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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bugs and feature requests should be made at the BugZilla.

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.

New skin

Section renamed from "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhh!" — Martin (MSGJ · talk)

Everything's changed! Unofficial kvetching thread. 86.41.61.203 (talk) 06:39, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it sucks. To get a non-crappy version back you'll have to register. Q T C 06:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh god it was awful. I really, really appreciate the intention behind it - to make Wikipedia more intuitive, newcomer friendly, and in line with other web applications like blogs and Facebook - but the implementation was just horrid. Functions represented by icons inexplicably different from the standards in other applications? "Watch this page" turned into a star, for no apparent reason, on a toolbar otherwise made up of words? "Move page" the only item on a dropdown list with no indication that that's where you'll find it? "Edit this page" shuffled off the top right and made significantly smaller and less obvious? I was open to relearning things in the name of making Wikipedia more accessible but not so much to a seemingly arbitrary reshuffle of key functions with no clear rationale for the changes. Someone let me know when it's fixed. - DustFormsWords (talk) 06:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind putting the search bar at the top so much...but dear god, the entire interface is ugly now. I liked how it looked before. After I post this, i'm heading to my preferences to switch it back. SilverserenC 06:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking of search, has anyone worked out how to search for text under the new interface? (Rather than "jump to page with this title")? - DustFormsWords (talk) 07:06, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Click the very last line in the drop down that says "Containing" Q T C 07:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There was a drop down??? - DustFormsWords (talk) 07:22, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There were drop downs all over the place, it was like playing Chutes and Ladders, man. SilverserenC 07:25, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jebus, you have to type into the search box and THEN the drop down appears? So the motion is mouse move/click/keyboard/mouse move/click? With the space you're moving over filled with up to 10 mostly unhelpful autosuggestions? With the result that the screen position for "containing text" and the mouse move needed to reach it varies from search to search? Why would you DESIGN that? Also the rollover text on the magnifying glass is incorrect; it suggest the default option is text search rather than title search. This is basic UI design stuff, people. - DustFormsWords (talk) 08:30, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reading back over the research supporting this it's pretty clear that they're trying to make the search function and the autosuggestions work like Google (as that's how most casual visitors get to the project) but I think it misses some pretty basic things about what makes the Google search function work (central location rather than shuffled off to the side, frikkin' huge text size, bolding in autosuggestions to highlight difference, and search functionality buttons being AROUND the search box instead of in it). - DustFormsWords (talk) 08:46, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just to buck the trend, I think the new interface is pretty cool actually. You'll get used to it. (Though there still doesn't seem to be a direct link to the article history from the discussion page, etc. And I would move the "current-page-related" links like What Links Here from the toolbox to the drop-down list at the top with Move and Purge, now we have such a list.)--Kotniski (talk) 07:29, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, on the whole I am sure it will be fine. I can barely tell the blues apart with the new shading though: ordinary link, interwiki link. 86.41.61.203 (talk) 07:32, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that. I'd just been trying to puzzle out why somone had used a load of external links, and now I understand what was really going on. 86.177.125.182 (talk) 17:46, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The links on the left don't show on Konqueror -- where do I report that? Niels E (talk) 08:00, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that this new skin is hideous. The most annoying thing about it for me is the large gap of whitespace between the top two rows, which was never there in the old skin (see next topic below, where I ask for a solution; I would prefer for them to kill it entirely in the base skin, but for now I'll settle for someone helping me find a way to reduce it via my user CSS). This whitespace is not only ugly in and of itself but also shoves down the layout of the entire page, significantly reducing the amount of text seen onscreen on small resolutions. —Lowellian (reply) 08:16, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Based on the research driving these changes I'm guessing it's because small text gives off the impressions of "complicated", "academic" and "not for you". Large text suggests accessibility. Not defending it, just answering the question. - DustFormsWords (talk) 08:37, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikipedia should continue to follow its own previous practice of setting references and blockquotes at a reduced size. Look at any scholarly paper or book. Block quotes, footnotes, endnotes, and references are almost invariably in a smaller font than the main prose of the text. Otherwise, especially in articles with a large number of citations, the citations overwhelm the space of the article. —Lowellian (reply) 08:43, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, forcing references to 100% is one of the things the got slam-bang right. Function over form, always - and decreasing font sizes never increases functionality. Now, if they had only used this principle elsewhere, the skin might be better in general. — Gavia immer (talk) 11:31, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, decreasing font sizes does increase functionality when it helps distinguish block quotes from main prose and prevent the references list from being as big as or bigger (space-wise) than the actual article prose. That's precisely why printed books and papers reduce the size of blockquotes and footnotes. —Lowellian (reply) 22:24, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
100% is good. I have normal short-sightedness, and the smaller text is awkward even for me, for many it must be a major accessibility issue. Block quotes are set off from the normal text I believe. It doesn't matter if the references are bigger than the article. WP is not paper. There have been repeated calls to dump the 90% and they sort of get half hearted consensus then get forgotten. Rich Farmbrough, 10:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Jumping in here real quick. Reflist still uses 90%. That is an English Wikipedia setting that has not changed. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:44, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, kids. Nice attempt. Put on a new users hat then just look at this page. The one thing they want is a searchbox- so that needs to be as near to the top left hand corner as possible and visible. When designing a page like this you have to factor in the clutter that is added to every page. Using a GA star to mean Watch is perverse, and do IP users get to play with the drop arrow (that has now just disappeared) to do renames. If they do find the About button- they are directed to Help:About- a page with a disgustingly obtuse lede..work needs to be done there! Ok- now the editor- two clicks where one once did. Then there is the text size change- a teenagers approach to eyesight! --ClemRutter (talk) 08:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just switched back to the old skin after putting up with the new one for about an hour today. Old skin looks much better. Whitespace at top of page gone. Search returned to left side. From a visual and usability point of view the new skin has no advantages for me. Is there any agreement to force the new skin on passing visitors? Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:07, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of course. The new skin is presented to anyone not logged in. –xenotalk 23:10, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So I understand, but why? Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:17, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Last I heard, the reason was "because we paid $$$ for it". ;-) Regards SoWhy 10:52, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at my response and your message again, I'm not exactly sure what I was trying to say. –xenotalk 14:55, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've actually been against Vector for a while, but now that I've been using it for a couple days, I've come to quite like it. I find text much easier on the eyes to read now, and the dropdown tabs make it possible for me to have the full version of Twinkle (finally!) without the tabs running off the side of the page. Juliancolton | Talk 12:55, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Vector issues

Activated Single-Revision Deletion

Hi all,

So I remembered that I intended to activate single-revision deletion a few weeks ago. I (finally) got around to it this evening. Enjoy it, and as always, if there are any problems, please mail wikitech-l, file a bug, throw rocks at me or something.

— Andrew Garrett • talk 14:19, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this. –xenotalk 14:21, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Werdna, were the previously identified bugs addressed before activation? I mean, if we were noticing issues on the Oversight team with the extremely small number of revisions that were deleted/suppressed, it's going to be a much bigger mess now that another thousand people will be using this tool. Risker (talk) 14:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can't comment on any bugs without knowing which bugs you're talking about. — Andrew Garrett • talk 14:46, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe she is referring to bugzilla:21279. –xenotalk 14:49, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Xeno, yes that is the one. This is a problem as it is, and makes it difficult to reconstruct actions and identify accountabilities. I don't have a problem in principle with admins having access to this tool, but we really can't afford to get the deletion logs messed up any more than they already are. It would also be helpful to know exactly which of the actions associated with the revdelete tool are provided in the admin version, and which are restricted to oversighters. Edit: From the note below, it appears they've got access to log deletion and hideusername, which were only ever intended to be restricted to oversighters. Risker (talk) 15:01, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'm curious about what regular admins have access to versus oversighters. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:06, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Delete revision text; Delete edit comment; Delete editor's username/IP and yes, it seems it can be done on log actions. –xenotalk 15:07, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looks fantastic, really very smooth. I wonder if the link at the end of a log item couldn't be changed to something more descriptive. The deletion log has "view/restore," blocking has "unblock|change block," whereas "more..." seems to imply a set of other options, not "change." ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:58, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Scripts will need to update to take account of the new links for admins. Ale_Jrbtalk 17:47, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I just wish we had more defined classes for each part of each log/contribution/history line so that we could use less hackish methods to get data for each line. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 05:50, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While log data is still mostly contextually opaque to JavaScript, it looks like seeing if the title of the last link in a log entry is "Special:RevisionDelete" should reliably identify log entries which are revision deletions. I haven't implemented anything yet because I'm unsure where and when I should make the interface for toggling such entries appear. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 20:41, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest right beside the (20 | 50 | 100 | 250 | 500) line. Something like (full deletions only | revision deletions only) or something. –xenotalk 20:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I just noticed this (after posting at Bugzilla). Does single revision delete avoid the log issue? Will head off and test this a bit..... back in a few. FT2 (Talk | email) 20:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that what Werdna calls "single revision delete" is what we call RevDel. –xenotalk 20:36, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Update for admins - see post at WP:AN. FT2 (Talk | email) 22:05, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I had no idea this was going to be implemented, and it made me panic for a second and think I had gotten oversight access accidentally. Steven Walling 04:37, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. I had the exact same thought, until I found this thread. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:35, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Me too: I was so startled that I pinged the stewards. There ought to be a better way to notify people about significant WM-wide rollouts—it's not like everybody has the time or inclination to continually monitor all the discussions where such things might be announced. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:00, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

GIF not animating

The animated GIF at square wheel doesn't animate in the thumbnail within the article. Is this a bug or by design? (Firefox 3.6.3, Windows XP.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:27, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Recently, GIF scaling was switched on. For the thumbnail to render animated, there is a limit of 12.5 megapixels per image. I'm calculating nearly double that for the image in question, so I think that this is the correct behavior. —Ost (talk) 19:25, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the info. This sucks. I just added "Click the image for an animation of..." to the image's caption.  :-( Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:13, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I really have to complain about this. Go to the Giant impact hypothesis article and look at the image that used to be an animated GIF. Currently it is not animating. Even telling the user "Click to see the animation" won't work, because clicking it brings the user to File:Big splash 3d.gif, which again shows a single frame out of the animated GIF. The user has to click a second time. So now in the caption, how are we supposed to tell the user to view the animation? "Click twice to see..." doesn't work because all computer laymen out there have been trained to double-click. "Click the image, then click the image you see on the next page, to see..." makes me want to leap out of a window. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You can use a link of the form Media:Big splash 3d.gif to link to the image file (e.g. from the caption) until it is converted to a Theora format video. PleaseStand (talk) 23:01, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Those kind of simple graphics wouldn't suit video compression very well. What can be done is to manually re-scale the gif, as it is rather over-large. Ideally, it could do with some 3d cues as well so you can tell what's going on. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Disable GIF scaling?

This thread appears to be the reason why scaling was turned on it was just before the one cited by Ost which I participated, as a latecomer in the original discussion. In short an editor complained that static gifs weren't resizing properly, so a developer turned scaling on.

Since the only gifs here are supposed to be animations, could a developer please turn GIF scaling off again? It was turned on to improve static gif viewing based on a user complaint and now has the unintended cost of disabling high resolution gifs. (I'm guessing this is why it was turned off in the first place, to facilitate larger gifs.) From what I see above this has affected more than one user. (PS for documents, the only static gif I could kinda sorta understand, why don't we encourage folks to upload 2 color tifs? Anything else could be converted to a svg or at worst a png.) Anynobody(?) 00:08, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 75#Animation for large GIF. See also commons:Category:Animated gifs exceeding the 12.5MP limit, and commons:Commons:Animated image resources#Animations to videos. There is also a proposed WikiProject: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Images and Media#Animated images project. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User pages in Categories

I have noticed some user pages appearing on important categories, e.g. User:Cr2pr/cybrarian on Category:India (now removed). One only needs to edit their own user page for this to happen. There needs to be a way to prevent such listing of user pages on categories of articles. Geeteshgadkari (talk) 13:46, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hm... I wonder if some way could be devised to flag a category for acceptable namespaces. –xenotalk 13:58, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No. And it probably isn't a good idea to only allow certain namespaces in a category; sounds far too limiting. Gary King (talk) 19:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean 'No' - of course some way could be devised (though whether it is a good idea is another question). Personally I don't see an issue with having a __NOUSERPAGES__ magic word or something on a mainspace category that would exclude user and user talk pages. I can't think of any possible reason we would want to allow user pages in mainspace cats. It would be a pain in the ass to put it on every category -mind you. –xenotalk 19:09, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is a list of categories that contain pages both in the main and User namespaces. Svick (talk) 19:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Far less effort than my way. Cheers =) –xenotalk 19:46, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, meaning the feature doesn't currently exist. Gary King (talk) 04:30, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is it possible to design a bot which will search the phrase "user:" in categories and make correction in the user pages? I am not aware of the technical issues involved, and the idea may be naive. --Geeteshgadkari (talk) 08:34, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is a discussion about creating such bot at Wikipedia talk:Categorization#User pages in Categories. Svick (talk) 19:04, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Help tagging redirects automatically

Another user has generated a list of untagged derm-related redirects. I wanted to know if someone could help tag these redirect talk pages with 

{{WPMED|class=redirect|importance=|dermatology=yes}}

? Perhaps there is an automated way to do this? Thanks in advance for your help! ---kilbad (talk) 17:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC) [reply]

You could use WP:AWB to accomplish this; the alternative would be to ask someone who runs bots to do this for you. Gary King (talk) 19:04, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is there someone who uses AWB regularly who could help me with this? ---kilbad (talk) 00:15, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since nobody is answering here, you may want to post this request to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks. Svick (talk) 14:01, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interwiki problems?

Are the two de links here showing up for anyone? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 21:02, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strange. Fixed, but this may be a bug. –xenotalk 21:05, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Could someone else file it; I don't like bugzilla and its lack of psudonymity. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 21:09, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
They're interlanguage links; appearing in the left sidebar rather than inline is their expected behaviour. Happy‑melon 21:33, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, of course. I'd forgotten about that. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 21:45, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that is true—not a bug, at least. Categories have the same feature, except that they display at the bottom of the page. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 01:22, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:COLON. – ukexpat (talk) 16:36, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No home wiki

According to the SUL utility, my home wiki is "???", although it says it's enwiki_p at the bottom. However, if I check Download's stats, it says that his home wiki is enwiki. Is this a problem with my accounts, or is this the utility's problem? —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 01:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... probably a utility glitch - it works fine for me as well on the SUL utility. It could also be your account name (just guessing here), which has numbers in it. Airplaneman ✈ 01:54, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, definitely not the number problem. User 21655 works as well. I think there's just a problem with my username. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 02:33, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It also says my home wiki is "unable to determine" at meta's Special:CentralAuth. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 02:36, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Could it be that your old home wiki is now deleted? bugzilla:22638 Merlissimo 15:04, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
No, unless enwiki was deleted, as it was definitely my home wiki. I notice that I've been around here since 2006, if that may affect anything. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 05:26, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, your home wiki is the wiki with the "most" user rights. At the moment this would be flaggedrevs_labswikimedia because of sysop status. So perhaps you were sysop at another testwiki that was deleted. Merlissimo 11:25, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh, that would make some more sense. Is it possible for someone to reset my home wiki? —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 02:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Or should I ask on Meta? —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 20:20, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Faulty diff

I added quotes to one word and this is what the diff looks like. __meco (talk) 08:49, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that happens sometimes. Diff algorithms can't be perfect in every case. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:18, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is obviously a bug then which significantly hampers editors' ability to edit articles. Has this been reported to the MediaWiki developers? __meco (talk) 12:22, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
a) It in no way significantly hampers anything - or a very rare occasion, a whole paragraph will be highlighted, which isn't really a collosal problem. b) For their speed and computational requirements, the wikipedia diffs are actually very good. If you wish to do your PhD on writing a more efficient, effective and reliable diff algorithm, feel free to do so, but until then I think it's unlikely to significantly change. See diff and file comparison for more on diffs in general. Ale_Jrbtalk 14:14, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think that is a rather nonchalant response. __meco (talk) 17:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
User:Cacycle/wikEdDiff does a much better job than the standard WP diff in this and similar cases (e.g. here it highlights just the two quote characters).—Emil J. 16:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate this. I wonder why this cannot be implemented by MediaWiki which obviously hasn't sorted this out to satisfaction yet. __meco (talk) 17:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Because it's slower and worse in other areas. Don't assume that every problem can be easily solved by computer programmers - we're not magic. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 18:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Let's be honest. The reason that diffs aren't better is that no one wants to put in the hassle and time to A) understand the difference engine (whose logic is little changed from that of phpwiki 10 years ago), B) design an improved system, and C) demonstrate to the community that the improvements really are better on both qualitative and technical grounds. Each of these steps is hard which discourages people from even trying. Frankly, our difference engine does do some stupid things. Some of the stupid things it does shouldn't be hard to fix, but the barrier to making improvements is very high. Dragons flight (talk) 18:46, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, no one wants to put in the time is sort of the point. That's because it's really, really hard, which is sort of the point I was making earlier. The longest common subsequence problem is generally NP-hard (there's much more detail in the article) making diff engines generally complex. I consider myself a reasonably competent programmer, and I couldn't do it without much more effort than I have to spare - it's the sort of thing, like the usability stuff, that is (in my opinion) only likely to drastically change if (quite a lot of?) money is thrown at it. Which was sort of what I said originally. Ale_Jrbtalk 18:57, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion: Write to WikiMedia Norway. They have a drinking straw into the Norwegian treasury. I'm sure they would be happy to give you a grant for this job. Their leader, Jarle Vines, is very enthusiastic about technical solutions that can improve the projects. __meco (talk) 20:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but wikEd does much, much worse in some cases, and is far slower in nearly all cases. Ale_Jrbtalk 18:57, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even popups just highlights the two quotation marks does a better job, though it still removes and readds the word between the quotation marks (changed 05:32, 21 May 2010 (UTC)) in the diff. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 05:30, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Never seen that happen. Could you give a specific example?—Emil J. 12:31, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and do you never notice when popups truncates the diff "for performance reasons", yet when you look at the MediaWiki diff, it was just a single comma change or similar? Unless you have the time, funding, and genius to embark on a PhD or research fellowship to solve the problem, don't complain about lack of optimality in diff generation. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 21:55, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And if that wasn't bad enough

Take a look at this diff. I'll hasten to point out that it is completely misleading.

  • For a brief impression you will be able to count four posts by me in the pre-edit version which are all missing in the post-edit version.
  • By looking at the diff view you will apparently find the phrase "This talk page is poisoned" in both versions, however looking below the diff view it simply doesn't appear.

As I'm taking this gross violation of WP:REFACTOR to WP:ANI I'd appreciate input on this technical issue first (Editors will notice that the edit is also marked as 'minor'). __meco (talk) 08:08, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Side effect in signatur coloring

When I switched from monobook to vector, I got an unpleasant side effect: The coloring defined in my .css (the content of monobook.css is identical to vector.css) file now also effects the top right links (id: pt-userpage, pt-mytalk, pt-mycontris). How can that be disabled? --Leyo 19:10, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I recommend you look at WP:SIG#Appearance and color and use their code, changing the color if you want to. PleaseStand (talk) 23:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is that supposed to be working for the vector skin, too? --Leyo 00:00, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You're right: it didn't work anymore (neither on Vector nor on Monobook). I have fixed the code for you (the fixed code is located in the same place). I also have a script that usually can highlight the entire comment, but it does not do so automatically and it needs a bit more work (hopefully I will get the time to do so soon). PleaseStand (talk) 00:17, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That worked, thanks. Just the coloring of the already visited links (diffs or history) in the watchlist still does not work. --Leyo 17:41, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I typed sox vlc in the RD search field at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing and the first line of output was:

You may create the page "Sox vlc prefix:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives", but consider checking the search results below to see whether it is already covered.

The line seems to occur on every search. Could it be removed please? Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:30, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is bugzilla:21102. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:36, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Firefox can't find the server at stats.grok.se." (page view statistics down?)

Resolved

[1] Sad face. –xenotalk 23:13, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(P.S. How hard would it be to css or otherwise tweak the page view link to default (or provide an additional link) to last month? –xenotalk 23:15, 20 May 2010 (UTC))[reply]

It isn't just you. I was using it yesterday, but this afternoon it has been down. --RL0919 (talk) 23:46, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
@xeno P.S.: To link directly to statistics for the previous month, I guess you'd need to edit MediaWiki:Histlegend to have something like:
Page view statistics [http://stats.grok.se/en/{{#time:Ym}}/{{FULLPAGENAMEE}} this month] '''·''' [http://stats.grok.se/en/{{#ifeq:{{#time:n}}|1|{{#expr:{{#time:Y}}-1}}12|{{#time:Y}}{{padleft:{{#expr:{{#time:n}}-1}}|2}}}}/{{FULLPAGENAMEE}} last month]
which renders as:
Page view statistics this month · last month
Perhaps could be reworded to take up less space.
— Richardguk (talk) 01:00, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking something more along the lines of a personal javascript that would add the link - I'm not sure if people will agree with having two links for the one tool. –xenotalk 03:26, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to be working again? mgiganteus1 (talk) 09:28, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yep - put it back in... Thanks. –xenotalk 17:24, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

iPad mobile safari browsing peculiarity

IPad mobile safari handles section anchors poorly. If I navigate to a page (not a hash marked subsection) I can scroll up or down the page at will, but if I navigate to a specific section and scroll up or down the browser will lurch back to the anchored link. I don't know why this happens or whose fault it is, so I'm coming here for some feedback or comments. Does anyone see this behavior on the iPhone? On their iPad? Do they see the behavior on other sites which use the same page anchoring techniques? Protonk (talk) 00:08, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On my iPod touch (should be essentially the same as the iPhone) I see this behaviour mainly while the page is still loading—I can scroll the page, and then when the page finishes loading, it "lurches back" to the anchored link. Otherwise, I haven't had any problems. I haven't yet tried an iPad. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 01:06, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that this erratic jumping also happens in web browsers like Firefox. The browser loads the page first, then when it's done, it jumps you to the anchor; it does this AFTER the page loads since some elements may move the anchored section down, such as a big image before it, etc. Gary King (talk) 17:05, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I trust your experience with firefox, but I can not recall that happening to me on my PC. Could also be that the ipad is dumping portions of long pages which are not in the frame and messing up the reload, but that doesn't feel like what is happening. Protonk (talk) 20:30, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There are two branches for that code. IIRC, Internet Explorer jumps to the section immediately (during loading) while the other browsers wait for the onload event before jumping. — Dispenser 01:10, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What is up with the page view stats tab?

Resolved

The page view stats button is missing on the history page... Will it be back? And if not why not??--Oracleofottawa (talk) 02:17, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See above. The tool is down for now, we don't have much other info. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 02:21, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
'tis back now. –xenotalk 17:24, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clicking on minor help edit by mistake

When I go to preview an article I'm editing I sometimes click on the minor help box by mistake, and when you click on it your edit is lost. Is there any way it could be re-positioned or else a way for the preview edit to remain? Eldumpo (talk) 08:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Adding the following to Special:MyPage/skin.css will hide that link, if you want to do that:
#minoredit_helplink { display: none; }
Gary King (talk) 08:20, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Add “Insert link” button to “Search” form

This is an idea about checking the references during editing the article. You find reference to existing article (if the referenced notion does not need new article), and insert its, mistakes expelled. uk:Вікіпедія:Кнайпа_(технічні_питання)#Виправлення посилань в процесі редагування --W.M.drossel (talk) 08:44, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Title for the article "AOL" is MediaWiki talk:AOL?

If you go to the article AOL, the title is MediaWiki talk:AOL? What's up with that? I got a feeling that one of the transcluded templates has messed up its use of {{DISLPAYTITLE:}} Gary King (talk) 17:20, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed, just needed a null edit after Graham87's nost. history import. –xenotalk 17:21, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yeah, I should have checked the article history. Gary King (talk) 17:46, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any way to access the current user's preferences from inside a template?

I am working on a template that I would like to behave differently based on the current user's language preferences. E.g. if it's "en" do A; but if it's "en-GB" do B. Is there any way to do this? Thanks! Grover cleveland (talk) 19:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the only thing that is accessible out of a user's prefs is their gender. On an unrelated note, please see WP:NEWSECTION. Thanks! –xenotalk 19:35, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about the newsection. Can you tell me how to access the current user's gender? I can see how to access the gender of a specific named user using the {{gender}} template, but how do I find the gender of the current logged in user, whoever that may be? Thanks for your help! Grover cleveland (talk) 19:49, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The syntax is:
  • {{gender:username | return text if user is male | return text if user is female | return text if user hasn't defined their gender}}
See mw:Help:Magic words#Miscellaneous for more information.
The same help page describes {{int:message name}}, which is related to what you originally requested. But instead of returning the user's language tag itself, this returns the contents of MediaWiki:message name/language-tag.
Admins can create and edit custom messages, with internationalised versions as subpages of each message. But as a hacky workaround, I think you could test a suitable existing message to see whether it matches the British variant.
For example:
  • {{MediaWiki:exif-colorspace}} = Color space
  • {{MediaWiki:exif-colorspace/en-gb}} = Colour space
  • {{int:exif-colorspace}} = Color space (this is determined by your user preference language).
So:
  • {{#switch:{{int:exif-colorspace}}|{{:MediaWiki:exif-colorspace/en-gb}}=matches British English|does not match British English}}
produces
  • does not match British English
— Richardguk (talk) 20:41, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is great -- exactly what I wanted! And if I can convince an admin to help, maybe I can get around the hacks too. Thanks! Grover cleveland (talk) 20:57, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On most wikis the message for this is called Mediawiki:Lang (commons, dewiki, ...) Merlissimo 23:01, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Has anyone heard that int (along with transclusions of "current time" functions) is problematic for "what links here"? PleaseStand (talk) 23:41, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dealing With an Interwiki and Article Title Conflict

The novel, Lad: A Dog, is properly written in that fashion, however because Lad: is the prefix for the Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish), Wikipedia, an article here can't have the name of Lad: A Dog. You can't even write it without prefixing it with a colon. So the article was created at Lad, A Dog instead, per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions). In its current FAC, an article has questioned whether there is not some way to "fix" it so the article is at the correct title. Reading over the technical restrictions guideline again, it seemed like there was not, but I added {{Namespace conflict}} template to help clarify it. However, the same editor felt a definitive answer was needed one way or another, so this seemed to be the best place to ask the question. Is it possible to make the article have the title Lad: A Dog without it going over to the non-existent "A Dog" article at lad.wikipedia.org? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:33, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Plastering over the title is all I can think of. Looks retarded at times, works only for one skin (in this case Vector), and all links to the article will have to be
[[Lad, A Dog|Lad: A Dog]]
since the title hasn't actually been changed (there's merely a "wallpaper" over it. Feel free to revert. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 04:20, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Had to revert, it looked horrible in Monobook :-) There is a template for doing something like that, but from what I read at the guidelines, it shouldn't be used in this case unless the actual Lad: A Dog pointed to it (which I don't think is possible?). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 04:27, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Another possibility is replacing the Latin "a" with a Russian "а": Lаd: A Dog. But that would most likely confuse people trying to link to the article. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 04:26, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, yeah, I'd suspect most folks wouldn't realize they were different (I can't see any visible differences in them at all LOL) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 04:37, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I left a note at your FA-review. It'd be ridiculous if this was the only concern that'd make it fail. Seriously. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 04:50, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, because it breaks the copy and paste rule. You should be able to link to any article simply by copying its title and pasting as the link target. While you might be able to workaround it by selecting similar Unicode characters (such as U+2236 ∶ [Mathematical Operators] or U+A789 ꞉ [Latin Extended-D]) they have different meanings, may cause problems for speech synthesizers, and often render incorrectly in Internet Explorer. — Dispenser 04:58, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Lad, A Dog is the best we can do, and it does show up in the search box's list of choices (although clicking on the suggestion is required to get to the article). For a similar example, see Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, in which q: is the interwiki prefix for Wikiquote. For a while, there was a soft redirect called Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! on Wikiquote, but it got deleted several times in 2008 and 2009. If the Ladino Wikipedia would create a soft redirect called A Dog... PleaseStand (talk) 05:00, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I created a redirect at the Ladino Wikipedia with a note explaining why. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 05:10, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Never use Unicode substitution to fix this problem. It would make the article title sound like "L question mark d: A Dog" in a speech synthesizer, which is horribly confusing. Graham87 05:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And also we need the lowercase form lad:A dog to cover all-lowercase searches. Honestly, I think that sooner or later, the redirects will get deleted anyways; if the English Wikiquote deleted a soft redirect and they speak the same language... PleaseStand (talk) 05:16, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There should be Wikimedia-wide guidelines with respect to namespace clashes with article titles. PleaseStand (talk) 05:17, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Toolserver problems

Resolved

Neither sulutil:PleaseStand nor the Wikipedia edit counter work for me. I can, however, connect to the Commons edit counter. PleaseStand (talk) 06:00, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having the same issue with X!'s edit counter. Does anyone know what's going on? SCΛRECROWCrossCom 07:08, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fortunately, it works now. PleaseStand (talk) 21:36, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comment on flagged revisions trial

I have created a request for comment on the flagged revisions trial, motivated by an unexpected, unannounced and publicly undiscussed change of configuration removing the reviewer usergroup. Please weigh in there. Cenarium (talk) 12:58, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Namespace question

I'm sorry to post a question that with some searching or digging into code I would probably answer but I imagine it would be simpler and quicker to ask it here. (And the result of the question will be put to a Wikipedia-related purpose so it's not totally off-topic.)

Can namespace 14 be reliably trusted to always be the Category namespace (not only on Wikipedia or WikiMedia installations but across all MediaWiki installations)? I suppose there are two answers that for my purposes would be sufficient for a 'yes': an absolute 'always yes' or 'no, but in practice always yes'.

Is it the same for all the default namespaces?

Many thanks, --RA (talk) 18:20, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In theory, no. In practice, yes. However, if you're writing something in PHP for MediaWiki, you should use the NS_CATEGORY constant, and if its JavaScript, there is a wgCanonicalNamespace variable that will always be the default English namespace name (assuming there is one). Mr.Z-man 18:32, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much. The API calls would be off-site so on-site variables wouldn't be useful but your post led me to a probable solution on search the API page. Using meta=siteinfo the number and canonical name of each namespace can be gotten at. Presumably that is reliable (in theory as much as in practice). Do you think that's right? --RA (talk) 18:41, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's basically what I did in my Python framework to handle namespaces. Mr.Z-man 18:54, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

incategory: search and subcategories

Is there a good reason why a search such as comma incategory:"Wikipedia Manual of Style" doesn't traverse subcategories? If not, I'm going to report that at BugZilla. A. di M. (talk) 19:15, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If categories could be forced to form a tree (no, a directed acyclic graph - the point is there mustn't be loops), and if we stopped putting categories into inappropriate parents (on the illogical grounds that "if X is a member of category Y, then [Category:X] is a subcategory of category Y"), then it might make sense to extend search and other functionality to traverse the subcat tree.--Kotniski (talk) 19:39, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User:ArticleAlertbot may need to be fixed

ArticleAlertbot has been down since early April. It appears that there have been API issues or something to do with logins, or somesuch. (I am not very fluent in all this tech-y stuff). Anyways, it appears that other users who have tried to repair the bot have had problems as well (such as User:Tedder not having a toolserver account or something like that). The bot's programmer, user:B. Wolterding has been fairly inactive lately, popping in occasionally. Is there anyone here that could please try to repair the bot? Brambleclawx 15:06, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for template

I'm trying to find or build a template, a thumbnail, or ? I want to display both wiki and commons pic of the day, but control the size and float, can this be done. It would be nice to be able to add or work with the captions and/or text. but if this requires something like java or any kind of script then that would be beyond my knowledge. Mlpearc pull my chain Trib's 16:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See the explanation at Wikipedia:Picture of the day. Svick (talk) 22:10, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Plain text list of uploads

Hi, does anyone know how, or could help me with, getting a plain text list of a particular user's Commons uploads which still exist (as in, are not red links)? It should ideally look like:

File:this one.jpg
File:this one.jpg
File:this one.jpg
File:this one.jpg
File:this one.jpg
File:this one.jpg

...etcetera. Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►directorate─╢ 17:09, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As a one-off, or a permanent tool? I'll start having a play, I can't call such a thing existing. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 17:11, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This might work, you just change the URL to suit whatever user you want the uploads of... it keeps telling me I've only uploaded 10 things, though, so it might not be working perfectly; I've spent the last 15 minutes trying to work out why, and to fix it, but no luck, and now I have go eat. But have fun in the meantime. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 17:35, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I think I know where this is going [3] is your AWB-friendly link. Have fun with them :) - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 19:01, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent—thanks so much! ╟─TreasuryTag►constablewick─╢ 21:02, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Someone should take a look at the external link detection code. On a number of occasions I've had a Captcha thrown up with the statement "Your edit contains external links", despite the fact that there were no external links added in the edit (Example edit where this happened [4] - I've seen it primarily on the Reference Desk, and primarily when the "edit section" link is used to initiate editing). I'm guessing that there is an external link somewhere else in the section that the detection code isn't smart enough to realize is pre-existing, despite the fact that the diff generation code has no problem figuring out what is and is not new. -- 174.24.200.38 (talk) 17:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Common.css

Could someone check out the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Add class="rellink" to MediaWiki:Print.css? Thanks, --The Evil IP address (talk) 19:32, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Collapsing Sections

Is there a way to collapse sections on my talk and user pages - if so, what is the code for it?
~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 20:46, 23 May 2010 (UTC) [reply]

Question

Are you trying to do something like this?

Tisane (talk) 21:15, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. ~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 21:43, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I got the code from it. ~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 21:46, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Random page in category disabled

I added a link to several maintenance categories, (e.g. Category:Uncategorized pages), that goes to a random page in that category. It uses the tool "Random page in category". I found it very helpful, allowing me to get pages to categorize without always starting at the beginning of the alphabet or scrolling through endless lists. Bu yesterday it stopped working. I now get a message that says "Fatal Error: Sorry, this tool has been disabled for the English Wikipedia." Anyone know why or where to complain?--agr (talk) 22:01, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best way is contacting the author of the tool: User:Erwin. Svick (talk) 22:22, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Edit conflict not happening?

Please see this edit history. My db tag was placed at the same time as the previous one, but mine overrode the other. I got no edit conflict warning. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 22:13, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This error was reported a few days ago when the new vector skin came out. Are perhaps the things connected? Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See also this discussion. Intelligentsium 01:06, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
@SunCreator, it is VERY unlikely that this is related to Vector and other usability enhancements. If this is a new issue, then it is much more likely related to the deployment of MediaWiki 1.16 beta a few weeks earlier. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:35, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm certain that this has been happening for quite some time - but I'm also sure that it is happening more and more frequently, despite the lower total number of edits I'm seeing on my watchlists. DuncanHill (talk) 13:38, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I think I remember again when this occurs. The problem often occurs when many people at once contribute to a page. The edittimes are so close together that the software starts to make mistakes in editconflict detection. What the exact cause is, i'm not sure, but i suspect it has to do with identical times of opening the editwindow. I'll see if there is a bugreport on this. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:41, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Transliteration error

The romanisation of the Bulgarian word for "search" has been mistaken at wikipedia.org. Where can I report that? (And what is really the point of romanising all non-Latin alphabet words?) --Магьосник (talk) 01:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can report that to meta:Talk:www.wikipedia.org template. Wikipedia itself has no control over that portal. Intelligentsium 02:00, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Edit Notice

I made a new edit notice Here and when I edit my user talk space the notice is shown twice Here what's wrong ? Mlpearc pull my chain Trib's 02:37, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I tried editing your talk page and the notice only shows up once for me. Equazcion (talk) 02:48, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
PS I'm not quite sure why your talk page says "group notice" while most people's talk pages usually say "page notice", as the edit notice's link. Yours goes to a template subpage of Template:Editnotices rather than the usual User talk:Username/Editnotice. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but maybe it has something to do with your problem. Equazcion (talk) 02:59, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It says "Group notice" because it appears on that page and all subpages. It shouldn't be related to the problem; by the way, I only see one copy, too. Gary King (talk) 05:04, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Probably because you're using wikEd. Ucucha 09:19, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanx that was it. but I guess I'm going to have to put up with it, editing without it sucks. But thanx that was it. Mlpearc pull my chain Trib's 09:29, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Add this to Special:Mypage/skin.js and purge: 

var wikEdDoCloneWarnings = false;

---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 12:34, 24 May 2010 (UTC) I woke up this morning on a mission: to get this fixed, and to my surprise I see this .js patch and I think YEAH ! but it didn't work :-( Mlpearc pull my chain Trib's 14:27, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reversed image?

Resolved
 – I'll swear it was different earlier...! TFOWRpropaganda 14:54, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Go to the Alaskan Klee Kai article, please. Then click on the image in the infobox. Notice how the dog in the image is reversed between the article and the file page? Why does that happen? Dismas|(talk) 14:08, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Image looks the same for me on both pages. --Onorem♠Dil 14:14, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It could be some strange caching issue, the image was reversed on 15 September. Have you tried bypassing your cache? (And it looks the same for me too.) Svick (talk) 14:18, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Heh! I replied at the help desk and directed Dismas here. I looked earlier and something was definitely awry. All looks good now, though. Cheers, TFOWRpropaganda 14:50, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how it could have been a cache issue since I had never read that article before... Either way, it's fixed now. Thanks, Dismas|(talk) 21:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is caching at the Wikipedia side of the connection as well :D —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:59, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Extended edit bar malarky

I've got the extended edit bar (with the buttons for easy redirects, ref, cite, etc), but have noticed that when I go to edit it doesn't shew up first time, I have to reload the edit screen. I use the old default skin, with Chrome on WinXP. DuncanHill (talk) 14:56, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I also use Chrome in XP and often have this problem with wikEd. It seems to be Chrome's behavior. Other scripts such as Advisor.js seem to have a similar issue, and frequently I have to initiate Anomie's linkclassifier.js manually.—Ost (talk) 15:43, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any errors in your JavaScript error console? Svick (talk) 19:18, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know, where would I find a Javascript error console? DuncanHill (talk) 22:06, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In Chrome, on the "page" icon menu, Developer > JavaScript console and it's the output at the bottom - maybe filter for just errors though. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 22:09, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At the bottom (under the thing that looks like a magnifying glass) is a > followed by a flashing cursor. DuncanHill (talk) 22:29, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Documentation of infobox template

{{Start infobox page}} is used in {{Infobox tennis biography}} and the page becomes too wide. The content in <pre> of /doc may cause the problem. style="overflow: auto" should fix it but it doesn't. Please help me. --Quest for Truth (talk) 17:09, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why overflow: auto didn't work there (it showed up correctly on the /doc page), but white-space: pre-wrap works – it allows line breaks. Besides, I think it's better this way. Svick (talk) 19:25, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Category trouble

Could someone remove Wikipedia:Template messages/Translation from Category:Wikipedia articles needing translation please. I know its down to {{Source need translation}} and {{Inline need translation}} but I can't figure out how to stop it appearing in the category. Thanks--Jac16888Talk 17:29, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

error message when using Hot Cat [5]. Pohick2 (talk) 00:41, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I had one of these too, earlier. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 00:44, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It was both, apparently. Fixed now. It is still part of the hidden category Articles needing translation from Spanish Wikipedia, but that can be fixed easily as well. Intelligentsium 02:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Skin bug

Sometimes when I go to my watchlist, the skin changes from vector to monobook without me doing anything to make it appear in monobook. Is there anything wrong? ~NerdyScienceDude (✉ • ✐) 23:42, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This has been happening all day to me! I spend three pages in vector, then a few in mono, then a few in vector, but have it set to vector and I'm not doing it. Plus, I have been getting edit conflicts for no apparent reason - I was the only one editing it! I've tried everything I can think of! And I lose my unsaved changes each time!~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 02:43, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've been experiencing the same problem. I can live with the skins temporarily going back and forth, but when it somehow causes me to run into an edit conflict, even if no other user edits the page, it gets downright annoying. — ξxplicit 02:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I hope they're doing something about it. ~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 03:18, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Halfway between vector and monobook?

After hitting the site tonight, I just noticed that I'm somewhere halfway between the vector and monobook skins. The main layout is vector, but my toolbar on the edit page just reverted to the old monobook style. I've done several full refreshes, edited my preferences, and still nothing. For what it's worth, I'm not using wikEd. Anyone else having this issue tonight? Maybe it's a sitewide thing... — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 02:19, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This has been happening all day to me! I spend three pages in vector, then a few in mono, then a few in vector, but have it set to vector and I'm not doing it. Plus, I have been getting edit conflicts for no apparent reason - I was the only one editing it! I've tried everything I can think of! And I lose my unsaved changes each time!
~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 02:43, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I also get monobook unexpectedly from time to time. Cenarium (talk) 04:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The user experience tech team at Wikimedia Foundation is investigating why the problem is happening. The new toolbar is also disappearing and the old toolbar is coming back. We hope to restore the stability as soon as possible. Naoko Komura (User Experience Programs @ WMF) Shuhari (talk) 04:33, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat less than random articles?

Is there some way to have the random article link so it is not quite so random?

Do not show me any pages...

  • With the phrase "(album)" in the title
  • With the phrase "(artist)" in the title
  • With the phrase "(singer)" in the title
  • With the phrase "(song)" in the title
  • With the phrase "(band)" in the title
  • With the phrase "(rapper)" in the title

DMahalko (talk) 04:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt it, as it chooses a random article, but you could ask someone who knows a bit more JavaScript to help you. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 04:53, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A bot for meta-edition

Consider the following scenario: I have a set of long and complex tables to create for a group of articles, which require very delicate and fragile formatting. The complications are large enough to make me want to abuse meta-templating for handling intricate tag and link patterns in order to preserve my sanity. Meta-templating, however, incurs in a number of annoyances, the one which concerns me most being the sheer ugliness of the multiple curly brackets syntax, which can easily cause pages to become unreadable and unmaintainable. Such difficulties led me to wonder if a bot could help by allowing me to sidestep templates and Wiki markup. The strategy I'm thinking about goes more or less like this:

  1. Designing an alternate markup specific to the set of tables I want to create;
  2. Coding a parser in whatever language (let's assume Python for convenience) which converts my markup into MediaWiki syntax;
  3. Creating a bot which uses the MediaWiki API to read the source for the tables in my markup language from a subpage of the article, then converts it to Wiki code and updates the actual article with the parsed table code;
  4. Having the bot update the article from the source subpage on demand, either on user request or by automatically updating pages from a list daily.

I would like to ask for comments on whether this strategy or variations of it are feasible, as well as advice and recommendations on the best course of action to make it work. Additional considerations:

  • Forgive me for any eventual nonsensical ideas, for I never created a bot and thus pretty much all that I know about the proceedings on the MediaWiki side of bot operation is what the help pages told me.
  • Even if you believe such a bot would never be approved please don't shy away from providing technical advice, for I see potential uses for it not only here but also in places such as Wikibooks.

Thanks in advance, Duplode (talk) 05:47, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Database error

I got this error:

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: 

   (SQL query hidden)

from within function "Revision::insertOn". Database returned error "1290: The MySQL server is running with the --read-only option so it cannot execute this statement (10.0.6.26)".

Anyone else experiencing this? It doesn't seem like very friendly behavior; when I hit "Back," I had lost my edit. Should I submit this to Bugzilla? Tisane (talk) 06:04, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you hit "reload", you won't lose your edit. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 08:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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