Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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testing templates (continued)

for anyone interested in commenting bugzilla:22135. I would have posted this the previous discussion here, but the discussion has already been archived.

Some template help

Resolved

 – ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢

I'm having a strange issue that I've never encountered before. Usually when you put a template onto an article, it doesn't matter if you use the horizontal or vertical method of assigning parameters... However, I seem to get different results on a template I'm making. If I assign a value to a parameter (say a number) in the vertical format (as in {{[[Template:template |template ]]}}, and then have it place that number in the middle of a sentence, it adds the line break after the number, effectively making it impossible to call a file name with that number in it.

How do I prevent a variable from holding onto that line break, instead of only the value? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 22:10, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

From Help:Template: “The leading and trailing spaces around the values of named parameters in the template tags are stripped by the template.” So I guess if you use named parameters, the problem goes away. Svick (talk) 22:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. That sucks, but at least I know. Thank you :) - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 00:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Which template are you talking about specifically? an example would help. --Ludwigs2 00:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Floydian's example above broke. Here's his example:

{{template
|param1
|param2
|param3=blah
}}

But that normally doesn't cause any line breaks when those parameters are used. So Floydian, as Ludwigs said, please link to the template you have problems with so we can take a look.

And you actually don't need to use named parameters to strip white space, there are other ways. But first let us see your template.

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Ouch, I checked the user contributions of Floydian and found the templates: User:Floydian/Infobox Ontario road/test calls {{User:Floydian/Infobox Ontario road}}. I ran some tests, and he is right, he had two serious whitespace problems there. He fed the unnamed parameters like this:

{{User:Floydian/Infobox_Ontario_road
|Hwy
|401
|...

And the code called was this (slightly simplified example):

[[Image:Ontario {{{2|}}}.svg|100x100px|alt=A road sign with the number {{{2}}} in the centre.]]

When feeding unnamed parameters we often get leading and trailing whitespace, so the first usage of "{{{2|}}}" causes the file name "Image:Ontario 401 .svg", when we really want "Image:Ontario 401.svg". That is a known issue.

But the second whitespace problem was all new to me. In the "alt=" part we get a line break after the "{{{2}}}" when fed the 401 value! Very nasty.

Anyway, I tested to use my usual fix. We can strip whitespace from parameters by using "{{#if:x| {{{2}}} }}". So I changed the line to this:

[[Image:Ontario {{#if:x| {{{2|}}} }}.svg|100x100px|alt=A road sign with the number {{#if:x| {{{2}}} }} in the centre.]]

And thankfully that fixes both the whitespace problems.

Another way to "fix" the problem is to feed the numbered parameters like this:

{{User:Floydian/Infobox_Ontario_road
| 1 = Hwy
| 2 = 401
| 3 = ...

That makes them named parameters with the names 1, 2, 3 and so on, and they get the same whitespace stripping as other named parameters. Of course, that is not a good "fix" since this means the users of the template have to know that they can only feed the numbered parameters that way.

But as Svick said above, using actual named parameters is often the best solution. Named parameters are anyway often better than unnamed parameters since it is way to easy to add one to many or one to few unnamed parameters. And named parameters are more robust in some other ways too.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Thats actually pretty interesting. Would you mind explaining what exactly that if statement is doing that strips the whitespace? It would help me put it to better use. Thank you for the tip though. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, here goes:

As you probably know MediaWiki's if-case checks if a string has content. So "{{#if:x| }}" checks if the string "x" has one or more characters, and "x" is one character, so that if-case is always true. Another way to write it is perhaps clearer:

{{#if: Put some text here to make it always true
| true
| false
}}

Thus "{{#if:x| {{{2|}}} }}" will always return the "{{{2|}}}". The nice part is that MediaWiki's parserFunctions have a side effect: They strip away surrounding whitespace from their input.

But there is one big caveat: The parserFunctions have another side effect. They interpret leading "*" and "#". So if we feed "* Text." to the "{{{2|}}}" parameter and we have this code:

Alfa{{#if:x| {{{2|}}} }}beta

Then you will get this result:

Alfa

• Text.beta

While if we have only this code:

Alfa{{{2|}}}beta

Then you will get this result:

Alfa* Text.beta

Or if the input has whitespace, then you get this result or worse:

Alfa * Text. beta

So if there is any risk that the input will start with "*" or "#" then you can't use such whitespace stripping. Then you have to use named parameters instead, since they also strip whitespace but without interpreting the leading "*" and "#". As I have mentioned above, you can turn unnamed parameters into "named" parameters by feeding them as "{{temp| 1 = data }}", but better choose a name for the parameter so users don't get sloppy and try to use "{{temp| data }}".

Note that if the output (rendered result) starts with "*" or "#" then that always gets interpreted, and you still get the list output:

• Text.

Preventing that is a whole other story...

--David Göthberg (talk) 19:02, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Haha, now I feel slightly silly: I just realised that we can make a meta-template to strip whitespace from unnamed parameters. That template should take the input as a named parameter so it strips the whitespace. Then we don't need to use "{{#if:x| }}", and then we don't get the "*" and "#" problem. So I went looking for a good name for that template, and discovered another user beat me to it: {{StripWhitespace}} does exactly that. Very nifty.

Of course, calling "{{StripWhitespace| x = {{{2|}}} }}" for every unnamed parameter in our templates is inefficient, so better use named parameters from starters. But {{StripWhitespace}} can be nice to add to already deployed templates to make them more forgiving on the input.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow! Quite the explanation, but it certainly makes sense now. I think what it comes down to is that any parameter that is displayed in a string of text needs to be named, or else problems arise. Given that I've decided to name the number parameter so that it can be displayed and simplify things. Thats what documentation is for after all. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:55, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

IE7 peculiarity

There was a discussion regarding Template:Collapsible list which died out a couple months ago, but never came to a solution. Is there anyone that can figure out why the show/hide link displays differently in IE7 than every other browser? Assuming it hasn't expired yet, this page shows the screenshots of the different browsers. Thanks, MrKIA11 (talk) 16:48, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

template talk:collapsible list#Overhang_section_break^* ¦ Reisio (talk) 09:58, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

watchlist problem?

Is it just me or are watchlists not updating? mine's been stuck at 19:10 (UTC, I suppose) for a good long bit now. --Ludwigs2 04:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

They aren't. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Boribori!)} 04:22, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh no. I think it's time to make Wikipedia Database Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Data Loss (title parody of Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones). But seriously, it's happening again! :( --Hadger 04:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a huge database lag... --Hadger 04:27, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

[EC] Noted, and fixed by TimStarling. There will be high replag while DB12 catches up. Prodego ^talk 04:27, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Yay!!!! The database is easing up. It went from 7,970 to 7,870!I guess now it's time for Wikipedia Database Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Wikipedians (An administrator just eased up the Database Lag XD). I think the first one would be Wikipedia Database Wars: Episode I: The Wikipedia Database Lag. But really, thank you TimStarling!!!! --Hadger 04:31, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

It would be cool if we went back in time, though. Then we would be able to make Wikipedia Database Who (title parody of Doctor Who, a show I really like!). Then again, that would make my Wikipedia account not even exist yet sense I only made it last year... (just kidding, I know a database lag wouldn't do that... would it? XD) --Hadger 04:35, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

So the world didn't melt down this time? Darn. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:37, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Nope. The world didn't spin backwards, so we aren't going to start doing what we did years ago! (I have no idea what that is, but I may not like doing everything backwards). It would be cool to go back in time, though. P.S. I'm starting to see my watchlist update! :) --Hadger 04:40, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

We are going back into the present... I can see what I did years ago..... Just kidding (don't worry, we are going back to the present). --Hadger 04:41, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

You know, it would be funny if it said something like "changes newer than -1,097 seconds may not appear on this list". We would be going into the future! --Hadger 04:43, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

soon I'm going to start singing "My edits show up - tomorrow!" --Ludwigs2 04:44, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

That would be the perfect song for Wikipedia Database Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope for the Future Edits of Wikipedia! (Really, it would be!) --Hadger 05:03, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Now it says that edits newer than 743 seconds may not appear! We are going back to the present! Hurray! :) --Hadger 05:07, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Now it says 591 seconds. --Hadger 05:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

It stopped! Good-bye, high database lag! :) XD --Hadger 05:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I guess we won't be going to the future. --Hadger 05:10, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Now all we have to do is find out how it happened.... Wikipedia Mystery Inc. (I don't think we have to, but can we try? It could've been some sort of hacker or someone who did it). --Hadger 05:17, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

You can usually see what's going on with the servers at the Wikitech server admin log, although if they're really busy (like last night) the log may not be their top priority. In this case it was a single balky server. Acroterion _(talk) 13:51, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Image display problems

Can someone please look at Thomas Baker (aviator) in IE8? I (finally) downloaded Safari (which I hate, old dog, new trick) because I'm having this problem across numerous FACs; it's not only Baker, I've seen it on dozens of articles. They display fine in Safari, but not in IE8. Also, the problems seem random; in the case of Baker, it's the infobox, but in other articles, I see it on some images, and not on others in the same article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:46, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Also Bodiam Castle. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a repro of Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 69#Layered images often not displaying in IE8 which is still hugely annoying and, as the archive shows, has gone unanswered here at least twice recently.

I'm getting the problem with lots of infobox maps. That said, I can't reproduce the problem with the Thomas Baker article. Is it the infobox photo that disappears? Do you use the Wikipedia:Navigation popups extension?

I wish there were a way to bring this problem to the attention of some IE8 CSS specialists as it seems to be a bug with a browser that is used enough to deserve a server-side fix, and I'm sure the bug is limited enough to have a workaround if we only knew what.

One possible positive is that Microsoft apparently intends to remove Wikipedia (or maybe just Wikimedia) from its compatibility-mode list shortly, so IE8 browsers may default to standards mode where perhaps the bug will not exist. But that's only a hope!

— Richardguk (talk) 22:51, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

They're not disappearing ... I'm getting a line or two of text, with a right-aligned image, and then a big chunk of white space, no text, until the bottom of the image, with the rest of the text forced under the image. It happens with infoboxes and with images within sections. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:07, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

No problem here. The image appeared just fine.

File:IE8-maps.png

--Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 01:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

You do realize that you mislicensed the above image? Given how clearly the IE icon is being displayed, this would qualify at best as a {{Non-free software screenshot}}? It'll probably have to be deleted once this gets resolved.Smallman12q (talk) 18:56, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I added that template so the image won't get deleted because of incorrect license BEFORE the case is closed. --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 22:02, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

But I still have the problem, on many articles :) And I still hate Safari. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:41, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused @_@. I don't have anyproblems as you can see. Are you having problems with Safari or IE8? What happens when you run IE8 in NO-Add on mode? In Win7 or Vista search for "no add" and click on Internet Explorer (No Add-on). In XP, go to start, all programs-->Accessory-->System Tool-->Internet Explorer (NO Add-On). IF the page loads properly, one of you add-on is giving you problems. IF the page load correctly when you are logged out, maybe one of your gadgets and/or tools is broken and interfering with Wikipedia. --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 09:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) SandyGeorgia: Sorry to throw back at you, but do you have a screenshot or a more precise description? The map problem sounds familiar but from what you've described so far of the rendering problem at Thomas Baker (aviator), I'm not sure whether it's the same IE8 issue as has previously been (unsuccessfully) raised. (I'd still love to know of a forum where more people with IE8/CSS knowledge can advise on a workaround for the problem(s)!) — Richardguk (talk) 09:58, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Plus, my version of IE8 renders the article. Even with compactability view mode. --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 10:13, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Tyw7: Do you have intermittent display problems with map overlays, such as the pages referred to at /Archive 69#Layered images often not displaying in IE8? Do you use navpopups (I do, but I got the same problem when logged out)? — Richardguk (talk) 10:49, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes I use navpopups. And no I did not experience maps dissappearing. What are see is in the screenshot above. One question. Is inprivate filter switched on? Only with the filter switched on (not default) did the wikipedia images disappear. --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 11:04, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

See:

File:IE screenshot.png

--Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 11:13, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, but not using InPrivate here. I can see how that might prevent images downloading because they use a different server, but the problem I have (and I think SandyGeorgia has described this too) is a frequent but intermittent one. In my case, maps and their overlays, including text overlays, fail to show, as though their z-order has sunk. Resizing the page, or sometimes just hovering over a link, often makes them appear, and there seems to be no correlation with whether the image or page is already cached, so it is bizarre! — Richardguk (talk) 11:22, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

So the map on my browser is rendered properly? --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 11:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

It looks like InPrivate is blocking all your images, which is different from an intermittent problem affecting (only?) overlaid images, if I understand correctly. So, not "properly", but "differently"! — Richardguk (talk) 14:31, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Richard, see the screenshot above. --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 15:27, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Twy: Sorry but I don't understand your point; your first pic renders OK and the second one is not rendering the images; the IE8 prob I had only affected overlaid images, and then only intermittently. I was going to put up a screenshot too, but have just tried many pages here and failed to reproduce the problem. So, for no apparent reason, my problem seems to have gone away for now. How odd! Thanks for your interest though, and wishing SandyGeorgia all the best with what may be an unrelated problem. — Richardguk (talk) 16:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

The second screenshot was the is this what you are seeing? screenshot. In addition, maybe a Microsoft update/patch fixed the problem? --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 16:56, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd have seen the photo but not the map if the problem were still occurring, though I don't have image-placeholders switched on so wouldn't have seen the image outlines and alt text that your second screenshot shows. But I agree that a Microsoft patch is the most likely explanation if the problem remains absent; perhaps the January IE8 security included an unannounced fix for the layout bug. — Richardguk (talk) 17:43, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Update: I don't have time to explore right now (Drs app't later), but 1) I don't know how to get screenshots, 2) I'll look at the Add on thing later today, and 3) the problem in IE8 was gone last night but is back this morning. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

To take screenshots, click on the application window you want to take the screenshot. Then press alt+PrtScn. Open up paint and then press ctrl+v to paste the image. After that save it and upload it to Wikipedia. --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 16:17, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

ummm ... sorry to put y'all through this, but I also don't know how to upload it to Wiki. And I haven't been to the eye Dr. yet. And I've been distracted by issues on my talk page. Is there someone I can email the jpeg to once I get to it? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

You could always upload the image to imageshack... then paste the link here. --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 18:07, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Plot thickens. The problem is gone now on Bodiam Castle, but still there on HMS Calliope (1884) and Thomas Baker (aviator). I logged out, re-loaded pages, cleared cache, have same problem when logged out. I removed all add-ons, re-loaded, cleared cache, still have problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:32, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

A screenshot would be helpful. I have no idea what problem you are discribing. All pics load fine for me. --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 06:06, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

irc.freenode.net

Anyone else having trouble connecting to freenode for the Wikipedia IRC channels? I was disconnected just after a global notice mentioning some migration to newnet?? Maybe it's just temporary.. -- œ^™ 23:18, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Ahh it was temporary.. forgive my geeky panicking hehe -- œ^™ 23:20, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

WMF project pages footer issue

There's a problem with the footer on WMF project pages.

The privacy policy text doesn't line up correctly. I'm using Firefox 3.5 on Windows XP. Does anyone know where to report this? Only minor, but still something that should probably get fixed. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 23:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

How is it suppose to appear? --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 01:36, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The words "Privacy Policy" should be on the one line. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 01:47, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Like this? This was taken using IE8. I think FF breaks a lot of pages designed for IE.

File:WikiFooter.png --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 01:57, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

You know, it would have been a heck of a lot smarter if I'd provided a URL! Sorry... try this link. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 02:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

It depends on your browser window size; you happen to have your window in a position where the "privacy policy" text is cut of. At any rate, "Privacy policy" should probably be replaced with "Privacy policy" in the source code to prevent this. Bugzilla? — The Earwig @ 05:23, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia article footers generate invalid HTML

A recent change to something in the footer caused all Wikipedia articles to generate invalid HTML. For example, the Wikipedia article A fails validation: if you visit the W3C Markup Validation Service, the report for the article on A lists 6 errors, starting with:

Line 540, Column 163: document type does not allow element "br" here; assuming missing "li" start-tag

…a non-profit organization.</li><br /><li class="noprint"><a class='internal'

Can someone who knows how Wikipedia article footers are generated please fix these errors? Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 04:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

See the history of MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyright. Prodego added it, and as a result of this comment, I've removed it. I think it may have been a response to the above section complaining that the footer looked funny in some browsers, so the response should now be to check out the CSS, as that would be the cleaner way to fix the problem. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 04:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Fixed and restored. Prodego ^talk 06:18, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Renderring error with 350px + svg

When rendered at 2000px, File:Alaska Volcano Observatory.svg does not display correctly. It seems that anything above the 350px does not display the outer letters correctly. Unfortunately the image is non-free, so I can't put up a screenshot, but I do believe this is an error with rendering/scaling.Smallman12q (talk) 17:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia has problems rendering some fonts in SVGs. If it was a free image, change of the font used would be a solution. But does it matter in this case? Shouldn't fair-use images be always used in low resolution? Svick (talk) 18:27, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

It should be low-resolution, but being an svg, it can be scaled...for example look at File:Windows_logo.svg. So shouldn't a bug report be filed, or is there a bugzilla link you can give me?Smallman12q (talk) 21:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it's Template:Bug. Svick (talk) 22:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Ye...that looks like the one...guess its not gonna get fixed.Smallman12q (talk) 01:27, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Flag template for Austria

What has happened with the flag template for Austria? When you look at Triple Crown of Motorsport e.g., there is only a rectangular next to Jochen Rindt where the flag should have been. John Anderson (talk) 18:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Fixed Gary King (talk) 20:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Links red in images comment from wikipedia

The links in the "comments" section of wiki commons images are red if they link to a wikicommons page. Although the wikicommons page/category may exist, the links in the comments apparently relink to whichever wiki they are in rather than prepending "commons:". Is this a fixable bug, or would it require a bit of back end work?Smallman12q (talk) 01:41, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't have an answer but just to clarify, the post refers to the "Comment" column in the File history section. For example in File:1882 Selbstportrait.jpg#filehistory versus commons:File:1882 Selbstportrait.jpg#filehistory. The former includes some blue links in cases where the English Wikipedia happens to have a page by the same name as the page linked at Commons. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Bug of SUB tag

The <sub> tag used in the barnstar template causes the words within it to be covered by the invisible border of the table in IE7 and reportedly in IE8 as well (Exmaple) What's the function and purpose for this tag? -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 02:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Most barnstar templates don't use that tag. What it does is it sets the text as subscripts, so that the text is lower than the rest of the text on the same line. Gary King (talk) 05:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to deprecate Template:City-region

Please see Template talk:City-region#Move to deprecate. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:31, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Automatically adding articles to an editors watchlist?

The easiest way to deal with the unreferenced biography of living people backlog is to assign it to volunteers to at minimum add them to their watchlists. I don't know if there's any way for the system to add pages to someone's watchlist fully automatically, but there are ways to create links to automatically watch a number of pages.

Is there a system to add articles to an editors watchlist automatically? Ikip 06:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Not that I know of. BTW, wouldn't it be invasive and malware-like? --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 11:49, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I think he meant in some kind of opt-in system, where users explicitly request to have future articles added to their watchlists. Equazcion ^(talk) 11:52, 1 Feb 2010 (UTC)

Would it be reasonable to require new page patrolers to add new BLPs to their watchlists? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

The idea was that, in the wake of the big hoo-ha over unreferenced, unwatched BLPs, volunteers could sign up to be assigned a certain number of these articles, so that their names could be publicized in the hopes of getting the community to either source or hand-nominate for deletion these articles. The question is, could something be implemented whereby a script (run by an admin) can add a bunch of articles to a different user's watchlist. ^Bongo_matic 06:39, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I was going to say "mw:Extension:PovWatch, see also bug 20523" but that extension is no longer maintained. MER-C 02:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any facility within the MediaWiki software that distinguishes a "watched" article from a "watched by an editor who is still alive and gives a damn anymore" article, although perhaps the external (toolserver) software makes that distinction - however a "watcher count" is always interesting if it is zero. Ikip - MZMcBride, vicious devil that he is, possesses this data. Why not approach him? Ask for a random or structured sample of 100 or 1000 unwatched BLP's in a format that you can paste into your raw watchlist. I've been thinking of asking for the same thing, I could very easily absorb an extra 100 articles to watch. Franamax (talk) 03:38, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The concern is disclosing the article names to a non-admin prior to them being watched (chicken / egg). However, doing it, say, 100 at time could be a reasonable approach, provided the admin is willing to watchlist a batch if the volunteer fails to add the articles to his/her watchlist when expected. ^Bongo_matic 04:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Canned text in new sections on a page?

Is there a way to add some code to a page so that a new section created with the new section / + tab would come pre-populated with some text? Thanks, ^Bongo_matic 06:16, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

That could be done, but what would be the purpose? Equazcion ^(talk) 06:17, 1 Feb 2010 (UTC)

Lots of pages have sections all of the same format—arbitrations, various reporting noticeboards, and individual users' projects. Can this be done using existing tools? ^Bongo_matic 06:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, by using the InputBox extension with the comment type and using preloaded text. The InputBox at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Nominate doesn't do exactly what you're after, but it's a good example. Graham87 08:18, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Wizard-Redirects is an example of what you are looking for. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:56, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone—exactly what I was looking for. Is there any way to tie this to the new section / + button? ^Bongo_matic 13:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so. The magic word __NONEWSECTIONLINK__ can remove the button but I don't think that should be done without very good reason on a discussion or report page where we want new sections. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:51, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I figured as much. But generally, what happens when a user clicks the new section / + button? Is there any way to override the behavior either for oneself (e.g., by changing your monobook.js or something), or for a particular page? ^Bongo_matic 16:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Problem viewing new edits

Whenever there is new edits to pages that I watch, I can't view the new edits when I click on the page. When it lets me, I'm only able to view new edits by going to the editing history to compare diffs. Joe Chill (talk) 12:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried to bypass your cache? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

HOw about purging the page? --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 13:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Problem with my template

I was wondering if someone might assist me with a user space template. It's basically an image of an "End of correspondence" stample that I created in the Gimp. I've managed to get it to float over the text without much of an issue, however for some reason it's leaving a large amount of space down the bottom of the image. Does anyone have any ideas why this is? The template is User:Tbsdy lives/EndOfCorr and a test page is User:Tbsdy lives/EndOfCorr/Test. You can see what its doing there. Thanks! - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 20:37, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Fixed: needed a negative margin-bottom. Though I'd be willing to bet this template has cross-browser compatibility issues. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and fixed the horizontal scrollbar issue as well by setting a width explicitly. "border:1px solid black;" is invaluable in debugging these issues, for reference. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:51, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

MZ, you are an absolutely legend! Thanks :-) Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 23:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

How to extract image with metadata from pdf

How does one extract an image from a pdf and still have that image retain its original metadata(if it had any)?Smallman12q (talk) 21:04, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

If you've access to a sane OS (or emulation of one*): pdfimages -j foo.pdf prefix ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:13, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Pdfimages comes with the xpdf build for windows so one doesn't necessarily need an emulation/cygwin. Does it keep the metadata though from the original image? I ran it on a few pdfs, and it doesn't seem to keep the metadata...am I doing something wrong?Smallman12q (talk) 13:50, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

CSS :target on headings

span.mw-headline:target { background-color: #fbe54e;}

Adding this to common.css will highlight the heading of the section when clicked from the TOC. A more advanced example with permalinking in the heading is given on the Toolserver, which could be implemented here with javascript. — Dispenser 23:50, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Rescaled fairuse images older than 7 days not going into subcategory?

Category:Rescaled fairuse images contains all images that have been tagged with {{Non-free reduced}}, to help us get rid of old versions of images that have been shrunken to help us comply with nonfree content criterion 3. When this template is applied to these images, it has a timestamp attached so that it will automatically go into Category:Rescaled fairuse images more than 7 days old; all files where the old versions are more than 7 days old can be deleted. However, I just went through the parent category deleting images that were well over a week old, including some that were tagged last year. Any reason why these images wouldn't be showing up in the subcategory? Nyttend (talk) 01:24, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Most likely because the date was added incorrectly or not at all ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

That's probably not it. For example, description page of File:Bucklive.jpg says that it is member of Category:Rescaled fairuse images more than 7 days old, but the category doesn't list it. Purging both didn't help. Svick (talk) 14:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

noinclude tags and load times for page with transcluded subpages

I raised a brief proposal at WT:Featured article candidates#Template:la to add a <noinclude>ed template to subpages of WP:FAC. I believe such an addition wouldn't affect the load times of WP:FAC (where the subpages are all transcluded) because of the noinclude tags, but could someone familiar with load time stuff take a look at it to make sure? Thanks, rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

harvnb-style citation

When SteveMcCluskey fixed the Sarton citation in History of science I decided to cast it into the harvnb format. Unfortunately, when one uses Author|Year in the citation the software links are very picky and insist on the format yyyy instead of 1927-48 which would be the real citation. Is there now a better way? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 04:19, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about a better way, but I always felt this template would fall apart when used in a complicated article. For example, some style guides call for using a short version of the title instead of the author if the author can't be determined, or if it is a corporate author. That won't work very well in these templates. --Jc3s5h (talk) 04:39, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

How does the software insist on that format? The following {{harvnb}} citation seems to work correctly.

Last 1927–48

• Last, First (1927–48). The Book. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Svick (talk) 11:04, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for looking. My method for checking whether the link works is two step:

1. Click on the ref to see if the page re-positions on the ref.
2. Click on the Last yyyy to see if the page re-positions to the actual bibliographical line

When I tested this on your template just now, (I moved the ref up several sections to see the re-position, and have restored it.) Voila!

I will try the | ref = harv part of the secret formula. Many thanks. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 18:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Not so fast- there area few mysteries still unsolved. I have just been on Royton, I thought sorting out a silly sp that was preventing the harv citations from working--- well none of them worked so I added the magic powder ref = harv. Most now work! I zapped a few by changing the ref to ref=CITEREFBigEars1947 format- then remembered this post and stopped. Why? Why doesn 't Lewis work or McPhillips but Reid_ does?--ClemRutter (talk) 23:04, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Because a year isn't a date. fixed.LeadSongDog come howl 02:53, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Umm- that solves that one. Rule:There must be a year=xxxx field in the citation, for ref = harv to hook onto,

The second mystery is where did date=XXXX come from- is is just a manual entry, or is there a citation generator out there that needs reeducation. Are there any help pages that would benefit from a tweak to warn User:BeingHelpful of this bear trap? Using the standard wikipedia editor- there is a nice little button and form to generate cites. Would it be helpful, to have a field to tick that added a ref=harv. Indeed a full citation form would be helpful- and the word year in not used on any of these forms. I prefer to stop the problem rather than have to fix it later. --ClemRutter (talk) 09:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

There is lots of articles with broken Harvard references, part of there errors was created by requiring ref = harv in {{cite *}} templates, the rest is broken from different reasons. If anybody is interested in fixing them, list is available at [1]. Svick (talk) 10:51, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I will keep an eye open for the offending Greater Manchester area articles. My technique is to copy the whole Bibliography section into gedit and globally replace }} with |ref=harv}}. Is this foolproof? Will it break anything if it meets a *citation where I understand that this is auto generated or just be ignored? Presumably I am missing a bit of politics where all this was decided?--ClemRutter (talk) 14:52, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

"What links here" after a move

There is a place to click for what links to the old page name on the page that says a move was successful.

I just moved an article and was told "No pages link to WOHS". I knew of some that did since I created the links in the first place, and no one had fixed the links yet. I went to the page that has the redirect on it and there was a list, and I discovered a template that was responsible for many of the links, but after I fixed the template, the pages still showed up as having links to WOHS. Except for sports networks (which the former WOHS may or may not still be a part of), supposedly I have fixed all the pages with actual links, but there may be others I don't know about.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:57, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

As the pagemove page says, that only gives a list of what redirects to the old title. Algebraist 19:03, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure where that is. I don't know whether I saw this particular page the last time I needed a db-move and didn't know how to request one, but the page I just looked at said "there may be a shortcut link on the page-moved summary screen to let you do this." In my case, there was not, but it did say "may".Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:27, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you no longer move to a redirect without deleting it?

I moved Charles Stanley to Charles Stanley (disambiguation) and Charles Stanley (pastor) to Charles Stanley. When I went to make the latter move, it would not let me do it until I deleted the redirect left behind by the first move. Is that an intentional new feature or a bug? You used to be able to move over top of a redirect without having to delete it first provided that it had never been anything but a redirect. Sorry if this is old news. Thanks. --B (talk) 22:35, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

The redirect you're moving to must have one edit and it must point to the page you're moving. You'd be able to move Charles Stanley (disambiguation) back without having to delete the redirect. It's been that way for like forever. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:44, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

It's documented at WP:MOR. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:45, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

You know ... that makes sense ... I probably have never (or rarely) had an occasion to move A to B, then C to A. Thanks. --B (talk) 22:50, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Can't click wikilinks

In Geoffrey Eglinton there are links to the Wollaston Medal and the Dan David Prize, both of which appear normal but I can't click on them. When I point my mouse at them, the arrow changes to the giant capital I that it does inside edit boxes, instead of the little hand that it normally does on wikilinks. Anyone know what's happenning or how to fix it? Thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 13:53, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Browser/version? –xeno^talk 14:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

IE8 on WinXP. When I use the "view old version" the links work fine, even on the latest version (you know, when you have the "old version/this version/next version" links above the text). DuncanHill (talk) 14:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't have IE8 so I can't help validate this. Any reason you're not using a decent browser? ;> –xeno^talk 14:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)