where I would recieve a confirmation question if warnings were <1 minute appart. NJGW (talk) 22:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Any suggestions? NJGW (talk) 06:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How about suggestions about who would have suggestions? NJGW (talk) 01:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestions of noticeboards that give suggestions? NJGW (talk) 07:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is anyone else seeing this? NJGW (talk) 19:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Messages following CfDs

When a category gets moved following a CfD, a bot leaves a message in the new category that lists the authors of the old category. For instance:

"Robot: Moved from Category:Space trading and combat simulation games. Authors: Painbearer, Marasmusine, Cydebot, Eep², SharkD"

My question is, in what order are the names listed? Are they listed in the order that edits were made? Who is the "first" editor, chronologically? SharkD (talk) 10:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on how the bot is written; not all of them list the authors. In this case, I'd ask User:Cyde, as it was his bot that moved the space trading category. --Kbdank71 16:25, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see. Thanks. SharkD (talk) 03:15, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cough, cough. It's about time we had some built-in way to move categories. Ideally the redirects would work as well as template redirects. That is, articles using the old category name would immediately appear to be using the new category name in every respect except for the wikitext of the article, which need not be immediately updated. Same thing for images would be nice… — CharlotteWebb 03:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If moving a category preserved its edit history I would be satisfied. SharkD (talk) 06:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Search box at the top of this page

I don't know if anyone has noticed this, but if you type some text into the search field at the top of this article and simply press 'Enter' (i.e. without actually clicking the button), then you are automatically taken to the article with the same name matching the text you entered instead of to the search results. (Internet Explorer 7) SharkD (talk) 19:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, because the default action is "Go", not "Search". - Jmabel | Talk 19:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the confusion, but I meant the "Search the Village Pumps" box. SharkD (talk) 21:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This was previously reported at the helpdesk. I don't know if anything can be done about it other than bemoan the brokenness of IE. Algebraist 00:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Filing this in our system as bugzilla:17161 --brion (talk) 17:44, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wanted: Unemployed Insomniac

For: Cleaning up the odd numbering and spacing at Arrondissement of Montbard
Reward: You can listen to the song at the right.
DEAD OR ALIVE. Sheriff Eddy (Howdy Partners!) 02:04, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll bite. What specifically do you need done? -- Tcncv (talk) 04:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I don't think WP:NFCC permits "displaying" the audio sample on the village pump. — CharlotteWebb 05:13, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever. If you check out the table at the arrondissement table, you'll see that most of it is in three columns but some is in 4 and other in two. The numbering is also messed up because a new commune was added with the merger of two small ones. ~EDDY (talk/contribs/editor review)~ 01:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I rest my case. As for the article I don't know any universally accepted way to split it into three columns without manually numbering the communes, which is pretty lame if the list is subject to change. Also anyone copying and pasting the list would probably not want to include the numbers at the front. I suspect the numbers are not necessary or meaningful as it is an alphabetical list. Probably best to split it into three hard columns of 84 each and use asterisk-bullet points. — CharlotteWebb 16:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've created a table that needs to have the column headers rotated 90 degrees. The cross-browser way of doing this that I've observed being used on Wikipedia is to use SVG images in place of the cell text. There's one problem, however: normally, clicking on an image will take visitors to the page for the image. How do I change it so that visitors will be taken to a different (i.e. arbitrary) page? Thanks. SharkD (talk) 14:08, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By using the ImageMap extension. Graham87 15:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. The problem now is I can't remember which article(s) this technique was used in. Does anyone recall coming across any tables that have vertically-oriented text (but in reality SVG files) in the top row? I want to look more closely at how the images themselves were sized/scaled. SharkD (talk) 16:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nevermind. I found the article. SharkD (talk) 17:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For future reference, I added a section on the tables help page that describes how this is achieved. SharkD (talk) 01:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fonts used by the SVG rasterizer

Where can I find the fonts used by the SVG rasterizer? When I create images on my local system InkScape uses my local fonts, which are different than those used by Wikipedia. Thanks. SharkD (talk) 19:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See m:SVG fonts. --dapete 21:01, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks. SharkD (talk) 23:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Technical feasabilities of two proposals from the "proposals" section

How technically feasible would it be to:

  1. Make the "edit" tab larger and/or highlighted with different colors from the other tabs, to encourage editing?
  2. Add a feature that acts like "random article", but within a specified category, or the realm of a specified portal or wikiproject?

Thanks,» šᾦῥъτ ¢ 19:45, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about #2, but #1 is very easy. Any admin can just go to MediaWiki:Edit and change how the 'edit' function is displayed. -- King of 20:01, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, MediaWiki:Edit only controls the text of the edit tab and, as far as I know, accepts only plaintext input. You'd need to use MediaWiki:Monobook.css to change its colour or size. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 20:23, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nihiltres is correct about the interface page. Getting a random article within a category would be a fun toolserver gadget if somebody wants to create it. Just include links like http://toolserver.org/~somebody/randompage.php?fromcat=Living_people (or whatever you're on about) to the sidebar. This would give BLP patrolling a new dimension at least. If this works well and proves popular it can be added to the main software perhaps. — CharlotteWebb 16:51, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This tool http://tools.wikimedia.de/~erwin85/randomarticle.php will give you a random article in a given category. This link gives you a random BLP. --Pixelface (talk) 23:44, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, there is nothing new under the sun. — CharlotteWebb 03:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikibooks does something slightly more hacky in site JS. It gives you a "random book" by searching (client side, via the API) generator=random via query-continue until it finds a page within one of the target categories (of which there are 38), but this works because about 10% of all NS_MAIN non-redirect pages are in one of those categories. There are a few categories here that would be feasable, such as Category:Living people. --Splarka (rant) 08:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OGM files

I recently converted an MP4 video to the OGM format using SUPER, but Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons only accepts OGG and OGV files. (And SUPER can't convert to OGG or OGV video.) What's the difference between .ogm and .ogv? Is there any reason Wikipedia doesn't take OGM (which is as Free as OGG or OGV)? -- King of 19:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

try useing the transcoder built into VLC media player Geni 01:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's all one and the same format, just different file extensions. ogg is the original format for audio vorbis. ogm includes some extensions for dealing with video/subtitles and metadata in this fileformat. It is the same fileformat, but you might say that it is a "newer" version of the specification. .ogm is not an official file-extension, but was used widely as a file extension to differentiate these files from pure ogg vorbis audio files. ogv and oga are the "new" file extensions that are now suggested to differentiate between pure audio (.oga .spx) and audio/video/meta (.ogv) files. But in essence, it's all one and the same fileformat that can contain "different" types of meda. See also [5] --TheDJ (talkcontribs) 11:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note also that .ogm files frequently contain non-free codecs. Make sure you're actually using Theora as video codec and Vorbis as audio codec, or the inline player won't work. --brion (talk) 17:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: shifting italics text slightly to the left

See MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Proposal: shifting italics text slightly to the left.

alphabete templates

Is there templates like:

?
Code: {{?}}

...for each letter of the alphabet? thanks Ikip (talk) 02:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So far I have found:
Template:A-classicon
Template:B-classicon
Template:C-classicon
Ikip (talk) 02:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The first three are used in article classification templates, judging from the filenames. – ukexpat (talk) 02:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I found these photos on wikicommons, I simply need to make templates:

Thanks. Ikip (talk) 02:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I created the templates: Template:Gross_A Ikip (talk) 03:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See also commons:Category:Latin letters. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:27, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Creating a template where the pictures are horizontal, not vertical

I am creating a template: User:Ikip/n which has my {{ARS-userpage}} template embedded in it. I am attempting to get all of the little pictures to line up, like User:Piotrus/Top or User:Peteforsyth's awards here:

This user helped "Oregon State Capitol" become a featured article.This user helped "1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack" become a featured article.This user helped "Johnson Creek (Willamette River)" become a featured article.This user helped "Hanford Site" become a featured article.This user helped "Portal:Oregon" become a featured article.This user wrote "Columbia River", which became a good article.This user wrote "Neil Goldschmidt", which became a good article.This user wrote "Barlow Road", which became a good article.This user wrote "Fern Hobbs", which became a good article.This user wrote "Celilo Falls", which became a good article.This user wrote "The Register-Guard", which became a good article.This user wrote "Portland City Hall (Oregon)", which became a good article.

Right now the photos are vertical, {{User:Ikip/n|Oregon|Moose|Canada}}.

How do I fix the coding on {{User:Ikip/n}}?

See also is able to allow pictures horizontally:

Welcome to play with the template. Ikip (talk) 04:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The primary problem is that this is using imagemap. imagemap has the nasty habbit of including it's results in a div. you are putting several of these imagemap div's next to eachother in a single div within {{User:Ikip/n}}. That is causing the problem. The implementation differs from User:Piotrus/Top etc in that these uses all have an individual "inline" div around each single symbol (imagemap div), whereas you are wrapping an "inline" div around all your symbols at once. --TheDJ (talkcontribs) 11:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you I will look into this, although I am not quite sure how to fix in now based on what you said, but it points me in the right direction. thanks for trying to fix it yourself. :) Ikip (talk) 14:39, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it isn't resolved, I removed the tag...Any more help would be appreciated. Ikip (talk) 19:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I finished my changes (didn't have the time this afternoon). But remember... this is all VERY broken. And it will be more broken when flaggedrevs arrives, because it uses the same area on a page. When flaggedrevs arrives, we will all have to really think about what we want to do with all these icons and how to "properly" use them. It's also not working in other skins now atm of course. --TheDJ (talkcontribs) 20:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Redding out edit revisions

Hey I a question why is these two edit revisions showing up red. I makes it really hard to see what changes have been made. [6] LoveMonkey (talk) 05:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason, MediaWiki thinks that the text on the right was replaced with the text on the left, but in reality there was nothing but a small addition... Calvin 1998 (t·c) 05:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Probably because the paragraph was so long. It must have totally confused MediaWiki. This, that and the other [talk] 06:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Confusing. What can be done? No disrespect intended, I promise. Also, why is it that all of the edits by this one editor kept doing this? Now one elses? My edits to the same article are not showing up this way, as well as other editors to the article, why just this editor? Note also now it has stopped. [7] Who can I got to, get this fixed? Since in good faith I do not like accusing people of gaming the system unless I have edit evidence. It appears from the edits that the editor has control over this (issue) since they are the only getting the result from their edits and now they stopped doing this after I have complained.LoveMonkey (talk) 14:13, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your own edits of a long paragraph have exactly the same redding effect: see all of those you have just done at [[8]]. Soidi (talk) 16:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe there is some kind of byte limit in the diff generator, after which it does not bother checking for similarities and differences in each "line". — CharlotteWebb 16:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: const MAX_LINE_LENGTH = 10000;
Apparently this limit was added by Tim Starling, 2005-08-31 which was a long time ago. We could ask him if this is still necessary. The paragraph you were editing is about 15,000. Probably better to split it up. If you don't want a paragraph break you can add line breaks inside the ref tags, or inside an html comment like this <!--

-->
. This will be ignored when viewing the page but at least it will split the paragraph into multiple "lines" of wiki-text to make the diff view less burdensome. — CharlotteWebb 17:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why use a comment? A single line break will do just fine... — Werdna • talk 09:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

a search engine that only searches within reliable websites ?

I often use Google to look for reliable sources about a niche topic. And most of the time, Google returns an ocean of blogs and forums, and I have to check a dozen of result pages before finding a reliable website such as "Financial Times" or "ieee.org".

Is there a search engine that only searches within reliable websites ? "reliable" is not really biased here, some websites are clearly accepted as reliable sources, we can make a list of them, based on consensus. It is impossible to write the list of all reliable websites, but a hundred of reliable websites would be enough for general topics. The list of reliable websites could be refined by Wikipedians over time.

Does such a search engine exist ? If not, is anyone willing to create a quick mashup based on Google and filters ? Thanks for any hint/idea/cooperation :-) Nicolas1981 (talk) 11:25, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google News an Google Scholar gives mostly reliable results, but certainly does not cover all reliable sites. --Apoc2400 (talk) 12:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I gave them a try, and found Google News to be useful in some cases, even though it only includes news websites and not other reference websites. Thanks ! Nicolas1981 (talk) 02:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pubmed, JSTOR (if you are at a uni with access).Geni 17:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pubmed is useful when working on biomedical research articles, I guess. I don't have access to JSTOR but I can imagine it gives access to some North American libraries' collections. The power of the search engine I described is that it would not look at a particular collection, but at a big array of reference websites, much more websites than editors can afford to check. This would greatly increase the odds of finding a match to your query. Thanks :-) Nicolas1981 (talk) 02:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Photo

i just want to add aphoto to an article and there appears to be no way to do so

yes i went and made a new id and all that crap now i just want to [put it with the article —Preceding unsigned comment added by Koibeatu (talkcontribs) 15:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Did you upload the image as explained at WP:UPLOAD? – ukexpat (talk) 15:55, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question about uncategorized templates

We have a special page for uncategorized articles, Special:UncategorizedPages. I was wondering if it would be possible to have a similar listing of uncategorized templates (i.e. pages in the Template namespace which do not contain a category). I think this would be very useful for maintenance and organizational purposes. --Eastlaw talk · contribs 20:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Special:UncategorizedTemplates. --Splarka (rant) 08:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, sorry. --Eastlaw talk ⁄ contribs 10:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

problems with quotebox

Can you explain to me what is wrong with the quotebox in Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)? It seems to overlap with the album template. (I am using Firefox 3.0.4.) Is there any way around this? Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 20:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I added a {{clear}} which seems to have fixed the problem, although it may be adding extra white space. —Mattisse (Talk) 21:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to use the {{quote box}} template code to left align the box at 50% page width, but I couldn't get it to work. – ukexpat (talk) 21:36, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There was no line break between the end of {{quote box}} and the next line. BTW: {{quote box2}} has more features. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 21:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Now the top line of the box slightly overlaps the last line of the text above (Firefox 2.0.0.20). – ukexpat (talk) 22:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Using <blockequote> seems to do it, at least in my browser. —Mattisse (Talk) 22:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yup that works for me. – ukexpat (talk) 03:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Centreing columns in sortable wikitables

At List of female tennis players we are in the middle of a big re-formatting job and have decided to use sortable wikitables. We think that the headings for each table should be centred, but that the contents should be centred only for the No., Birth, Death, and Grand Slam columns. We don't know how to do this, or if it's even possible. Any ideas? Thanks in advance! Maedin\talk 08:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can precede any cell content with style="text-align: left"| or style="text-align: center"| (note the single pipe | symbol). For brevity you can also use align=left| or align=center|, but this may not work in some circumstances. −Woodstone (talk) 08:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Using an exclamation mark (!) instead of a pipe (|) defines a cell as a header and formats it appropriately (with class="wikitable", bold, centred and the cell is darkened slightly). See Help:Table for more info. mattbr 18:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Correct. But see how he was asking about column formatting. By default, normal content of a table will be left aligned. In mediawiki it is not possible at the moment to apply CSS styling to all cells of a single column however. If you want the contents of one row centered, you will have to write this styling for each individual cell. This is because this requires the COL / COLGROUP HTML syntax (i think..). These HTML elements are however not supported by Mediawiki, and sparsely supported by browsers (Only IE and Opera i believe). --TheDJ (talkcontribs) 21:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I would think you could style it properly by creating a CSS class (.wikitable-centered) that applied to the specific cells (.wikitable-centered tbody tr td). EVula // talk // // 21:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't help terribly much, as we would have to type class="wikitable=centered" for each cell in that column, which isn't all that superior to typing style="text-align:left". The only place this helps is for tables in which all columns are to be centered, and I think that is a distinct minority. TheDJ is correct—we really need COLGROUP syntax to make this sort of thing easier for cleaner table markup. Also note to Mattbr—the exclamation mark is ill-advised outside the table header (hence the darker shading and bold text). It is one of my pet peeves to see that markup used for standard table rows. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:33, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, .wikitable-centered would be the class for the table itself (class="wikitable wikitable-centered"). I'm imagining that this specific class would only include the CSS to make the cells centered, so it would be interoperable with any other CSS code that is inserted into the table. EVula // talk // // 21:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, but that still only helps with tables in which all columns are centered, and even without that, you can always use class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" in the table header as is done today. My point is that most tables require different alignment per column settings (whether that be left, right, or centered) and we have no good solution for that. For example, a very common style of table has a text string in at least the first column (left alignment) and numeric data in several others (right aligned or center aligned, as appropriate), and there is no easy way to do that without repeating style alignment code on a per-row basis. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, this is true... though to be fair, it's a limitation of CSS, not MediaWiki. The only thing I can think of would be to have a slew of superfluous classes that affected individual rows (ie: .wikitable-center3 would affect .wikitable-center3 tbody tr td+td+td, .wikitable-center5 would affect .wikitable-center5 tbody tr td+td+td+td+td), but that's hardly an elegant solution. EVula // talk // // 22:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't such a bad idea as it sounds, although I'd go with .col3-center (not to mention .col3-left and .col3-right) and so on. No reason to limit it to wikitable tables and defaults vary. — Blue-Haired Lawyer 23:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The sketched requirement is quite generic and having a (CSS) solution would clean up a lot of articles and make editing easier. Something along the lines of .col3-center tbody tr td+td+td {style="text-align: center"}, might be workable. However "col3-center" as above would affect all columns from 3 and up. So every switch of alignment would need to be marked. Centering only column 3 in a left aligned table would require col3-center col4-left. −Woodstone (talk) 10:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies to all, I mis-read the question. The exclamation mark will format the headers but not the rest of the content and shouldn't be used for non-header cells as it mis-describes the cell and doesn't help accessibility. mattbr 07:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Q: What is the main roadblock standing in the way of WikiMedia supporting colgroups (and theads and tbodies as well)? What would "break" if support for them were added right now? SharkD (talk) 07:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The various inconsistent browser implementations of <col> and <colgroup> are the major obstacle. See for example [9] and [10]. For mediawiki's specific hesitation, see various comments in bug 986, like 986#c25. Also see [11] (per the specs, alignment isn't necessarily supported in columns). --Splarka (rant) 08:28, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
tbody and thead, on the other hand, have been part of the overall table concept for a long time, however; I would think that those could be enabled without much issue. EVula // talk // // 17:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Currently there exists the inconsistent set of templates:

  • {{left}} style="text-align:left"|
  • {{left2}} style="text-align:left"|{{{1|}}}
  • {{right}} <div align="right">{{{1}}}</div>
  • {{center}} <div align="center">{{{1}}}</div>

As an intermediate solution, while fleshing out the CSS approach, we could define a new set

  • {{ta-l}} style="text-align:left"|
  • {{ta-r}} style="text-align:right"|
  • {{ta-c}} style="text-align:center"|

Woodstone (talk) 09:43, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The secure server is down?

I get a 503 when visiting the secure server, but the regular en.wikipedia.org works fine. Anyone know what's up with that? (Why do I feel I'm in the wrong section...) Elm-39 - T/C 13:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Working fine for me now. Algebraist 14:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Same here. Must've been an overload or something. Elm-39 - T/C 18:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
EDIT: Whoa, database server lag of 1,986 seconds. That's... about half an hour. Wonder what's going on... Elm-39 - T/C 18:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Userpages in main categories

The Bobbylow's userpage have several main categories (like Security, Formal sciences, etc.). I think:

  • Now we must remove the categories (done).
  • A bot must watch categories in order to avoid userpages to be included.
  • A better solution: An extension or patch that automatically avoids it. I.e.: If the category page don't have some special tag (like <includeuserpages/>) don't must include it).
I think that was supposed to be an article draft. Elm-39 - T/C 18:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I moved it to a subpage at User:Bobbylow/Cryptography. – ukexpat (talk) 19:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"You have new messages (last change)." keeps coming back

Resolved

I looked at my new message, but the orange bar keeps showing up randomly. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have noticed that too -- I suspect it's a temporary server problem, I wouldn't worry about it. – ukexpat (talk) 19:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Contributions were lagged - probably related. --NE2 19:59, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Changes not showing up immediately

Resolved

Several times today when I've created a new page, after I save it Wikipedia says the page does not exist. This usually clears up within a few minutes. I saw the same thing a few weeks ago. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See the posting immediately above ↑ . – ukexpat (talk) 21:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Try reloading. Some browsers cache the old page. 199.125.109.64 (talk) 02:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There was massive lag earlier. neuro(talk) 02:48, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Automatic conversion from acres to km2 doesn't work properly

Green tickY - resolved

In the page Great Smoky Mountains National Park I saw that the conversion of 244,442 acres gives 990.44 km2, which is incorrect. The right figure is 99.044 km2. The wiki function used is 244,742 acres (990.44 km2). The program gives a 10x error factor this time. I don't know if this is a single error or if it is systematic. Can somebody look about this matter? Thank you, --Gabodon (talk) 21:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1 acre = 0.00404685642 square kilometers. 244,442 acres = 989.222 square kilometers. Chalk the difference up to rounding or a minor error in the formula. By the way, 640 acres = 1 square mile, and about 2.56 square kilometers = 1 square mile. Doing the math, about 250 acres = 1 square kilometer, so 990.44 square kilometers looks about right. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's right, I apologize but in Italy we use the comma to separate decimals so I read the figure as 244.442 acres (two hundred fourty four point ... and not two hundred fourty four thousand ... ). It's all explained, thank you. --Gabodon (talk) 22:08, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Error in MediaWiki software

There is a bug in the MediaWiki software that falsely marks in-use files as orphaned. The fair-use files marked as such are thus speedily deleted. Who could fix this? (Jimbo Wales would be my first guess, but I am not sure.) A whole series of properly uploaded and in-use files was deleted speedily because the files were marked orphaned. So, if anyone could point me in the direction to whom or where I should go with this, that would be great. Thank you. -BlueCaper (talk) 02:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a bug, the pages just need to be purged. neuro(talk) 03:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jimmy isn't at all involved in technical matters. — Werdna • talk 01:21, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This week's software updates

MediaWiki is being upgraded on the sites now... see mw:This week's software updates for details. --brion (talk) 03:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Page doesn't exist (yet). =) —Locke Coletc 04:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A little bird told me that mw:This week's updates might be a better place to look. :) {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 04:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for fixing the link. :) --brion (talk) 19:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this was intentional but [rollback] links now appear in the watchlist.

Yep. --brion (talk) 19:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Would an option to turn it off be possible? It's a bit cluttery. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 20:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As well as cluttery, I find the [rollback] link in the watchlist downright scary, given my stabby way of clicking on things. I don't want to be accidentally rollbacking. Having an option to turn it off for the watchlist would be a great thing. Since they all use the same "mw-rollback-link" style, is the only option going to be a page-specific .js to make the style invisible for Special:Watchlist? Franamax (talk) 22:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
/* hide rollback from Recent Changes */
.page-Special_RecentChanges .mw-rollback-link {display:none;}
/* hide rollback from Watchlist */
.page-Special_Watchlist .mw-rollback-link {display:none;}
It only needs some CSS. But, it could be done via JS, or even undone by JS (a 'show rollbacks' link). Perhaps as a gadget. --Splarka (rant) 23:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also this revision breaks the js script "show/hide top contribs", which is odd because all that script does is hide the contributions from user contribs if that user is the most recent contributor.-- penubag  (talk) 04:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I, for one, would love to have a script or preferences option to hide these links. I have talked to a few admins who find them even scarier, as they have protected pages watchlisted. — Jake Wartenberg 16:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nevermind. That CSS works great! — Jake Wartenberg 16:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the users who find this scary. Can rollback be hidden when checking a user history as well? That is what I find the most scary. PSWG1920 (talk) 16:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes:
.page-Special_Contributions .mw-rollback-link {display:none;}
— TKD::Talk 16:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to being scary and cluttery, these add bunches of extra queries to RC and watchlist. I'm seeing 370 queries on enwiki RC right now, where I have rollbacker (40 for dewiki where I don't, not sure if that's gone up). Maybe this change should be reverted. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's absolutely brilliant and makes life a lot easier. Ty 03:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia secure gateway

66.230.230.230 (talk · contribs) is a Tor node, but the block form says it's a sensitive IP. Surely not every IP from 66.230.192.0 to 66.230.239.255 is the secure gateway (as listed on MediaWiki:Blockiptext). The only secure server IPs I know are 66.230.200.219 and 208.80.152.134. Spellcast (talk) 09:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

66.230.200.0/24 was our old IP range for our Tampa servers -- that covers 66.230.200.1 through 66.230.200.255. 66.230.230.230 is not and never was in our IP range. Feel free to block it or whatever. :) --brion (talk) 19:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done, but the IPs should probably be updated at MediaWiki:Sysop.js. Spellcast (talk) 10:44, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Cite error" message on talk pages

I've noticed an error message Cite error: <ref> tags exist, but no <references/> tag was found appearing recently at the bottom of some talk pages (eg Talk:Inauguration of Barack Obama and Talk:Overpopulation). I think it might be best if it there was no warning there because quite often people copy wikitext from the article to the talk page but talk pages are layed out differently to articles and a references section doesn't seem to fit. Can we have the warning turned off for talk pages? -- Barrylb (talk) 09:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just refactor the page and wikicode the <ref> tags? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 12:42, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is possible but requires constant work which is quite unproductive on talk pages just to get rid of a warning message. Could the cite extension automatically display references at the bottom of the talk page instead of a warning? -- Barrylb (talk) 13:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm... this looks like a new message— there are a number of talk pages now in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting for that problem. I'm sure that cite.php could be updated in that manner, but there are a few issues. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 14:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a problem exclusive to enwiki; I spotted the exact same error on the Chinese Wikipedia and Meta. EVula // talk // // 22:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It makes the most sense to me to only have this error message appear on article pages, and nowhere else. I agree that it is unproductive to edit references on talk pages just to remove the error message, and that it also doesn't make much sense for the extension to automatically generate a reference list even if the page doesn't explicitly ask for one. Gary King (talk) 22:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, can we get some comment from a developer who can decide whether to implement such a change? Barrylb (talk) 00:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki:Cite error should probably be blanked... I'm in favor of hidden categories rather than large red error messages. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, to fully hide a "Cite error" message, this needs to be reduced to "$1". One would then want to add "Cite error: " back in to any of the other cite error messages where one wants to keep that bit of text. Provided that is done, I think it may be possible to make the no <references/> error message display only on article pages by wrapping it in a namespace detecting ParserFunction. Dragons flight (talk) 05:50, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
MZMcBride has now created that message with {{#switch:{{NAMESPACE}}|=Cite error: $1|#default=}} as a test. If it works, namespaces should be addable/removable at will. Until domas kills us all, of course. --Splarka (rant) 08:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with that implementation is that it means that no cite errors are visible outside the mainspace, ever. It is not obvious that we want cite to fail silently in all cases as opposed to just the specific case of a missing <references/>. Dragons flight (talk) 08:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you just want to hide missing <references/> perhaps:
{{#switch:{{NAMESPACE}}|=<span class="cite-error-shown">|#default=<span class="cite-error-hidden" style="display:none;speak:none;">}}Cite error: $1</span>
And in site-wide CSS: ol.references .cite-error-hidden {display:inline !important}. Though this is a dirty hack and accessability regression. --Splarka (rant) 09:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So what is the current state? I am not sure I like per-namespace switching too much, as article drafts can be found in many namespaces (especially Talk and User), and it would be nice to have a meaningful error message there instead of a silent failure (or, equally bad, a hidden error message). Kusma (talk) 09:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at this yesterday, but go interrupted by real life. I looked at the cite.php code; the message is controlled by MediaWiki:Cite error refs without references. I was thinking of a namespace switch as well, but that has problems. I do like the idea of an error for this, as adding refs without using {{reflist}} is a problem. Perhaps we could disable it only on talk pages. It would be possible to have the message insert the missing {{reflist}}, but that is probably not the best way to do this. Another way would be to have a bot that checks Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting and converts the ref tags on talk pages. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 14:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at this today, MediaWiki:Cite error now does a namespace switch; the message no longer shows on talk pages. MediaWiki:Cite error refs without references has been blanked, so articles now show a cryptic "Cite Error:" message and are placed in Category:Wikipedia pages with broken references.
The error Cite error refs without references is generated if:
  • There are <ref>...</ref> tags but no <references/> tag (usually generated with {{reflist}})
  • The reference immediately before <references/> does not have a closing </ref>
  • There are <ref>...</ref> tags after <references/>
--—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 15:06, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've submitted a patch to bugzilla which would automatically add a footnotes sections at the bottom of any pages that don't have <reference/> tags, but the developers don't appear to like the idea. — Blue-Haired Lawyer 17:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cite error

The message generated by MediaWiki:Cite error refs without references was removed. Thus, articles without a <references/> tag now show a cryptic Cite error: message. See "Free" for an example. I propose to

  • Restore the former message of "Cite error: <ref> tags exist, but no <references/> tag was found".
  • Create Wikipedia:Cite errors to present the current errors and how to resolve them; the talk page will give us a centralized place to discuss improvements to the cite error system.

--—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 12:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What are the top ten reference sources in Wikipedia?

Has anyone done a count of the urls to find what the top ten sources for Wikipedia are? I suspect CNN, The New York Times, Time magazine and the Associated Press via secondary outlets. They all have archives online. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 12:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Richard, I don't have an answer to that question but I have a project of building a list of websites that can be considered as a reference for non-niche topics, that might interest you. And if you get an anwser to your question I would be highly interested :-) See this discussion. Cheers Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"You are not allowed to mark your own changes as patrolled."

Resolved
 – We've disabled this pending it actually working correctly

I just created a redirect at Buffalo Ridge Railroad. Between the text and the categories, on the right side, it says "[Mark this page as patrolled]". But when I click it (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buffalo_Ridge_Railroad&action=markpatrolled&rcid=274038115), it takes me to a page with title "Cannot mark as patrolled" and text "You are not allowed to mark your own changes as patrolled. Return to Special:Newpages." --NE2 17:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that would defeat the patrol system if you could patrol your own edits. neuro(talk) 17:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But why is this just showing up now? --NE2 18:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The link to patrol a page should appear only when you go the page from Special:Newpages. If you didn't do that, then something funny's going on. Algebraist 18:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I noticed it on User:DA01's talk page before he got renamed. I had ngone there from WP:CHU to explain something to him. -Jéské Couriano (v^_^v) 18:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Anything potentially in the same area changed here? neuro(talk) 18:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Looks like this was the fixing of bugzilla:15936. Algebraist 18:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Was it intentional? Seems so. neuro(talk) 19:05, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The problem was that the [mark as patrolled] link would only show up if there was an rcid in the URL for the page, but this was only added by Special:NewPages. So if someone edited the page to add a cleanup tag or whatever, the patrol link wouldn't be available after they saved, unless they went back in their browser history or back to NewPages. Mr.Z-man 19:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But you can't mark your own edits as patrolled, so why was that a problem? --NE2 20:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can't mark pages you create as patrolled. You can still patrol it after you edit it as long as you didn't create it. Mr.Z-man 20:37, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh - patrolling is on a per-page basis, not a per-edit basis? Shouldn't the error message be changed then, from "changes" to "new pages"? --NE2 20:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On Wikipedia, Patrolled edits only apply to new pages. Other wikis using the MediaWiki software have the option of patrolling all edits. This is the case on another wiki I am involved in. Edits made by Administrators on that wiki are marked as patrolled by default (the "autopatrol" option). -=# Amos E Wolfe talk #=- 22:28, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's the reason the MediaWiki default message refers to 'changes', but there's nothing to stop us changing MediaWiki:Markedaspatrollederror-noautopatrol to something more appropriate just for en.wikipedia. Algebraist 22:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Changed message to refer to "pages", as suggested. Happymelon 13:56, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Mark as patrolled" also appearing for non-article pages

Resolved
 – We've disabled this pending it actually working correctly.

Okay, so I get the fact that pages can now be marked as patrolled even when not clicked through from the New Pages list of articles. However, even non-patrolled non-article pages now have the "Mark as patrolled" link. Is this really necessary? I came across several Talk pages that have the link, and I don't think they need them. Gary King (talk) 22:37, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Same here (Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of furry conventions). Dabomb87 (talk) 23:42, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We could hide these outside the mainspace with CSS like this:

div.patrollink       { display: none;  }
.ns-0 div.patrollink { display: block; }

This hides the link in all namespaces, and then shows it again in the mainspace. Failsafe in that browsers without CSS won't do anything, and no browser will support display:none without display:block. Happymelon 14:02, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Edits per day

I know that stats.grok.se is able to report the number of article page views per day, but is there a similar service for the number of edits per day? Thanks! SharkD (talk) 22:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite what you asked for, since it doesn't include history, but http://www.wikirage.com/ gives the most actively edited articles for various time ranges up to the present.-gadfium 01:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, anyway. SharkD (talk) 04:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One or two days ago I moved the article named Aglio e Olio, about the album by the Beastie Boys, to Aglio e Olio (Album) to make room for Aglio e Olio, an article about the Italian pasta dish. I also edited the Template:Beastie Boys to link to the new article name, a template which appears on about 100 BB's song articles. As far as I can tell, the system has purged the old template version to the new one (I've checked about ten occurrences of the template) but the backlinks at Aglio e Olio are stuck with the old Beastie Boys template version.

I realize that the backlinks are not updated immediately but via the job queue but, I'm starting to think that something isn't working. Do I need to do anything to trigger the backlink update? hydnjo talk 02:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A job queue over 1 million suggests a fairly significant backlog at the moment. You shouldn't have to do anything, the software will clear it eventually. If it is really important to you that this get done right now, you can force the parser to process a page immediately but going to each one, opening the text and hitting "Save" without changing anything. Doing that would have the effect of immediately updating all links on that page. But unless you are in some kind of rush, I wouldn't bother. It will clean itself up after a while. Dragons flight (talk) 03:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OK, and thanks for the link, I'll give it a few more days. hydnjo talk 03:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This month some link updates have not occurred after weeks. One report concerned an edit from December 20.[12] 40 days later Special:WhatLinksHere/WAAG (FM) still includes WBWN which transcludes the template. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:27, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Special:WhatLinksHere/WAAG (FM) has finally removed WBWN. I wonder whether somebody made a null edit after reading the above. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I've raised this issue before. The backlog is not acceptable - it needs to be cleared down much faster than it currently is. Whenever I move a page to create a disambig article, I ensure that nothing in the article mainspace points to the disambig page. I hope other users do the same. But if it can take 40+ days for templates to refresh, no-one is going to bother checking. I kept an eye on two pages I moved prior to Christmas, and two weeks later, they still had dozens of articles pointing at them, despite the template being updated. I hope after Jimbo's last appeal for some extra cash, he's splashed out on a new server! Lugnuts (talk) 08:19, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We're currently investigating how to better monitor what's going on in the job queue and patch up problems with updates. --brion (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

References template for Talk pages

Does there exist a template for Talk pages such that references can be contained within them without obstructing discussions? I've placed a purple box around the references in one article's Talk page, but I've already "tripped" over it and messed up the Talk page once. Thanks! SharkD (talk) 04:18, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that I understand your problem. Did you get a big red message about references? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 13:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I guess the problem is that if {{reflist}} is placed at the bottom of a talk page source then many users will create new sections below it so it doesn't remain displayed at the bottom. Or do you want a "section reference" template which only displays references occurring in that section, so different sections can display their own references, also after archiving? PrimeHunter (talk) 15:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The first, not the second. Ideally the template could be added to the top of the page so that editors' edits don't interfere with it, but automatically render the text at the bottom of the page as per normal. A colored background and border would also be good in order to indicate that the section should not/cannot be edited. SharkD (talk) 15:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was pondering something like this as well. Don't we have a footer message box template someplace? I have a real life interrupt for a few hours. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 16:06, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and created a template that meets most of these requirements: {{Reflist-talk}}. SharkD (talk) 22:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I saw that and did a quick test. Problem is that it depends on being at the bottom of the page. If someone simply clicks on +, they will create a new section below it. It is also susceptible to being archived by a bot. We need a template above the top that will always show at the bottom. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 01:23, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This can't be done with a template, but it could be done with a magic word of some sort. It needs to be done at the Mediawiki level rather than the template level. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could you explain specifically what these changes would be? Do you mean some sort of autogeneration of reference sections, or just a flag that will make any template fall to the bottom if included? I'm thinking JavaScript could be used to accomplish this as well. I.e, a script takes the element out of normal flow and inserts it as the last child of the parent div. SharkD (talk) 05:31, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I've tripped over it a few times as well, though it's easy to fix. SharkD (talk) 05:32, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Probably the latter, something to the effect of __MOVEREFSLISTTOBOTTOM__. It would first need to start picking up refs declared after the reflist. These don't seem to populate a second reflist either, just ignored. This should never affect articles as the "see also", "external links" sections should not contain "contentious statements" needing a ref, and their content should be supported/mitigated by the upper part of the article anyway. — CharlotteWebb 19:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The error message when the <reference/> tag is missing is always after the last section. We could put the <reference/> tag in the message so that the error actually generates the reference list. I would want more eyes on this. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 21:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

{{PROTECTIONLEVEL}} enabled, update of protection templates

The magic word {{PROTECTIONLEVEL}} is now available (see Template:Bug, r45587). So we can now update the protection templates to do this:

  • when a page is not to the correct protection level, return nothing and categorize in Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates.

Then bots can patrol this category to remove the incorrect protection template or replace it with the appropriate one. It deprecates the expiry option in templates and the following categories: Category:Protected pages with expiry expired, Category:Wikipedia protected pages without expiry. We can update directly at {{pp-meta}} for the types semi, full and move and then each template individually. When done, we may inform administrators of this in MediaWiki:Protect-text (essentially; unneeded to add expiries). Cenarium (Talk) 09:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Even more helpfully, we could in principle add the lock icons to pages automatically, if we put some code in a system message that is included on all pages. Would there be support for this? Happymelon 14:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure, as there are different types of protection templates, and sometimes they return nothing (like {{pp-move-indef}}). Except if you can enter the type of template you want in the protection log. But will it also add the categories ? Cenarium (Talk) 14:42, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the principle of having protected pages that are not marked as such with the lock icons; it's only because the protection tags are inconsistently applied that we can get away with it. Here we now have the opportunity to automatically mark pages as protected (with the lock icon, I mean) so that none of the templates need to add the icon. We still need the templates, since there can be no granularity in the messages applied universally. But it means we only need to add the templates to act as descriptors of why the page was protected, not just to indicate that it is so. So for instance, we will no longer need to add {{pp-template}} to all protected templates, as a category insertion to Category:Protected templates based on protection level and namespace is possible. We would still need to add {{pp-semi-sock}}, for instance, because it's not possible to deduce that information from the protection state and namespace. But that template would no longer need to add the lock icon. Happymelon 16:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For edit protected pages yes, but for a lot of move-protected pages, it is unnecessary to add the icon and it confuses readers and inexperienced users. (As I suggested earlier, keeping the move tab for move protected pages but allowing to disable it in the preferences would help inexperienced users to find out why the move tab sometimes disappears, the icon is inefficient as it is confounded with a semi-protection icon or missed.) And sometimes, we want the big notice, not just the icon, so it doesn't appear feasible except for templates and images. Admins should also be encouraged to use specific templates when possible. Cenarium (Talk) 17:36, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was just thinking about starting this discussion. :) Here are some points:
  • I like the idea of automatic replacement of notices with tracker categories: we can get a bot to do the cleanup, or manually, or someone with AWB can sweep through every now and then.
  • I don't like the idea of automatic addition of protection icons, unless that automatic addition can be modified, removed, or replaced using a protection template. Our current system of templates allows, for the most part, the reason for protection to be reasonably clear, even on the small, icon versions: the tooltips give the expiration date if applicable and an explanation for the protection.
  • I remain neutral on the issue of indefinitely-move-protected pages: while I do think that all protection should be visible (invisible protection does confuse people), it's also true that it gets confused with semi-protection. I think we need to explore this further, but not as part of this discussion.
  • We might use this new magic word to merge a number of the generic templates: automatic selection of types semi or full could be easily implemented to simplify the template family. Whether we implement that functionality on the templates to be simplified or on {{pp-meta}} is debatable.
  • This function could add notices for pages which are both move-protected and semi-protected, which, as far as I know, currently don't mention their move-protection.
{{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 18:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

YES. I hadn't thought of that, Nihiltres, but of course that's exactly what we should be doing. We still use templates, and we still have different ones for different reasons for protection, but we unify eg {{pp-vandalism}} and {{pp-semi-vandalism}} and {{pp-move-vandalism}} and let the template work out what's appropriate based on the actual protection that's on the page. We can even make the notices vanish automagically when the protection expires, and just leave a tracking category to clean out with the bots. I'm still inclined to suggest deprecating some of the pp- templates, {{pp-template}} in particular (or maybe call that by default from {{documentation}} and have it be silent when there's no protection in place), but I think this could be the best immediate use of these new functions. Happymelon 18:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Using a combination of namespace and protection type/level checks, the templates listed in Template:Protection templates (not counting the WP:OFFICE templates) could probably be reduced to:
  • pp-dispute
  • pp-vandalism
  • pp-sock
  • pp-indef
  • pp-protected
Using namespace checks means the template and user-talk (which with the ability to change blocks without unblocking should be mostly deprecated now anyway) templates can be merged into the generic pp-protected, or as Happy-melon suggested, integrate the pp-template template into the documentation templates. The separate versions for move/semi/full protection shouldn't be necessary. Mr.Z-man 20:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some more points, moving things along:
  • Merging {{pp-usertalk}} (and its semi equivalent) into the generic protected template probably isn't a good idea, since it's a specific rationale for a general template. Unless we can assert that all protections in that namespace fall under that rationale, I don't think it should be merged. Formally deprecating it, on the other hand, sounds like a good idea.
  • {{pp-template}} will have to stay on its own in some respect, since it is used for high-risk files as well as templates, though getting {{documentation}} to call it automatically ({{#if:{{PROTECTIONLEVEL:edit}}|{{pp-template|small=yes}}}} or something) would be an improvement.
  • Do we want to use error messages for inappropriate uses of protection templates, that is, uses outside their generally-accepted scope? For example, {{pp-dispute}} should not be used on semi-protected pages, and {{pp-indef}} on full-protected ones.
  • Do we want to centralize the changes, or do you think that merging individual templates is the best plan? At present, we have protection templates along two "axes", as it were: protection reason, and protection type. {{pp-meta}} currently has a type-centred architecture. Should we be making that architecture more general? (I'm slightly against it, but there might be something interesting here.)
Aside from that, I think we have a plan. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 23:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the RSS and Atom orange icons in History pages

Recently, when viewing a page's History, next to the RSS and Atom text are orange icons that represent web feeds. I personally find them distracting; if anyone else does too, then you can simply remove them by editing your monobook.css page and adding the following code to it on a new line:

a.feedlink { background: none; padding-left: 0px; }

Cheers! Gary King (talk) 19:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicating reference highlighting

I'm currently working on a website (web version of a print publication) that uses footnotes. I'd like to have it behave similarly to how they behave here, ie the entire ref line gets highlighted (background color change) when you click the anchor (and vice-versa when you click the ^ back up to the article). I don't need the footnote code automatically generated or anything; it's just a static site. Couldn't find the code after a quick perusal, so I thought I'd ask here, since it's vaguely on-topic for the pump. ;) EVula // talk // // 21:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You want the Cite.php extension. good luck. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 22:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure that the highlighting he is referring to is somewhere in our local CSS and/or Javascript files and not part of the extension itself. Dragons flight (talk) 22:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can be done quite easily. The jumping is easy, it's just an anchor. The harder part is coloring the link when it is clicked on; however, if you look at MediaWiki:Common.css, the sup.reference:target part is what you want. Wrap the footnote's link in <sup class="reference"> and you're good to go. Gary King (talk) 22:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I've got the anchors set up (like you said... they're just anchors), but was unfamiliar with the :target CSS pseudo-class. That would explain why my searching the .js files didn't turn up anything; should have known to look for the background color in the .css files. D'oh.
I'm handling the individual footnotes as an ordered list, so I'm just applying the class to that and setting the background on the list item; it works like a charm (and I'll be combining it with a smooth-scroll jQuery script, so it'll be pretty nifty). Many thanks. :) EVula // talk // // 22:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if this has been brought up before, but I have noticed in the last few months there are problems with the printing of some pages on some articles. Most pages print fine, but some pages (within the same article) will print blank. I don't think the problem is with my computer, as I have same computer and have not switched anything on my end. I think certain links are causing this problem, as in a couple of articles I noticed that if I removed a certain link (temporarily, not permanently) this solved the printing problem. --WordsExpert (talk) 21:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What links on what articles seem to be causing this? Algebraist 22:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have noticed it on at least a couple dozen articles, one example page 4 on Constantin Brancusi. --WordsExpert (talk) 01:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And which browser and operating system ? --TheDJ (talkcontribs) 12:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Using Vista and the latest version of Explorer as the browser. --WordsExpert (talk) 21:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism invisible to logged in users?

I noticed something weird on the News page. When I log off, there appears to be "poo" written between the disambiguation link and the introduction. But when logged in, no such thing appears. It doesn't seem to be in the page when I try to edit it at all, and I can't tell who and when added this from the page history. This is intriguing, can anyone explain what is going on? Thanks. --Urzică (talk) 22:43, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Probably template vandalism. Purging the server cache seems to have fixed it. Algebraist 22:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it was vandalism to {{journalism}}. Different caches are kept for logged-in and non-logged-in readers, so it's possible for vandalism to persist in the cache for one but not the other. With the present long job queue the page was taking a long time to update by itself. Algebraist 22:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, right. Thanks for explaining (and fixing) it. --Urzică (talk) 22:53, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Namespace-finding template

I was looking at Wikipedia:Deletion review#Steps to list a new deletion review and saw that Template:Newdelrev requires the user to manually enter the namespace name. I thought it might be useful to have a way to detect the template name automatically, so I made Template:Namespace for this purpose. However, now I'm unsure that Template:Newdelrev really needs it. What other applications could this be useful for? —Remember the dot (talk) 03:42, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

BOWS. DOWN. IN. WORSHIP. You do realise you've just found the most important string-manipulation function we've ever wanted, and the most powerful after a regular expression test? If you can think of a way to get the last X characters of a string, then we really are set: those two ideas can be trivially extended to string slicing, then to string splitting, then to length functions, then to string comparisons. I'm not joking to say that we can build pretty much the entire StringFunctions library from those two ideas. Have a cookie :D Happymelon 17:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Umm, if we are going to use this as a substring hack, it would make more sense to actually include native support for a substring function in MediaWiki. --- RockMFR 17:58, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't agree more, it's hackish and the programmer within me rebels in horror. Go vote for Template:Bug :P. It's been open for two and a half years now, despite the code having being available the entire time. Maybe if we demonstrate that we need this functionality enough to hack it up from the fundamentals, the devs will be more inclined to give us the native functionality. Happymelon 19:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

StringFunctions has not been enabled in part because of its significant impact on the nature of wikitext, and the performance implications of this. Reconstructing string functions from existing parser functions is not necessarily a sensible response to this, with significant usability and performance implications. The behaviour exploited was also a bug, which broke in numerous cases. Consequently, in rev:46628, I have disabled the ability to truncate strings using the pad parser functions – this change will take effect towards the middle of next week. The advice of the technical team continues to be that if you want to write something requiring string functions, you should implement it as a parser function and not as a template. — Werdna • talk 00:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quick note – in accordance with this principle, a parser function with the same functionality as the {{namespace}} template will be added in the next few days, either by Mr.Z-man or myself. — Werdna • talk 00:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See my comments in Code Review, your patch misunderstood how pad was being (ab)used. Dragons flight (talk) 01:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, by removing that functionality you're going to kill Wikisource's ability to automate the process of determining the first letter of an author's last name. This was a much-hoped-for feature for wikisource:Template:Author (see wikisource:Scriptorium#Remove last_initial parameter from Template:Author). Doing a substring using padright is about as intensive as doing a substring normally would be - the limitation is that you have to start the substring from position 0, rather than an arbitrary point within the string. Thus, it's really not possible to reconstruct other string functions from this. Also, what did you mean by "The behaviour exploited was also a bug, which broke in numerous cases"? Can you post some examples? —Remember the dot (talk) 01:03, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I won't explain how, but this trick plus certain other existing parser functions is sufficient to give you slicing. Once you have that, I believe you can replicate nearly the entire string library. Speaking of which, I personally believe enabling some version of StringFunctions is in the community's interest. Dragons flight (talk) 01:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I know it is possible to combine the parser functions in an extremely unreliable and inefficient way to achieve string slicing. The problem is that the method wouldn't be reliable enough to be usable. Could you maybe e-mail me and we can discuss what we were each thinking?
In any case, I'm more interested in knowing what the bug was that made padright break in "numerous" cases. —Remember the dot (talk) 01:32, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
rev:46630 adds parser functions for NAMESPACE, SUBJECTSPACE, and TALKSPACE that basically allow them to be used the same way as the namespace template, minus the crappy hackiness. Mr.Z-man 01:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Is it too much to ask for a normalizing PAGENAME function also? And there's still the issue of Wikisource needing to be able to extract the first character of a string. —Remember the dot (talk) 02:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Filtering logs

Can I somehow filter out editors from a log, say MZMcBride from the deletion log or is all what can be done already being described at Help:Special_page#Logs?--Tikiwont (talk) 13:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The delete-bot uses the same summary each time so you can hide it on your end and pay attention to the other lines.

if(wgPageName=="Special:Log")
  document.body.innerHTML = document.body.innerHTML
    .replace(/<li .*?Old IP talk page.*?<\/li>/gi, "");

Of course this will cause you to see less than 50 events or however the limit is set. — CharlotteWebb 19:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, sounds useful; and this goes to monobook.js or where else?--Tikiwont (talk) 19:56, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. You can add other common flood-phrases (separated|like|this). — CharlotteWebb 20:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anandabhadram: noinclude?

Why are there a number of noinclude codes showing up in the ref section of Anandabhadram? Aditya(talkcontribs) 15:24, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see them. Have you tried clearing your cache and doing a server purge? – ukexpat (talk) 15:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Anandabhadram uses {{Cite web}} and was edited during the 2 minutes [13] where that template had an unmatched </noinclude>. The template has been fixed and the article updated (but it's possible other affected articles have not been updated yet after the template was fixed). PrimeHunter (talk) 23:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with IE8 and footnotes

I upgraded to IE8 (RC1) last night and there are problems with footnotes. (1) rather than the footnote being a superscript, it is a small subscript, and (2) down in the RefList all footnotes have the number 0. Bubba73 (talk), 18:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like an IE8 rendering/standards support issue to me. – ukexpat (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Default summaries don't work well with "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary"

I've got the "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" option enabled in my preferences. Before, when I create a new page and leave the edit summary blank, one would be automatically generated for the page's creation, like "Created page with 'new text'". I believe it still does this, but now, when I leave the edit summary blank, it warns me that I have not entered an edit summary. The problem with this is that the software used to know that it would automatically generated an edit summary for me, but now it seems as if it doesn't know this anymore? Gary King (talk) 18:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you use this inane feature it rejects the blank summary on the first attempt but adds a hidden input which prevents the same from being rejected on the second attempt. You can use javascript to add it on the first attempt under certain conditions (to skip the reload).

if(wgAction=="edit" && wgCurRevisionId == false) //if i'm editing a red link
  document.getElementById("editform").innerHTML += //add this parameter to the form as the edit summary
    '<input name="wpIgnoreBlankSummary" type="hidden" value="1" />'; //won't really be blank

CharlotteWebb 18:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's okay, nothing major. I don't want to change it just to work for me; I'll use an edit summary of "creating" or something. The reason I'm bringing this up, though, is because the functionality just changed recently, within the past week. I'm curious as to why it was changed. Gary King (talk) 18:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Explain change in the oversight rights?

I look at Special:ListGroupRights and I see, instead of the two "hiderevision" and "oversight" rights, I see this:

  • Delete and undelete specific revisions of pages (deleterevision)
  • Review and restore revisions hidden from Administrators (hiderevision)
  • Review and restore revisions hidden from administrators (suppressrevision)
  • View a previously hidden revision (oversight)

What are these rights, what is the diffence between deleterevision, hiderevision, and supressrevision? Please use {{tb}} on my talk page when you have an awnser.--Ipatrol (talk) 22:56, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See [14]. Happymelon 23:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Images on Bad Image list cause the next paragraph (or more) of text to vanish?

If you try adding an image on the Bad Image list, it doesn't show up, but it also vanishes the next paragraph (or several paragraphs) of text.

For example, the following code:

:Example:
:[[Image:Wiki-pegging.png|thumb|left]] <br clear="all">
:This text should appear in the page, but does not!
:So should this line!
:*And this list item!
:~~~~

Produces:

Example:
File:Wiki-pegging.png

This text should appear in the page, but does not!
So should this line!
  • And this list item!
Bushytails (talk) 00:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than (using a non-"bad" image so something shows up):

Example:

This text should appear in the page, but does not!
So should this line!
  • And this list item!
Bushytails (talk) 00:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ignoring the inherent evilness of a bad images list, this apparant bug is pretty annoying... Everything until the next major change (adding a signature stops it, hence why I used it in the example) just vanishes. No trace of it is in the output html. So, is this a bug, or something else? Bushytails (talk) 00:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is also reported in bugzilla:16039. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sluggish page

There is something in Wikipedia:Deletion review that makes my browser (IE7) sluggish. I'm guessing it's JavaScript, and think it should be fixed. SharkD (talk) 01:12, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User scripts?

Hey just wondering why scripts via Special:Mypage/skin.js no longer work. If this is my issue please tell me how to fix it but at this point I think its a software issue. Any ideas? Alexfusco5 01:18, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean User:Alexfusco5/monobook.js it would probably something you did editing it today (or recently). Can you check the error console log in your browser? Alternately, perhaps you changed skins or even disabled javascript accidentally? --Splarka (rant) 01:40, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]