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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.

Vector issues

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]
At the moment the only possibility would be to asked a steward for deletion of your global account. After that you can remerge your accounts to a new global account. The home wiki is calculated during the global account creation process. Merlissimo 23:34, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
How curious... looking at my own page it seems that the two "home wikis" in that SUL utility are really different. The top one seems to be the oldest account (in my case, enwiki from Dec '04), while the bottom one is the account with highest user rights (for me, enwikibooks). --Duplode (talk) 19:39, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

<- Reply to Merlissimo: Does that mean I have to delete my username "MC10", or just the fact that the global account exists? If it's the latter, then I'm fine with that.

Reply to Duplode: enwiki should be your home wiki, as "Editor" isn't really a user right. (If it is, and does take precedence over edit count, correct me.) "Sysop" status does take priority over edit count, so if you were sysop on a wiki, that would be your home wiki. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 17:24, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The global account 'MC10' has to be deleted. Then all the local accounts 'MC10' will remain but unconnected and you can create a new global account 'MC10'. The global account is just a meta account which connects all your local accounts. When you edit on this wiki your edit belongs to your local enwiki account. Merlissimo 20:50, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. I'll go ask a steward if they can do so. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 21:25, 31 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]

All sounds feasible but necessarily easy, except for if you update a wiki page from a sub-page, how will you avoid removing user edits to the page. Rjwilmsi 11:30, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A single use of transclusion. MyArticle contains, alongside with the rest of the article, {{MyArticle/BigTable}} which the bot generates from MyArticle/TableSource, where editions are actually made and contribution history is preserved. --Duplode (talk) 14:42, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A slightly more specific question: would it be feasible to have the bot monitoring the changes to the "source" page so that it can make the updates in near real-time? (if it isn't viable I would be fine with daily updates for a queue of pages, but it would be nice if real-rime was possible) I am planning to upload the bot to the toolserver, BTW. --Duplode (talk) 19:31, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, provided you create an IRC component to follow irc://irc.wikimedia.org/#en.wikipedia, which contains a live feed of edits; you could have the bot watch the edit stream for when the "source" page is edited, then have it update the table. — The Earwig (talk) 21:45, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Script to uncollapse everything on a page, perhaps even doing so automatically when page title contains the word "Archive"

Further to Template talk:Hat#Search problem with hatting. –xenotalk 12:57, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

New script: Expand Hidden Templates

Okay done. What this script does is it adds a link to the toolbox in the left-hand panel called "Expand templates". When clicked on, it expands all hidden templates, including {{hidden}}, {{hidden archive top}}, and their derivatives. After expanding the templates, the link in the toolbox can then be used to collapse all hidden templates again. Gary King (talk) 15:49, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's great! It's still slightly buggy, but that should be easy to fix, and it's already useful as it is. Here is the problem: Each time you click the toolbox link the text of the toolbox link and the state of each hidden archive are all toggled separately. E.g. if you manually open all archives and then click "Expand templates" it closes them, and if you then click "Collapse templates" it opens them. Also, if one archive is open and one is closed, then when you click the toolbox link they just swap states. Hans Adler 12:28, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for catching that. Fixed. Gary King (talk) 18:25, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Citation tool not working after site redesign

While the site redesign looks cool and all, it doesn't work properly and obviously hasn't been tested very well. Whenever I use the citation tool in the editing window (click on the 'cite' button at the top), I can add one citation, and it works fine. But if I go to another page and try and use that citation tool again to add another citation, the little 'templates' drop-down appears BEHIND the text box where you make your edits! So I can't select a template! The ONLY way to fix this is to close the browser entirely and open it again and relogin. It does the exact same thing in Firefox and Chrome (don't ask me to even think about using IE). WTF? (talk) 04:23, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is bugzilla:23541. Mr.Z-man 14:46, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After Revision delete, default action changed for pressing "enter" on history talk page

Prior to revision delete if one pressed "enter" on the history talk page, the default action would be to compare the revisions selected - now the default action is to try and delete them. Can this be swapped? –xenotalk 18:33, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? –xenotalk 13:37, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
bugzilla:23747 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:43, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Much obliged. –xenotalk 14:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retired users

I notice that retired users (even retired for years) still get messages about possible deletion. They're most likely not going to respond to it, so there should be a way to keep it away from the talk page (perhaps e-mail would be a better solution). mechamind90 00:02, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So should Twinkle automatically check if the user's last contribution was over a year ago, and if so, not give the deletion notice? Twinkle already allows the user to disable notification of the original contributor. PleaseStand (talk) 01:09, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have the user page for several inactive or retired editors on my watchlist and react to such messages as needed. Indeed, I just left a message on a user page and someone notified me that he was not active. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 02:03, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
User:Phaedriel probably gets more messages than any retired user and she left almost 3 years ago. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:08, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Editors come and go. If I wrote an article, and then came back a year later and found it gone, it would be helpful if there were a link on my talk page to the AfD so that I wouldn't think it happened by mistake and recreate it. There's no harm in placing such notices. OTOH, subscriptions to newsletters should prbably be stopped if the editors haven't been active in a few months.   Will Beback  talk  02:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, other users can see those messages and respond to the actionable talk page messages, but newsletters can be dropped. EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:55, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

EXTREME HELP NEEDED

O.K. I just made an article called Elyon (novel) on a subpage, and in my attempt to move it, it became a redirect, I'm angry that the work that I had just put into it was deleted. Can someone tell me how to fix this? Tetobigbro (talk) 04:07, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For future reference, this is exactly the reason why new-page patrolling just minutes after article creation can be a problem (an IP redirected it, calling it non-notable because you did not cite a third-party source). Your work is not lost. Click on Elyon (novel). Click on the line below "Ted Dekker" that says "Redirected from Elyon (novel)". View the history, click on the correct date, and you can see the old revision (from before the IP turned it into a redirect) and also choose Edit to get the original code you typed in or move it back. PleaseStand (talk) 04:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was moving things while PleaseStand was editing. It didn't turn into a redirect, an anonymous editor converted it a few minutes after you moved it, claiming it didn't pass Wikipedia:Notability (books). At first review, I tend to agree. I've restored the text of the article at User:Tetobigbro/Elyon (novel). See if you can demonstrate how it passes Wikipedia:Notability (books), and try again.—Kww(talk) 04:20, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is this correct - anonymous IP's have move rights? kcylsnavS{screechharrass} 18:29, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It was redirected by the anonymous user. Anons don't have move rights. Reach Out to the Truth 16:48, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Tetobigbro, I see you registered on 20 May 2010. I'm working on a project User:Philcha/Essays/Advice for new Wikipedia editors to guide newcomers' first steps as they work on articles. The guide: use a "lite" presentation of WP's policies and guidelines, hoping 20% of the words will cover over 90% of the situations, and make it easier to identify the more difficult cases; include techniques and tools that can help newcomers.
I'd be grateful if you could comment about this at User talk:Philcha/Essays/Advice for new Wikipedia editors - others may imagine how a situation for a newcomer, but you know! --Philcha (talk) 18:18, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article for deletion

I have just created an AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Juan Antonio Rodriguez but something has gone wrong in the set-up. Can someone correct it and tell me what I've done wrong. Thanks Eldumpo (talk) 09:15, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The final step of the process is to add it to today's AfD page. You can use the links provided in 'Step 3' of the AfD template on the article at insertion time to do this. Or, you can do it manually by editing today's AfD page and adding a transclusion of the deletion nomination page — which I've just done for you. Splash - tk 10:38, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove

Japan_Self-Defense_Forces#Other_references

Why is there extra space at the end of the section?174.3.121.27 (talk) 09:31, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't? Splash - tk 10:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not any more there isn't. Algebraist 10:42, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Category redirection

Article redirects are commonly used to enable article name variations to point towards the correct place. Is there an equivalent facility for categories? Folks at 137 (talk) 09:40, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, the software does not permit that. Use {{Category redirect}} instead, and a bot will come along and move the articles into the target category. Splash - tk 10:34, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Questions about Vector skin

Hello, so I haven't really explored the vector skin, but I wonder if someone can either tell me these answers, or point me to a FAQ:

  1. Is it possible to have the 'admin' (ish) dropdown next to the watchlisting star expanded permanently, preferably horizontally a la how it used to be?
  2. Is it possible to always have the 'Toolbox' in the left sidebar expanded?
  3. Can I move my monobook.js to vector.js and recover the things in there?

Thanks, Splash - tk 10:31, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the answer to no. 3 is 'yes'. Most things seem to work. Splash - tk 16:18, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
1: install User:Svick/DropDownToTabs.js
2 in your preferences, Appearance section, uncheck "Enable collapsible left navigation menu" —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:46, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
—TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:46, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Turns out I've a bit of work to do updating my rather old .js stuff. Splash - tk 00:19, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CSS styles

thumb|freshly cleaned cache
thumb|after logging in

It appears that some CSS styles (such as the text containers on my userpage) ceased working this morning. Does anyone know what happened?   — C M B J   19:58, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, the problem only happens after I log in. Any ideas?   — C M B J   08:55, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly is the problem? Can you take a screenshot of what it looks like to you, and how it's supposed to look? It looks the same for me in Firefox and Chrome, no matter whether I'm logged in or out. The page does look pretty messed up, though; the flags in the top-left corner are covering the "Viva la Wikipedia!", and the images at the bottom are covering the "Media" text. Gary King (talk) 20:09, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Screenshots added. Try using Chrome's incognito feature--you should see it as well.   — C M B J   00:22, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. The code I removed is considered "insecure" by MediaWiki for logged-in users. Don't use it. The change was made on May 28. Gary King (talk) 02:38, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User cannot see preview

Re. help request, User_talk:Muslim_Editor#I_cant_see_preview

I've given some generic advice there, asking for more details and to try reset/other browser, and asking for more info.

Posting here in case someone recognizes the problem and can help at all. Best,  Chzz  ►  12:34, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

AfD closing

Hi. The new layout of the WP makes some of the css-based tools not work anymore. Especially, I miss the tools for fast closing of AfDs. As this has probably been discussed before, could someone please direct me to the instructions how to get them back working without switching back to the old layout every time? Thanks a lot. --Tone 16:48, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Copy paste: Special:Mypage/monobook.js to Special:MyPage/vector.js. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:43, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Or do this:
Add the following to User:Tone/vector.js:
importScript('User:Tone/monobook.js');
Now, all you have to edit is User:Tone/monobook.js, and the vector.js file updates with it. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 17:32, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot! By the way, is there an option to put the links (delete, protect etc.) back in the tabs instead of having them in a drop menu? --Tone 19:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See 3 headers up. ^^^^^^ —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:57, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Brilliant :-) --Tone 22:42, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The ability to customize the cite link labels has been added to the Cite extension; this version is not yet installed. For more info on this feature, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (footnotes)/Cite link labels. And no, I have no idea if or when this will be installed. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia-Turnkey ?

I am an older and fairly skilled programmer but not very well skilled on systems administration. I would like to experiment with creating (non-editing) bots that could do statistical analysis of Wikipedia articles but so as to be respectful and non-disruptive to the project I would like to work off-line. Is there any sort of a Wikipedia turnkey setup (some might call this "Wikipedia-In-A-Box" in good humor) which contains (A) a running version of Wikipedia software and (B) a decent sampling (maybe a few thousand articles complete with talk pages and histories et cetera) of the Wikipedia database? My LINUX skills are minimal but I could install this on my webhost's server if such a package is available. Failing all that is there any kind of online sandbox (a dummy/duplicate Wikipedia) for the same purpose? 66.102.198.179 (talk) 16:51, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can run you own installation, such as mw:Manual:Wiki on a stick. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 17:32, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Gadget850, that takes care of (A) above but what about (B) ? 66.102.198.179 (talk) 03:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You can try one of the smaller backup dumps. (See Wikipedia:Database download.) – allen四names 03:57, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Globe logo thingy

The Globe logo seems to have disappeared. Doesn't particularly bother me, but I expect that it matters somewhere to someone. Am on the old look Wikipedia, and Chrome on WinXP. DuncanHill (talk) 17:35, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot replicate your results. I am using Windows 7, and I can see the globe show up with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 17:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't there this morning either, so computer has been rebooted in between. DuncanHill (talk) 18:16, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Different globe logo thingy issue

For some reason with Vector on IE6/XP Pro the background of the logo renders dark grey, with the balance of the left side column light grey. Vector on IE8/Vista has the background the same light grey as the left side column. Trivial, but consistent.LeadSongDog come howl! 15:41, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Userspace moves

In light of the recent Grawp attacks, I was wondering... wouldn't it be easier to make it so that only the user who the userspace belongs to, admins, and bots can only move pages in one's userspaces across the user/user talk namespace? Unless I'm missing something, I see no good reason for anyone but those users I mentioned to move those pages. The Thing That Should Not Be (talk) 18:15, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This would certainly be possible to implement with an edit filter. I'd rather not do it without some discussion on whether or not it's a good idea, though. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 18:20, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Possible logic would be, preventing moves of 1/ a top-level user page or user talk page to anywhere, and 2/ any subpage other than to another subpage of the same user, except by owner/admin/bot. Any move would at least not be so "in your face" to other than the userspace owner. But would it really help much? Or just push vandalism on to the next target? But yes, seems valid, just unclear if it'll make a worthwhile difference. FT2 (Talk | email) 18:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As proposed, this is a lousy idea, since it would allow a page move vandal to implement effective move protection on their vandalized pages simply by sending them to userspace. The obvious further development - disallow moving articles to userspace except by admins - would seriously interfere with casual userfication, and also with some kinds of of new article cleanup when the article is at an improper title. Any serious proposal to do this needs to not have these problems. — Gavia immer (talk) 18:42, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Search input automatically redirecting to external site

Really odd one here. Entering de: (colon included) into the search box redirects one to the German Wikipedia (sensible enough; so does de:). However, entering dict: takes one straight to this external page, which isn't a WikiMedia site. What gives? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:26, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Help:Interwiki linking states "These target projects need not use MediaWiki and need not even be a wiki." See m:Interwiki map. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 18:39, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
dict should probably be changed so that it directs to Wiktionary, just as d was. --Izno (talk) 20:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
D'oh, didn't even think of checking what dict: did because I simply assumed it went to Wiktionary. Is this really something that any Meta admin can change at will? Wow. Nevertheless, this prefix has been in place for over five years so I don't imagine changing it now would be sensible. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:51, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. That said, maybe it would be prudent to change the definition to point to the associated wiki (as they seem to have one), since it is an "interwiki table"? I myself would definitely rather see it point to an internal page, but if it's to remain… --Izno (talk) 22:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it may be confusing, but it's still there. In a similar fashion, google: links to a Google search (http://www.google.com/?q=). —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 22:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Before changing dict: to point to Wictionary: (A) are there any articles, talk or WP pages currently using a link to dict.org that would be broken by such a change? and (B) why not create a link wict: which would be a more accurate abbreviation anyways. 66.102.198.179 (talk) 03:30, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, while it's easy to search normal internal links (using Special:Whatlinkshere) and normal external links (using Special:Linksearch), there isn't an equivalent tool to search for links that use the interwiki map, at least not that I'm aware of. — Gavia immer (talk) 03:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
wikt: is what we use to link to Wiktionary. Fences&Windows 16:01, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed change to article tagline

At WikiProject Usability and Willage pump (proposals) I'm proposing the following sentence be added to the tagline of articles that are not protected or semiprotected: "You can edit this article." Followed by a button marked "EDIT". Is this technically doable? Anthony (talk) 19:30, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Only with Javascript probably. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:48, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking whatever process adds the "protected" or "semi-protected" text to an article page could hide the "You can edit this article" sentence and button. Anthony (talk) 21:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Notes cited to multiple locations in text?

I'm working on List of Presidents of Washington & Jefferson College, which will have separate explanatory notes and reference sections. I'm defining the explanatory notes with the {{#tag:ref}} function (per WP:REFNEST). So, here's my question: Can I construct it so that the same explanatory note can be used to refer to two points in the text? Put another way: is there a way to make that explanatory note work similar to the <ref name="name" /> references? I'm asking because I have two entries on the list that would be easily explained by a single note. Any help would be appreciated.--GrapedApe (talk) 04:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A named #tag:ref construct may be invoked multiple times by using <ref name=name />. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 04:30, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Boy, I'm confused. I tried it a few times on my scratch paper. Would you be able to look at that to see what I'm doing wrong?--GrapedApe (talk) 04:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I changed it to what I think you wanted...Let me know if I was wrong. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:46, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to reuse the outer #tag:ref and it has a group, then you need <ref name=name groupname=groupname />. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 11:19, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Does this work for you? (I've provided a couple different ways to do it, depending on your preferences.) TheFeds 23:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
YES! Thank you!--GrapedApe (talk) 01:06, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Extra Space

Karelo-Finnish_Soviet_Socialist_Republic There is extra space at the top. Could someone fix? Thanks174.3.121.27 (talk) 07:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You've repeatedly asked for people here to do the same thing, and every time you have been shown how to do it yourself. One would think you shouldn't have to keep asking. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:05, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

help to fix diff horizontal size on AWB CSS style

The default AWB style causes diffs with a long string without whitespace (involving long URLs for example) to stretch the horizontal size of the diff, which is not what's wanted. Is there a CSS trick we can apply to prevent this? Thanks Rjwilmsi 12:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Setting "word-wrap: break-word;" might help. It is CSS3, so it isn't supported by all browsers. http://www.css3.info/preview/word-wrap/ —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:47, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but it would seem the .NET WebControl that AWB uses doesn't support it. Rjwilmsi 18:47, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Then you are out of luck I think. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:18, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How to add a task force to a WikiProject assessment template?

Thread moved to Template_talk:WPBannerMeta. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) Timestamp for archival. –xenotalk 12:59, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Email this user

My toolbox is no longer displaying this option, yes I do have email checked in my preferences, could it be a script interfering ? Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 18:02, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure the user you are looking at has email enabled? Try on my page. –xenotalk 18:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, xeno: yeah, your page doesn't show it, that's first thing I went to editors I knew would have the email option on their user page. I think it's a script I loaded, (maybe) but I don't know how to find out which one  :-( Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 20:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove them all and add them back one by one =) It's probably one of the ones adding portlet links. –xenotalk 21:00, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I could make a list of the scripts I most use, and blank the page and re-load one by one. Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 21:00, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just cut and paste your monobook.js into a notepad and then start adding them back one by one. –xenotalk 21:01, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
xeno your reading my mind is that a prerequisite for 'cratmanship ? lol Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 21:11, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Symantec reports Wikipedia as a possibly compromised website

See [1]. -FASTILY (TALK) 18:23, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I saw something like that but my noscript redirect me to an error page. After I allowed norton, I got "Norton Safe Web found no issues with this site." --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:29, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's gone. I think some Symantec techie just hit a "what the f*** do you think you're doing you stupid computer?" button :D Happy‑melon 18:30, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There are a couple of mentions of this issue at the help desk, too. I've referred editors to here, since I is clueless. TFOWRidle vapourings of a mind diseased 18:30, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like they already fixed it. Prodego talk 18:31, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict):It looks like it's reporting one diff on the Malayalam Wikipedia as potentially compromised. I frankly don't know whether it is, because I can't make heads or tails of Malayalam in the first place, but if this is being reported as a problem with all subdomains of wikipedia.org, that's a problem on Symantec's end, not a problem with the English Wikipedia. — Gavia immer (talk) 18:33, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now I see that as well. I'll see what can be done about it. Prodego talk 18:34, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It switched back and forth just two minutes ago, again with "HTTP Misleading Application Detection" linked to ml-wiki. First call was green, then a refresh showed red. East of Borschov (talk) 19:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And its gone again... Prodego talk 18:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I do not get the warning at commons and on secure login. Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\Work 18:43, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is rapidly changing back and forth. If you repeatedly do hard refreshes you will see it. Prodego talk 18:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You mean the Symantec page? Yes, I can see that it changes. And now the warning stopped popping up when visiting wikipedia via conventional log in. Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\Work 18:57, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And a hard drive scan comes out clean. Seems like problem is solved now. Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\Work 19:00, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, and now it is back again on conventional log in. I will stick for secure log in for the time being. Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\Work 19:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, you might want to use WebCite, SnagIt, Snipping Tool or Print screen to capture this sort of output before it changes. AFAIK the Symantec pages allow archiving. - Pointillist (talk) 23:08, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the Malayalam Wikipedia should be notified at their Embassy? They may have some insight what's going on. Or not...maybe it's irrelevant to them. Robert Skyhawk (T C B) 03:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Adding the Main Page to {{Cat handler/blacklist}}

Currently, the Main Page is within Category:Articles containing Japanese language text and Category:Articles containing Chinese language text, because some template of it uses {{Lang}}. I think we should add it to the exempt blacklist and then use {{Cat handler}} within {{Lang}}. What do you think? --The Evil IP address (talk) 20:11, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lost my login

All of a sudden, my logged in status went away while I was working just now. Not only was my login lost, but so was my User name and my password. Is this a bug? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 23:04, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's intentional. Wikipedia cookies last only 30 days or until you log on with another computer. —Jeremy (v^_^v Dittobori) 23:06, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In the middle of a session? And I just checked, I haven't been here 30 days yet. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 23:12, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A login can be lost for different reasons and is not uncommon. See Help:Logging in for tips on staying logged in. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:10, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It happens often to me, I blame switching between different comps :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Did you futz around with your computer's clock? –xenotalk 23:20, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 18:27, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It happened to me recently, in the middle of a session. I don't know that it was or was not the 30 day thing, but it was recently, so maybe coincidence, or maybe some glitch occurred 1 June.--SPhilbrickT 12:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Redlinked files now send to Wikipedia:Upload - is this new?

I could've sworn that in the past, a redlinked image would send you to the non-existent media description page where the convenient deletion log would be shown (when it exists), now it seems to send one to Wikipedia:Upload (File:Foo.png). Can this be changed back, either globally, or through personal .js/.css? –xenotalk 15:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They always sent one to the upload form with the former filename as its name, which you can see at the "?wpDestFile=Foo.png" within the url. Either the developers have now changed the target to the url specified in MediaWiki:Upload-url or someone has changed some system message. --The Evil IP address (talk) 15:56, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Really? Guess I'm getting old (or maybe I've never actually clicked a redlinked image before). –xenotalk 16:07, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I started noticing that a few months (several months?) back. But it doesn't seem to always work that way. Initially I assumed that happened when Commons files were deleted, but recently I noticed it for a file that I'm pretty sure was here. Guettarda (talk) 16:19, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct Xeno, it used to do this. I liked it that way, too. Gary King (talk) 16:25, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for confirming that I am not, in fact, going senile. =) You're a .js-whiz, any personal-workaround for now? Alternatively, we could add the log excerpt(s) to WP:UPLOAD (if possible) as suggested at the bugzilla. –xenotalk 16:27, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
User:Gary King/show upload deletion logs.js Gary King (talk) 18:27, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome. Thanks again =) –xenotalk 19:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Editnotice for all pages

I want to put an editnotice above the editing textbox for all pages on a private MediaWiki-based wiki that I run. The problem is that I can't find any system message that works for this. None of the following work, for the reasons given:

I've checked Template:MediaWiki messages, and none of those messages seem to do it. Does anyone know the name of the system message that I want?

—Lowellian (reply) 16:26, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You need to use Editnotices. They are indeed per namespace, but you will either have to copy your message to all of them, or you have to use transclusion to put the same (template/mediawiki) message into each of them. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:02, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The namespace editnotices don't seem to work on a default installation of MediaWiki using Monobook. For example, I edited MediaWiki:Editnotice-0 and MediaWiki:Editnotice-2 and noticed no messages showing up when I edited main or user pages, not even after I purged the cache. What am I missing? —Lowellian (reply) 18:27, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you are using an outdated version of the mediawiki software ? This is a 1.14 feature. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:30, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, okay, thanks, that explains it. The wiki was 1.13. —Lowellian (reply) 19:36, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On a separate but related note, why does MediaWiki provide two different copyright warning messages? What is the difference in function between MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning and MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning2? —Lowellian (reply) 20:01, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Warning1 takes into account wgRightsText Mediawiki configuration option, and warning2 does not. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:14, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, could you clarify what you mean by that? I just read http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgRightsText and it doesn't say anything about how it relates to those two copyright notices. —Lowellian (reply) 16:23, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

New script: Show Article Subject's Age from Year

Short explanation: Make years in articles appear like this (hover over the year): 2009

Long explanation: I'm looking for some people to test this script out. What it does is, when you visit an article that has a definite "creation" date, such as a person (their birthday), a company (its founding date), or a piece of artwork (its creation date), all years that appear in the text will be "hoverable"—meaning, if you hover your mouse cursor over a year in the article, then the article's subject's "age" will appear in a tooltip (i.e. the year that you're hovering over minus the birth/creation year of the article's subject, whether it be a person, object, or event).

If you use this script and find a page that doesn't make mark years when they should be, the let me know (this script only works if the subject's birth/creation date is explicitly stated in one of the article's categories—if it doesn't exist, then add it; and years are only marked in the article's body, meaning years in tables, bolded terms, links, etc. are not marked). Unfortunately, I can't attach a screenshot since tooltips disappear when hitting a key on the keyboard, but I can tell you that years appear like this: 2009, which would appear in an article about a person who was born in 1999.

To install:

Copy the following to Special:MyPage/skin.js: 

importScript('User:Gary King/subjects age from year.js'); // [[User:Gary King/subjects age from year.js]]

I've got a bunch of other scripts that I've written lately, but I feel that this one might have the widest appeal at the moment. Have fun! Gary King (talk) 20:53, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work. Incidentally, ALT+PrintScreen (on Windows, it probably has its equivalents) does screenshot the tooltip as well. Not that we need a screenshot when we have a working example :) - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 14:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Character list under edit box

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but is it possible to add a new character list to the drop menu under the edit box (where the Arabic, Hebrew, Greek etc. are)? In Hungarian Wikipedia we have lots of these, and they are very useful. I'd love to have these characters there:

3 ỉ w ˁ b p m n r f h ḥ ḫ ẖ z s š q k g t ṯ d ḏ

this is an alphabet for transliterating ancient Egyptian words. – Alensha talk 16:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think you need to raise this at MediaWiki talk:Edittools. — Richardguk (talk) 17:33, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

edit notices for templates

I tried to create an edit notice for {{singlechart}}, but when I edited the pagenotice link it created Template:Editnotices/Page/Template:Editnotices/Page/Template:Singlechart, which doesn't appear when you attempt to edit. Anyone know where it should have been and how to fix the link so these get created in the right place?—Kww(talk) 17:13, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You need to move the editnotice to Template:Editnotices/Page/Template:Singlechart. — Richardguk (talk) 17:32, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That fixed it so the template works. Any idea how to fix it so the pagenotice link on templates links to the right place?—Kww(talk) 19:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The wikitext for the link is defined via MediaWiki:Editnotice-10, {{Editnotice load}} and {{Editnotice load/core}} as expanding to:
<div class="editnotice-link editnotice-redlink sysop-show accountcreator-show" style="clear: both; float: right; margin: 0px 0.8em; padding: 0; line-height: 1em; display: none;"> <small>[[Template:Editnotices/Group/{{FULLROOTPAGENAME}}|Group notice]] &nbsp; [[Template:Editnotices/Page/{{FULLPAGENAME}}|Page notice]]</small> </div>
which should link to Template:Editnotices/Page/Template:Singlechart from //en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Singlechart&action=edit as required.
Are you sure the link was broken?
— Richardguk (talk) 20:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weird, when I click the 'pagenotice' link in the editwindow for that template, i'm taken to the correct page. How and with what browser did you try to create this template notice ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:22, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, the wikitext for a redlink is slightly different from the wikitext for an existing editnotice. But both code paths seem OK to me.
Could it just be confusion over the instructions at Wikipedia:Editnotice#Creating editnotices?
— Richardguk (talk) 20:38, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can't reproduce it now, but all I did was click the redlink for the page notice. I'll keep an eye out for this and see if I can find a pattern. I'm using Firefox 3.6.3.—Kww(talk) 20:42, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Parsing Wiki XML Dumps ver0.4 just got tough

Hello, I am trying to parse Wikipedia XML Dump using "Parse-MediaWikiDump-1.0.4" along with "Wikiprep.pl" script. I guess this script works fine with ver0.3 Wiki XML Dumps but not with the latest ver0.4 Dumps. I get the following error.

Can't locate object method "page" via package "Parse::MediaWikiDump::Pages" at wikiprep.pl line 390.

Also, under the "Parse-MediaWikiDump-1.0.4" documentation @ http://search.cpan.org/~triddle/Parse-MediaWikiDump-1.0.4/lib/Parse/MediaWikiDump/Pages.pm, I read "LIMITATIONS Version 0.4 This class was updated to support version 0.4 dump files from a MediaWiki instance but it does not currently support any of the new information available in those files."

Any work arounds would help me get to the next level. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.167.71.155 (talk • contribs) 20:12, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Does SineBot have a timing issue that can cause an edit to be lost?

I am looking at a diff page which seems to show SineBot adding attribution to an edit, but not basing its edit on the latest version of the page. Instead its edit was based on the just-prior version of the page: the effect was to revert the prior edit. It seems SineBot may create a timing window between starting an edit and posting the completed edit, during which any other edit that is posted gets lost. In the case of this example, SineBot stepped on itself. The previous edit was a SineBot edit, which got reverted. But if this timing window exists, it could step on any edit that happens to get posted while the window is open. Not the fault of the poster of the lost edit—the edit that is lost is not the edit that is being signed by SineBot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Malamanteau&diff=next&oldid=361925161

Cheers, MetaEd (talk) 20:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure how exactly SineBot works (it is closed source), but the timing went like this (used api.php to find the seconds of the timestamps):
  • 71.80.39.10 posted an unsigned comment at 17:40:58
  • 24.86.178.47 posted an unsigned comment at 17:41:24
  • SineBot signed 71's comment at 17:41:43 (45 s after 71's edit, 19 s after last edit)
  • SineBot signed 24's comment at 17:41:59 (35 s after 24's edit, 16 s after last edit)
According to User:SineBot/ChangeLog#1.6.0, SineBot does have some form of edit queuing. I also have no idea why the second comment was signed after 35 s instead of after 45 s. PleaseStand (talk) 21:31, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

en.m.wikipedia.org not responding

The http://en.m.wikipedia.org sub-domain keeps timing out with no connection. Is this a temporary problem, or has this sub-domain (for enhanced mobile devices and the default domain for access via the Amazon Kindle) been changed or discontinued? —Preceding unsigned comment added by NogDog (talk • contribs) 21:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

- It appears to be back up now, so I guess that answers my question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NogDog (talk • contribs) 22:53, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Due to load issues on the server, there were a load of problems. A new server was put in production, but it takes a while before everything is updated and back online. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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