Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues. Bugs and feature requests should be made at BugZilla since there is no guarantee developers will read this page.

FAQ: Intermittent database lags can make new articles take some minutes to appear, and cause the watchlist, contributions, and page history/old views sometimes not show the very latest changes. This is an ongoing issue we are working on.

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Golden Gate Bridge Article

I added a panoramic image a few days ago. It displayed properly. I looked at the article today and got an error in the image space: Error creating thumbnail: convert: Insufficient memory (case 4) `/mnt/upload3/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Ggb03162006.jpg'. convert: missing an image filename `/mnt/upload3/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Ggb03162006.jpg/600px-Ggb03162006.jpg'.

The weird thing is it worked a few days ago.

index.php/Article

Hi. I was wondering how you got index.php/Article to be the same as index.php?title=article. I was wondering becuase I am writing a program in php, and this would allow for a much cleaner URL. Thanks, Shardsofmetal ^{[ Talk | Contribs ]} 19:22, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Some instructions about how to configure a MediaWiki installation are found at Using a very short URL, and that may have the answer to your question. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 22:39, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

See $_SERVER['PATH_INFO']. Note this is not always available. --Brion 00:29, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank You. Unfortunately, it didn't answer my question. This is my fault, I didn't word my question the way I should have, and I apoligize. What I actually wanted to know is from a programming perspective, how is it that you can program a file so that when called with a /variable, you can tell it to set variable as a certain variable. I hope that this is worded all right. Thank you, Shardsofmetal ^{[ Talk | Contribs ]} 03:34, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

This is either closely related to, or the same as, a question I've been having: when the web server sees "index.php/Article", how is it that it does not blindly try to treat "index.php" as a directory, and "Article" as a standalone page within it? Is apache smart enough to notice that when a seeming directory compoent within a URL (a) exists but is (b) not a directory but (c) is a server-side script, it might be okay to run that script and let it interpret the rest of the pathname? —Steve Summit (talk) 05:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Short answer: Yes. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible to get a long answer (or a link to where it is described), because I do not know how to do this, but would like to. Thanks, Shardsofmetal ^{[ Talk | Contribs ]} 18:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Learn about .htaccess, you'll find that Wikipedia simply instructs Apache to blindly send everything after wiki/ to title variable. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 17:31, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, the long answer is "Go to http://httpd.apache.org/ and download the Apache web server source code." The short answer was already given above. --Brion 05:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

If you haven't figured it out already, add:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^wiki/(.*)$ index.php?title=$1

to your .htaccess file. Make sure that you have the rewrite module loaded by having:

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
AddModule mod_rewrite.c

in your httpd.conf file. Tristanb 08:31, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

No, it has nothing whatsoever to do with rewrite rules. (Though you can accomplish similar things that way.) --Brion 08:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Expanding on what Brion said, the way Wikipedia does it can't possibly be mod_rewrite, because Wikipedia does not require use of .htaccess at all, as I discovered when I downloaded mediawiki and started playing with it myself. (That is, the mediawiki installation documents do not tell you to create a .htaccess file; the -- very nicely automated, btw -- mediawiki installation procedure does not create a .htaccess file for you; and my own mediawiki installation is working just fine, including with respect to subdocuments, and there's no .htaccess file in its /wiki directory.) But it's true, there's a zillion Apache modules out there which can do all sorts of things, and the perl motto probably applies: "TMTOWTDI".

(As an aside, there's a school of thought that suggests that mod_rewrite might not be the first tool you should reach for when performing some URL-related trick. To be sure, and as its own documentation proclaims, it is "the Swiss Army Knife of URL manipulation". But its documentation also contains two cautionary quotes: "The great thing about mod_rewrite is it gives you all the configurability and flexibility of Sendmail. The downside to mod_rewrite is that it gives you all the configurability and flexibility of Sendmail. [Brian Behlendorf]" "Despite the tons of examples and docs, mod_rewrite is voodoo. Damned cool voodoo, but still voodoo. [Brian Moore]")

Shardsofmetal's question still remains, though: once apache has looked at the URI components "index.php/Article", determined that "index.php" is not a directory, determined that "index.php" is a server-side script, and called it, how does index.php recover the string "/Article"? (Yeah, I know, I could figure this out by looking at the source code, but I haven't delved into it yet.)

—Steve Summit (talk) 14:17, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I already provided exactly that information on March 5. Please read above. --Brion 00:40, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Sheesh. Sorry. Thanks. —Steve Summit (talk) 18:19, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

RTFS. 86.134.49.239 22:02, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Telescopic taxobox

I could never describe myself as a deletionist, but I am all for hiding information that isn't immediately useful.

So here's my proposal for a telescopic taxobox, allowing taxonomic groups which are currently missing to be simply hidden, rather than absent:

Normal view	Expanded view		Proposed template usage
			{{Taxobox | image = Pleorodeles_waltl.jpg | image_caption = In an aquarium | color = pink | name = Iberian Ribbed Newt | regnum = [[Animal]]ia | unranked_phylum = [[Bilateria]] | unranked_phylum_hide = true | superphylum = [[Deuterostomia]] | superphylum_hide = true | phylum = [[Chordate|Chordata]] | superclassis = [[Tetrapoda]] | superclassis_hide = true | classis = [[Amphibia]] | subclassis = [[Lissamphibia]] | subclassis_hide = true | ordo = [[Urodela]] | familia = [[Salamandridae]] | genus = ''[[Pleurodeles]]'' | species = '''''P. waltl''''' | binomial = ''Pleurodeles waltl'' | binomial_authority = ... | range_map = ... }}

The shrunk version is more readable. The expanded version is more complete. And this way little compromise needs to be made between them. A third click could perhaps hide the classifcation all together, and show just the binomial name.

I was hoping the mechanism could coopt the Hide/Show button from the Table of Contents box, but my attempts have so far failed (see /teletaxotest). A page that does does something similar (but hides the whole box, not just parts) is here: User:Essjay/CVU/IRC/Verifications

Which classifications would be hidden would be set per species or taxon. (see parameters ending in _hide in the proposed template usage above).

Anyway, I've pretty much given up on making this myself. I suspect it would need some extra Javascript that would have to be added to the main javascript file of the Wikipedia. But anyone else who wants to give it a go, please do.

Note: I have noticed that the metadata on images is collapsable, and maybe the javascript it uses can be hijacked. (e.g. see Metadata section on Australia_Cairns_Koala.jpg) but I haven't attempted to use this approach as yet.

I'm wondering if someone were to make this work using some javascript if it would be possible to add javascript to the wikipedia's main .js file? Perhaps if it were a generic solution?

—Pengo 08:58, 11 March 2006 (UTC) (/rants)

The template {{Afd}} has a "show/hide" button that only modify part of the box. However, it is in a fixed position, so it may not be what you are looking for. - Liberatore(T) 15:03, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

It can not be done using the javascript as it is now, but it can easly be an generic code-snip. Simlar for this:

<div class="hiddenStructure"> <!-- Outer container-->
<div class="hiddenStructureButton">Button...</div>
<div class="hiddenStructureElement"></div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div class="hiddenStructureElement"></div>
</div>

using

#Pseudo code (don't remeber all js at the moment :))
foreach(element = getElementsByClassName('hiddenStructure')){
element.getElementByClassName('hiddenStructureButton').addEvent(...);
foreach(element = getElementsByClassName('hiddenStructureElement')){
element.connect(event button);
}
}

function hideElement(element){
element.style.display='none';
}

etc...

_→AzaToth 01:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Note that the 'missing' taxons are generally left out deliberately and people working on the project will often go through and remove 'extra' taxons. Generally we show each of the major (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, et cetera) higher taxons, but not the sub-groupings (Super-phylum, Subclass, et cetera) unless one of those is the 'next higher' level above the article subject. --CBDunkerson 20:49, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're addressing me or making a general comment here, but i'd like to clarify anyway. The point of the this suggestion is to allow the deliberately removed taxons to be merely hidden, rather than deleted. As I understand, they are only removed to save space. As the condensed version of the taxobox can be lacking in information, if not misleading, I'd like to keep them but in a hidden state, rather than have them deleted. —Pengo 01:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

In addition to 'saving space' the extra taxons are often left out because such 'sub-groupings' are often speculative or disputed and subject to more frequent change than the primary taxons. Also, the CSS based methods of implementing this which you are currently pursuing (hiddenStructure and the like) do not work for all users... such that if you are 'successful' the result would be that some users (people with text browsers, people with screen-readers for the blind, people on non-English language Wikipedias and Wikipedia mirrors) would always get the 'uncollapsed' format. --CBDunkerson 13:00, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

You have some valid points: Yes, some people would be stuck with an uncollapsed view, but they'd be stuck with valid information, quite unlike how some people have used "hiddenStructure" to "hide" nonsense code, so I don't see it as such a problem. The problem of the taxa being speculative and/or disputed is probably less surmountable, but I suspect that would be the exception rather than the rule? The extra taxa in the example above were all taken from Wikipedia articles. E.g. the grouping "deuterostomia" is revealed in the taxobox for chordate but is missing in all the taxa below it. Anyway, thanks for discussing this issue, I currently have no plans to persue it further as the gain is simply not that great and there are much more worthy low hanging fruit (like filling in conservation status where it's missing). Cheers. —Pengo 01:24, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Random Number Function ?

Is there existing functionality to parse a random number using wikimarkup at this time. An extension appears to be availible on meta m:User:Algorithm/RandomSelection. And apparently other wiki's (e.g. uncyl..) are using this with success? -- xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 05:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

What would it be useful for on Wikipedia? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:29, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

A random number generator would allow pages to display random content. The closest thing we have to that currently is what I've done with Portal:Featured content where a different set of past picture/article of the day are displayed from a randomized list every sixty seconds. However, that isn't truly random and it relies on a huge switch to do the evaluation. Actual random features would allow much greater flexibility with much less processing resources required. --CBDunkerson 20:37, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Ouch, just looked at Wikipedia:Featured content/SetDate, and it looks like a great candidate for a RND() function! xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 05:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. A simple random function could allow the same (actually better) functionality in a vastly smaller template. Even some basic string manipulation capabilities, such as being able to do right({{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}, 1), could be used to build much better randomization. The last digits of the article count and file count at any given moment would effectively be random numbers between 0 and 9... but a real random feature would be best. --CBDunkerson 00:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

A {{RANDOMNUMBER}} variable as envisioned would be a serious problem for caching of content, which is what keeps us from going under. Like {{CURRENTUSER}}, this one is unfeasible. Rob Church 07:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

It would if it were used on main content pages, but would it have these same issues if used in templates/headers/etc to call other pages that were already cached? — xaosflux ^Talk 21:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Je ne comprends pas. Repetez, s'il vous plait. In plain English. Examples. Rob Church 19:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

transwiki instructions

Where is the documentation for the procedures for doing a transwiki to wiktionary and wikisource? RJFJR 17:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

m:Transwiki. -Splash^talk 18:23, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Which sucks. We need a better method, one that actually preserves the histories properly. 86.134.49.239 22:06, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Hear, hear. -Splash^talk 22:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't Special:Export and Special:Import work for this (assuming Export were made able to export the full article history for, say, just admins (right now it just exports the current state/edit details for everyone I believe))? —Locke Cole • t • c 00:58, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, yes. If Special:Export was fully-functional (yes, it's the same for admins as non at present) and Special:Import at all functional, we would probably have a viable transwiki mechanism... -Splash^talk 16:36, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe the main concerns with enabling those are

• People abusing Special:Export and increasing the load without cause
• People inserting falsified edit histories, etc. via Special:Import

MediaWiki kinda sucks at communicating with other installations of itself. A Special:Transwiki would be an awesome feature, but going about it is a bit more awkward. Rob Church 07:32, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Would it be possible to allow access to Special:Export (with full edit history) and Special:Import in the same way it's possible to allow access to (for example) just rollback (and not full sysop privileges)? In this way, editors could request "import/export" privileges and have them granted on a case by case basis. Agreed that a Special:Transwiki would be ideal though. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 07:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Possible but I suspect it would become unmanageable. Rob Church 19:39, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

IE error seriously annoying

Is anyone looking into the error discussed at the top of this page that occurs in IE when on wiki? Specifically: "In the last week or so, I've had some problems loading Wikipedia pages, mainly diffs and special pages. When I load them the page displays, then a system window pops up saying "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site <page address>. Operation aborted" and an OK button. I click the OK button and the page is replaced by a "cannot be displayed" message. Strangely, when I click the back button the page displays perfectly. This happens infrequently and to seemingly random pages, but never outside Wikipedia. If I go back and forth from a page where it has happened the error tends to occur again."

The error is seriously annoying and seems to be getting worse. "use firefox" is not a satisfactory answer here. most people see wikipedia through IE.--Deglr6328 05:32, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, try Firefox (or Opera). If it happens there, too, then you know it's either Wikipedia or your internet connection that's at fault. If it doesn't happen, then you know it's Internet Explorer that's at fault. --Carnildo 06:23, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Ugh, I KNOW! I USE FIREFOX!!! It doesn't happen when using it, it only happens w/IE. The point is MOST people here use IE to read wiki!--Deglr6328 08:04, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, having popular sites start failing in IE might just be the impetus to get more people to switch to a better browser, like hitting a mule with a two-by-four. Not that I'm advocating intentionally breaking the site in IE or anything... :-) *Dan T.* 00:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

That sort of talk is impractical and never leads to things being fixed. Rob Church 07:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem absolutely must be fixed. IE is not an insignificant browser here, whatever people think. Superm401 - Talk 21:46, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any such IE-specific problem. If you can collect some information (OS versions, network providers, packet traces??) that would be super. --Brion 23:04, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

It happens on win2k with IE6 with all the latest patches and SP's installed. I have put an ethereal (or is that 'taken') dump on your talk page. --Deglr6328 08:33, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The only accomodation I think IE users deserve is a prominent link to the downloads page. John Reid 01:26, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah! I'd throw them all in jail too! The mind truly boggles at this nonsensical, illogical zealotry. Get a clue. --Deglr6328 02:31, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

As I said above; that sort of talk is impractical, etc. Rob Church 19:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Not really a solution, because many public terminals (libraries and schools) use Internet Explorer. Furthermore, on behalf of myself, I am not allowed to download Firefox onto my computer. Ingoolemo ^talk 02:19, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the problem might be caused by malfunctioning spyware/adware that only affect IE. Try running various anti-spyware programs.
As for all the IE-hating talk, I'll say that I've been using Firefox for quite a while, and recently switched back to IE because it works so much better for me. Both browsers have serious problems, but IE's problems happen to cause me less trouble than Firefox's problems. –T_if_eg_o^(t) _{00:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)}

the problem is not related to spyware or adware as I am afflicted with neither. I can get it to happen again and again (the "operation cancelled" error) if when I am on the page that gives me the error I go "back" to the page to reload it within 2 seconds. however if I wait more than 5 seconds the chances of it happening again right away are much lower.--Deglr6328 04:14, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

How sure are sure that you don't have spyware/adware? Because I was having the exact same problem you're mentioning just the other day, and then I tried running Netscape's spyware scan, and suddenly I'm not getting that error in IE anymore. –T_if_eg_o^(t) _{00:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)}

I am absolutely 100% completely certain. Once a year (or so..) I download and run (YES with all the latest updates) spybot, AVG antivirus and ad-aware. I just did this last week and for the 3rd year in a row I've found absolutely nothing using any of these. (I don't keep them running because they slow everything down).--Deglr6328 06:20, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Contribs link in diff views

When viewing the diff between two edits, there used to be a Talk and Contribs link next to the 2 editors' names. It was working fine a few hours ago, but now the Contribs link is gone and only the Talk link is there. Is this the way it'll be from now on, or is it an error? tv316 19:44, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

If you click the IP in a diff, you get its contribs; however, there's no link for contribs of a username. Who boffed this up? --Golbez 19:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

It's now the same as the user info links displayed elsewhere in the user interface. --Brion 20:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Brion, but I don't understand what you mean by that. Also, it's apparently affected my rollback button, which I get from godmode-light, and made it tell me that "Contributions" is not the most recent vandal, but the vandal is. tv316 20:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Look at things like Recent Changes and Watchlist.

I don't know anything about your "godmode-light", presumably it needs to be fixed. --Brion 20:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

So is this format of just the talk page link in the diff view here to stay? For some vandals who have usernames and just in some cases when I want to see what a user has been up to, it's a bit annoying to have to click on the 'my contributions' button at the top and then copy and paste their name in the address bar to replace mine. Is there a reason for the change?

godmode-light was made by User:Sam Hocevar. It gived non-admins a rollback button. tv316 20:38, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

It's funny that you see this as the way to get to a user's contributions, because that's what I also thought for a very long time (long after being an admin). But on every userpage (empty or not) there's a "User contributions" link in the toolbox to the left. I felt really silly when I discovered it after having pasted in username's in urls for a long time. But maybe this fact (that many don't know about that link) is a good reason to put back the contributions link in the diffs. I don't know. Shanes 20:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

This is highly annoying, that link was very useful. Martin 20:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I also found the contribs link extremely useful for fighting vandalism. older ≠ wiser 20:51, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I've come up with a fix for Godmode-light, if anyone is interested...

Find this line:

vandal = l[i].getElementsByTagName('a')[1].title.split(':')[1];

and replace it with this

vandal = l[i].getElementsByTagName('a')[2].title.split(':')[1];

That line is located in the function AddRevertButtons. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page. --lightdarkness ^(talk) 20:44, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

To explain how this would work for me - I'd middle-click all the diffs in my watchlist. If I see a vandalism, I left-click rollback and middle-click Contribs, so that I can see if he has other vandalisms. Please, please change this back, Brion, you should not make vandalfighting harder for the sake of a more standard interface. --Golbez 21:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

The old code was broken and hacky and ain't going back. I have though tossed in a contribs link in the user tools; as a bonus this is on the Recent Changes and Watchlist too (since it's the same code). Let me know if it seems good/bad/evil. --Brion 21:23, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

The functionality seems identical to how it was before, so I've no problem with it at all. Thank you. --Golbez 21:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Ditto. Me happy now. Thanks Brion. older ≠ wiser 22:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for providing this fix... I had been having the same problem, but since trying your fix, godmode-light is working perfectly once again. Thanks! ^_^ --Viridian {Talk} 19:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, on a related note, has the edit summary in diffs been changed to italics? Here's a random diff link I just pulled off RC: [1] Or is it just that I'm remembering incorrectly? Just curious; I really don't mind either way, but I would favor plaintext. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:50, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I noticed this too, I believe it has changed from normal to itallic. --lightdarkness ^(talk) 22:24, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's using the same styling as recent changes, watchlist, history, etc etc etc instead of the incorrect styling that it used to use. --Brion 23:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem now is that the contrib link appears for registered users, but not for anonymous editors, which is where it is needed the most... Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 06:28, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The IP link takes you to their contribs. --lightdarkness ^(talk) 13:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Right now my monobook.js contains only one line:

 document.write('<SCRIPT SRC="http://sam.zoy.org/wikipedia/godmode-light.js"><\/SCRIPT>'); 

What exactly do I have to do to fix the problem? deeptrivia (talk) 22:13, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

You have to go to Sam's page and download the whole thing, put it on your monobook.js, replace that one line, and remember to clear your browser cache. Makemi 22:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

What he said, I also replied on your talk page with those instructions. --lightdarkness ^(talk) 22:25, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Apparently a new section; "typo"

I just noticed this on my Watchlist, that an IP address had apparently submitted a new section called "typo", with the arrow link to the section (which is redundant and just messes around with the syntax). There is no section called typo and when I first saw I attributed it to the edit summary anyway. I went through every test I could think of to check that this wasn't just me, but I found more proof on the history page and user contribs here, the contribution to Avro Arrow. Whats with this? --The1exile - Talk - Contribs - 17:05, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like the user entered /* typo */ as their edit summary. This would cause MediaWiki to render it as a section link. Rob Church 19:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

It would be nice if that syntax couldn't be forged...Superm401 - Talk 21:57, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

How would the software know? Rob Church 19:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Bug??

This may be a bug, or not, but when I go to an article, and I go to its history, and then I click 'compare selected versions', the latest version (on the right) has a '[revert as vandalism]' on the top of it and then a '[rollback] link to the right. I thought these links were only used and given to administrators. Is this a bug? Funnybunny 04:30, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I know that Brion had been editing some things in regards to diff view, but if you did see that it was probably just temporary, as I'm not seeing the described features. --lightdarkness ^(talk) 05:17, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

You have "Godmode-lite" installed in your monobook.js. This gives some extra facilities to Wikipedia users using javascript. It isn't as powerful or as efficient as the tools administrators have. It looks like Voice of All (talk · contribs) installed it there for you. If you didn't ask for this, please say so and someone will remove it for you.-gadfium 05:24, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Voice of All has been installing scripts left, right and centre; someone needs to tell him to stop, it's rude and tantamount to abusing his privilege of editing what would be considered a protected page. Rob Church 19:26, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Patrolled edit

On Help:Patrolled edit I've just "disabled" {{Phh:Patrolled edit}} by inserting __END__ (the template didn't exist before).

So far it's documented / obvious / clear, pick what you like, but I'm less sure about the obscure {{System admin toc}} - is "disabling" it with __END__ the normal procedure to get rid of the broken link on a help page? Omniplex 08:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what the "approved" way is. You have to put something in the empty page and regular spaces don't work. I just got rid of Template:Phh:Inputbox with &nbsp (an HTML character entity that stands for "non-breaking space", or as I prefer, "'nother blank space") Superm401 - Talk 00:55, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

ACK, magic word __END__ or simply   (=  ) both do the trick. I only want to know what the real purpose of a broken link {{System admin toc}} was, maybe it's a part of some maintenance procdure, and disabling it was a bad idea. Omniplex 07:30, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Now also discussed wrt to a template trying to explain this feature. Omniplex 15:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Bug in article - report this

On polish Wikipedia we created a page where users may report bugs. And we add link to this page to all pages in menu (right menu - Zgłoś błąd). Page take a referer and we know where is bug. I think, that is good think to add this page in EN.wiki. What do you thing?

List reported bugs - pl:Wikipedia:Zgłoś_błąd_w_artykule. Link is add to pl:Mediawiki:Sidebar (bug in article), Name and url are in pl:MediaWiki:Bug in article-url and pl:MediaWiki:Bug in article. Source of file with form to report bugs is in: http://adamdziura.9g.pl/wikipedia/wikibug.phps. Adam Dziura 11:32, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Um, how is this different to Bugzilla? Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 12:16, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

User reported bugs in articles (not in Mediawiki). Bugs - bad date birth, bad information, typo... this is better for non-advanced user. [[[:pl:Wikipedysta:Adziura|Adam Dziura]] 12:31, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Easier than Wikipedia:Tutorial to teach them how to fix it themselves? Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 14:00, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. But some users (readers) can not have time to correct. Or they don't knows how to correct or to be afraid of an edition. In polish Wikipedia a lot of misconceptions were found. See the history of changes in this article. This is like send mail to administror (You have a bad day of birth in ...) A suggestions write there are useful. Many wikipedia users are reading this voice and he is correcting a mistake (searching for correct data in other sources). Adam Dziura 14:58, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a really bad habit to get people into; it's also very un-wiki. You're just asking for a massive backlog. Even if people don't want to {{sofixit}}, there are better options. For minor (potential) problems, people can put templates like {{fact}} or a note on the talk page. For bigger issues, the are cleanup templates that people should learn. Having them complain to the "central authority" for every problem will be harmful in the long run. Superm401 - Talk 00:58, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you will allow to the test of it. So for 2 days? Perhaps you will change your mind later. :) Adam Dziura 09:37, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

1. It's been stipulated above we don't want it
2. It's unwiki and contradicts the whole concept of being able to correct the error without asking
3. We don't want to follow the model of linking to a domain we don't control and giving it an official role

No. Rob Church 17:19, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Pre-populating a new page

I've been unable to find a Help section that deals with pre-populating a new page. For example, if a user clicks to create a new page, I want the page to already have several standard templates in it and / or sections pre-built so they know what the page is supposed to look like. I assume this is common practice but I'm unable to find the documentation where it is discussed. Thanks in advance for pointing me in the right direction! Jimkloss 23:03, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

This is not common practice. There are no standard templates and pages are not pre-populated. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:19, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly possible, but en.wikipedia doesn't do it. en.wikinews.org does, but I don't know the mechanism. I assume you are asking so you can do this on your own MediaWiki site, but this is not the place to get support for MediaWiki. I think http://www.mwusers.com/ may be an appropriate place.-gadfium 23:53, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Add "&preload=<page who's text you want to include>" and alternatively "&autosummary=<some url encoded text>" to the end of an edit link. It's used on for example Category:Images with unknown source (along with a couple of other "magic" commands in the link that automaticaly creates a new sub-category when clicked). It only works for "redlinks", if the page already exist the prefill text is not used. an example --Sherool (talk) 00:22, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm sorry, yes I should have indicated I was asking for our new wiki and not for Wikipedia. I think you've given me enough to go on. Sorry I didn't ask over at MediaWiki. Still confused about who is what and what is where. Jimkloss

This is funny. I'm the one who made the link on Category:Images with unknown source (at great effort :) ), but I momentarily forgot about it and got into an edit conflict just now. I was just going to point out that you can create such links using input boxes (constrained input tags) or the GET urls that result. However, Sherool correctly points out that if you pair the preload attribute (one of the GET attributes input boxes can make) with the undocumented autominor, autoclick, and/or autosummary options, you can do some pretty cool things. I'll go over them:

• preload will fill the page with the wikitext from a template.
• autosummary will automatically create an edit summary
• autoclick will click one of the three buttons (wpSave, wpPreview, or WpDiff)
• autoedit will make regex replacements.

Use these cautiously.

P.S. See Meta:Names for a page that clears up our needlessly confusing names. Superm401 - Talk 00:50, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Note that the final three actions are not documented on meta, because they're not part of Mediawiki. They're part of my popups script, and won't work without it (or User:Lupin/autoedit.js instead). Lupin|talk|popups 13:05, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Lupin. I was wondering about that since those 3 functions didn't even appear in the PHP code. Thanks to you all I've got prepopulate working. Now, if I could just find a way to write a new page directly from a PHP hooked program I'd be all set. Jimkloss 07:29, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Responded to that item on the page. Rob Church 19:08, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

finding a new article with the "search" function

Hi, I created a new article, "University of Southern California Law School," but I can only access it from links from other existing articles. How can I make it appear when a user types in relevant words into the "search" box on the left? Thanks for your help. Pbgr

The search index might take a while to update. Try again in a few hours... days... what's the lag on indexing again? æle ✆ 00:49, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Also you can add various relevant redirects to make it easier for users to find your page. Tutmosis 00:55, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I created the article a few days ago and it's still not coming up on the search index... Is it that slow? Pbgr

Personally I when i type University of Southern California Law School it comes up perfectly fine. Its intresting to note that when you type the exact same thing in small caps it does not cope up. I recommend making various redirects; atleast one being same thing in small caps. If you want I can do it for you. Tutmosis 01:08, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Pbgr

Several weeks currently. --Brion 18:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

help on common.css

Where can I find documentation for common.css? I copied the common.css & monobook.css from WP to my local wiki (1.5.7) , but the templates failed to displayed correctly according to the class declared on common.css, so I have to type it in "style clause" manually to get them work. Did I miss some steps? Thanks for any help. borgx ^(talk) 08:28, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK, only beginning with 1.6 does MediaWiki import MediaWiki:Common.css automatically. With older versions, you have to do the import manually; look at the history of MediaWiki:Monobook.css for the manual import (I'm the one who did it, if it helps the search). --cesarb 05:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

• Note: I posted this in the help desk and they suggested I ask the question here.

I just noticed that the German Wikipedia has an option where the coordinates of a location are inserted in the upper-right header. Here is one example: [2]. Is this possible in the English version? If so, how? Sean WI 16:29, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

It looks like a template: Template:Koordinate Text Artikel, perhaps copy the template to wikipedia? Mike _{(T C)} 16:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Started a template: Template:CoorHeader - doesn't seem to work. I think the German wiki actually has code inserted into the header. Is that a possibility? (Perhaps you could take a look at that template...I probably did it wrong. Sean WI 16:51, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

There will also be code in the stylesheet: . I suggest you engage in more discussion before going ahead with these additions, as there may be conflicts with other fields. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:01, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Should I continue the discussion here or could you point me in the direction of a proper forum for this? Sean WI 17:08, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

You might consider the mailing list. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:21, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

We've been suggesting it for a year over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Coordinates at the top of the article and I posted Bug 4719: RFE: geo coordinates in page title on all (common) en: .css but no joy.

--William Allen Simpson 13:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Posted possible code at MediaWiki talk:Common.css and MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css.

--William Allen Simpson 11:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Unwatched pages

Could someone in the know have a look at Special:Unwatched pages and see what's going on? I can only see the first 1000 articles, the pages are blank after that. There's a comment on the talk page, Wikipedia talk:Special:Unwatchedpages that it has been static since the server problems in mid February, I don't know if that's connected/resolved? Thanks, Steve block talk 20:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a cached data set with the top 1000 entries. --Brion 18:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Doh. Anyway to see beyond that? Steve block talk 10:44, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

We cache it at 1000 → 1000 items in the cache → 1000 items available when reading from the cache → so no, not at this time. Rob Church 19:05, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Hiding MediaWiki:Tagline

I've succeeded in copying the code from MediaWiki:Monobook.js to eliminate the appearance of the title bar for my user page, but I haven't figured out how to hide the MediaWiki:Tagline message. Any ideas? (see top of User:Spangineer/monobook.js) —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 21:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The ID is "siteSub". Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 21:22, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Right, but I've copied the code exactly from MediaWiki:Monobook.js that mentions siteSub, but the effect isn't equivalent. I'm not sure what's going on. —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 23:07, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

What are you trying to do? Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 23:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

And then miraculously, it started working. My userpage is basically a personalized version of the new main page, and I want it to cut the title bar just like it does for the main page. But I think I got it figured out now. Sorry for the trouble! —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 00:17, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Cursor Defaulting to Search Box

Most websites already have the cursor flashing in their search box when the page has loaded. This isn't the case with WikiPedia (not with me anyway) - The user must manually click the box to enter text. Is this something which can be changed? Bswee 23:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe this has been discussed before. The reason that it doesn't default to the search box, is so that users can scroll the page using the arrow keys, and not need to have use of a mouse. --lightdarkness ^(talk) 23:35, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

And also so it doesn't jump about when you use a section link. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 00:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I personally hate it when sites mess with cursor focus like that... it often screws you up, for instance if you have clicked on an input field or the browser address bar while the page is loading and started to type something, then suddenly when the page finishes loading it moves the cursor somewhere else and the stuff you're typing winds up in the wrong place. This can even be a security risk, if what you were typing was your password in a login form; this is usually not shown when you type it, but if your cursor is moved somewhere else, it will be visible to somebody looking over your shoulder. One of the good things about Wikipedia versus lots of other sites is that it doesn't screw around with stuff like that. *Dan T.* 01:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

How can I get the TeX reader to recognize more symbols?

I've started to try to improve some of the economics pages, but one symbol I really need to use is the "preference" operator, seen here under the names \prec \preceq \succ and \succeq. How can I get the "math" tags to recognize these symbols? --Ossanha 03:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You should file a bug on bugzilla to ask the devs to do this. Lupin|talk|popups 03:10, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Note that m:Blahtex can handle all of these symbols (and lots more besides). We are working on making this software available in Wikipedia. Dmharvey 13:26, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

External URL links to 3rd party video

I've been searching for W.P. policy on external links to video hosted on Google video, etc. where the legal status of those video items is undeterminable. Should links be made only to those sources where license / copyright status can be determined? If yes, how does that extend to text material? See [3] for relevant discussion. Revmachine21 06:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Since they're external and thus not hosted by Wikipedia, I don't think their copyright status matters; Wikipedia isn't responsible for what other websites provide. Unless it's a direct link to something highly illegal, I guess. (Obviously I don't exactly know.) –T_if_eg_o^(t) _{00:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)}

We strongly discourage linking to material explicitly known to be a copyright violation. Shimgray | talk | 22:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a lawyer & I don't proclaim to know copyright laws, so how can I make that determination? If I went to Google Video and searched for "Hard Gay' videoes (a Japanese comic) in an attempt to enrich Masaki Sumitani page, what policy does Wikipedia provide me in order to figure this out? Also, what is the policy when I'm literate enough in a foreign language to find non-English source sites, but not literate enough to read the entire site to make copyright determinations? I'm looking for explicit clear policy here. I'd prefer a link to a Wikipedia help page rather than statements of opinion. Revmachine21 04:17, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

You could try listing something at Wikipedia:Requested copyright examinations, but that page is pretty stagnant. WP:EL is somewhat ambiguous about this, but I've removed links to Google videos because they're generally not permanent or official. I also think that if a video clip is valuable enough to an article, it should be uploaded to Wikipedia and claimed as fair use. ~MDD4696 05:40, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

New Language Wikipedias

Is there a way we can get some developers to look at Approved requests for new languages? About a dozen languages have been approved for creation, and the Norman test-Wiki has well over 100 articles already (more than nearly half of our "real" Wikipedias). No new wikipedias have been created in quite some time, however. The Jade Knight 09:17, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Double redirects

I just had a look at Wikipedia:Double redirects to find out why Double redirects are considered a Bad Thing™.

The excuse given was that MediaWiki does not allow them to prevent infinite loops.

This is a very lame excuse.

Loop detection is a solved problem. I can imagine the programmer not putting it in as a day-one feature, but it's actually pretty simple. All you need is to remember all the article names you've visited in any redirection chain and bail out if you meet the same one again. As a sanity check you could put in a maximum hop count of say, twenty, just in case things go funny.

In fact what we have at the minute is a degenerate case of the above where the maximum hop count is one.

Surely it is better to have a proper article structure than to bitch about a few CPU cycles and a few lines of PHP.

(BTW, I am a sysadmin, database administrator, network administrator, web server administrator, programmer, etc., etc.. I do understand the technical issues. It's a little bit of extra server load, not a good reason to deny this functionality.)

Duckbill 09:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You may be "a sysadmin, database administrator, network administrator, web server administrator, programmer, etc., etc.", but are you doing that for the #18 most popular website in the world on a shoestring budget? If you want it fixed, you can download the MediaWiki code and make the change yourself, and there's a good chance it'll be accepted. --Carnildo 19:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Explicitly refusing to follow farther chains encourages people to keep the pathways clean, reducing spaghetti redirect chains which could be very hard to sort out when needed. So while it would be easy enough to let the software follow longer chains, we don't want it to. --Brion 21:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Arrow display problem

The unicode symbols for '↘' "south west arrow" (U+2198) and '↙' "south east arrow" (U+2199) are reversed in the edit window - i.e. the arrow that should point south east points south west and vice versa. The same thing happens in <pre> formatted blocks, and in the edit window at Bugzilla. User:Thryduulf/Arrows shows the problem, Cousin chart is a real-world example of where the confusion exists.

I've reported this at Bugzilla (bugzilla:5295), but as the problem happens on Linux but not on Windows XP I'm now wondering if this isn't a MediaWiki issue but a font issue? Thryduulf 11:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

U+2198 (↘) is "south east arrow" and U+2199 (↙) is "south west arrow". see [4] for more information _→AzaToth 12:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, yes I got that wrong. But the problem still remains that the arrows display differntly - it seems to be the article display is wrong. I've uploaded a screenshot to user:Thryduulf/Arrows to show the problem Thryduulf 15:45, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a font issue. Threy show up just fine here. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Also the down arrow points right and the right arrow points down (but southeast and southwest both display correctly for me using Firefox 1.0.2 on SuSE 9). Slambo (Speak) 16:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Here is it how it looks for me: Template:Imgbox _→AzaToth 19:39, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

They worked fine for me as well (Firefox 1.5.0.1, Windows XP). — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:55, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

My copy of the Unicode table says that 2192 is rightwards and 2193 is downwards (which is to say, in the image above, the alleged "Unicode descriptions" for those two characters are reversed, and the displays are correct). —Steve Summit (talk) 18:08, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Popups and Godmode light

I use both Godmode-light and Navigation Popups. The problem is that when I view someone's contributions I see something like this:

1. 12:38, 20 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m Hedy d'Ancona (Link Oxfam Novib) (top) [Erwin85&token=05a4b00f14a6262f5c4640189cc43060">rollback]
2. 12:37, 20 March 2006 (hist) (diff) Samenwerkende Hulporganisaties (top) [Erwin85&token=83effcc91314a2d31e5598c64594cf1b">rollback]

where Erwin85 (username) is a link to the article with &fakeaction=rollback&vandal=title= added. Does this mean these two scripts are incompatible or did I do something wrong? User:Erwin85/monobook.js. Erwin85 12:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't use godmode-lite, but I hear there are problems with popups. Try the variant godmode-lite listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_scripts/Scripts instead. Lupin|talk|popups 13:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

This didn't fix it, but thanks anyway. I guess I'll remove godmode-lite, most of my vandalfighting is done on the Dutch Wikipedia where I use my own script for reverting vandalism, so I don't really use godmode-light that much. I can always edit my own script for the English wikipedia. Erwin85 13:39, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

you should see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Contribs link in diff views, lightdarkenss made a fix. Makemi 23:33, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The version at User:Ilmari Karonen/godmode-light.js (which Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_scripts/Scripts links to) should be fixed now, I think. I'm coming to the conclusion that what it really needs is a full rewrite, though. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Unknown new article shows up in my watchlist

File:Strange-watchlist-item.png

see the screenshot

This article Microshit suddenly showed up in my watchlist. I'm not aware of ever editing or touching this article before, in fact it only existed about 30 minutes before I refreshed my watchlist.

How'd that happen? SchmuckyTheCat 19:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You are watching Microsoft. A vandal moved Microsoft to Microshit. You end up watching both. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 19:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it was moved. Microshit never had the edit history of Microsoft (shown in the screenshot) it linked to it and the link worked. The current article doesn't show any moves. SchmuckyTheCat 22:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the deleted history for Microshit, I can see the page was moved 2006-03-17; look at the edit history for Microsoft around that date (you'll also find Mickeysoft on your watchlist from the same vandal). --cesarb 22:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

ah, the benefits of seeing deleted histories. so I only saw the edit history of the most recent recreation. SchmuckyTheCat 23:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Anon Talk Pages

Hi all. I was wondering why the "Anonymous user talk page" footer only appears on some IP talk pages, like User talk:205.146.141.149, and not others, like User talk:207.15.198.140. Shouldn't it be on all anon talk pages? ~MDD4696 22:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Issues with Godmode-light

Recently, when I've attempted to rollback vandalism with Godmode-light, I've received that message that the last editor was Contributions and not whoever the last editor actually was. Has anyone else been having this problem? If there's an easy solution can someone point me to it?

see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Contribs link in diff views, lightdarkness made a fix. Makemi 23:27, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[5] Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 23:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Portal heading background

For the portal, how do i change the color of the heading background? Such as Selected article heading background etc. Tutmosis 23:33, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Save Function

The save function is malfunctioning. Had to hit SAVE three (3) times for it to function. Martial Law 06:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC) :o

Log out, clear cache, log back in. Happens to me and someone told me to do this, fixed it for me. It was happening a lot to me today. Mike _{(T C)} 07:03, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

That worked. Martial Law 07:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC) :)

Really appreciate the assisstance. Martial Law 07:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC) :)

NP, if you want the reasons it does it, search the WP:AN archives, i know it is there, around the time of a crash at the start of the year. Mike _{(T C)} 07:41, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

blocked user

Is it true that blocked users are allowed to make edit to their own talk page on en.wikipedia? How to request this feature on other wikipedia? Thanks borgx ^(talk) 08:15, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's true. You have to ask a developer to turn it on. --cesarb 00:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't. It causes nothing but pain. -Splash^talk 01:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Highlight search box

A proposal that came out the Main Page Redesign discussions was:

• Improve visibility of the left-navigation search box in the default MonoBook skin. Perhaps, an orange-colored border (as used on the active tabs at the top)?

This would be to aid new users in finding the search box.

this is easily shown by adding this line to one's user/monobook.css

(and presummably common or monobook css for sitewide)

#searchBody {border-color: #FABD23;}

The proposal was initially offered as an alternative to a second search box that was appearing in the headers of many redesign-drafts. (links to discussion archives: 1 - 2 - 3 (main discussion) 4 (vote and 3 colour examples))

The only question remaining is can this highlight be coded to display on only select pages? (specifically the Main Page, and possibly any others we wanted to choose) (or only for non-signed-in users, or other useful permutations?) Or is it a choice of "site-wide or nothing"?

Once this is answered, I will copy the proposal to the proposal page. Thanks. --Quiddity 09:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Problem with Infobox

I was trying to edit the page University of Hyderabad. In the box on the right hand side of the page it shows text like {{{free_lable}}}. any idea how to remove it. --Bolasanibk 09:45, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

looks like he fixed it --Quiddity 10:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

List of interwikis

Is there a full alphabetical list of interwiki links anywhere? I keep on finding interwikis put in alphabetical order of the code rather than the language, and correct the 'out of order' ones I know about:

• es: (Español) comes before eo: (Esperanto)
• ko: (Hangugeo) comes before hi: (Hindi)
• he: (Ivrit) comes after it: (Italiano)
• ja: (Nihongo) comes after nl: (Nederlands)
• fi: (Suomi) comes just before sv: (Svenska)

but also wonder how many others are there which I don't know about. An easily found full list that I can refer newbies to would be useful. - MPF 11:26, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

See m:Interwiki sorting order and Wikipedia:Language order poll. Martin 12:09, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Didn't realise it wasn't fully settled. Shouldn't the poll be advertised a bit more widely? I've been a contributor for over 2 years and knew nothing about it. - MPF 13:31, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Is the browsebar useful?

A discussion concerning the above {{browsebar}} is taking place at Template talk:Browsebar#Is this bar useful?. The problem is, nobody really knows what use is being made of the thing (and its various other versions), or by whom. Therefore, I have two questions for you wikitechies:

1. Is there a way of measuring usage of templates and their various links?
2. If so, how?

Otherwise we'll just be basing any changes made to it (and its placement) on sheer guesses. Please help. --Go for it! 22:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

No. Whenever somebody (usually you) sticks it on a category I'm watching, I take it off again. (I'm not sure where else you stuck it in the past.) Also the other variants: "betterbrowsebar", "morebetterbrowsebar", "muchomachobrowsebar", etc.

As to your technical point, access counters are nearly impossible to do, as there are many cache, and squid, and apache servers handling the load. I'm fairly certain there's nobody correlating the logs. Certainly the ISP that I founded does not report back to Wikipedia from our logs, and we've never discussed it at NANOG.

--William Allen Simpson 08:10, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

We've no effective method for measuring page views or accesses; the built-in counters are switched off for performance reasons, and as observed, we use so much caching and load balancing at various levels that we can't generate this sort of stuff. We can't afford to start recording accesses, etc. - the logs would rapidly fill up our disk space. A lot of our server monitoring is also dead as it is. For some idea of the load we're under, go to http://ganglia.wikimedia.org/small/?c=Squids&m=&r=hour&s=descending&hc=4 and check out Squids network last hour. Rob Church 16:41, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Close-Comment Markup Provided on Server Side

Unless you believe i forged the section-name in my summary (i don't believe that [grin]), this diff testifies that my saved edit of a section resulted in the addition of the three characters

-->

at the end of the file, within a section that did not appear in my edit pane during the edit. I presume the condition that might lead to this is my having left, in the section i was editing, but later than the last close-comment on the page, an "open-comment" markup

<!--

I can see reasons why such a measure which might actually be a good idea. But it violates the convention that everything in the edit window (allowing for template substitutions) and nothing else gets into the new revision (with (IIRC) some exceptions involving only white-space). In that, it may be too clever by half. (I haven't determined if it is replicable.) If this is permanent, IMO it is a significant breach in the transparency of editing, which may undercut the sense that you can become a contributor in the first 60 seconds after deciding you want to; IMO it would deserve discussion.
--Jerzy•t 22:54, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

There are various postprocessing steps done when you save an edit; for example the 'signature' and save-time includes of templates. Due to the way comments are involved in postprocessing, an open-comment without a close bit will end up adding the missing close bit back in at the end.

"Section editing" is an illusion of convenience; actual processing happens on the complete page. --Brion 00:25, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

And a very convenient illusion it is. And the sense of control is a convenient illusion apparently supported by the relative harmlessness of the distinction between an unclosed comment and one closed at the end of the page. As Buckaroo Banzai advised, i support not "tug[ging] on that; you never know what it's connected to." If it's just something i've never noticed before, it's certainly worth living with. Thanks.
--Jerzy•t 03:03, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I think all unclosed tags are closed at the end of their respective lines. Otherwise eg. unclosed strikeout tags could overwhelm an entire page. or bold, as used to happen on messageboards a lot.--Quiddity 19:28, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Can we have a 'tomorrow' link now?

Very nice redesign - congratulations to all.

Can a 'tomorrow' link be added programmatically to On This Day? Since Wikipedia seems to run on UTC/GMT or AAT (America Awakens Time), On This Day only changes after the four billion or so people who live east of Greenwich have already begun to experience the next day. We aren't so impressive at the watercooler/pump when we're talking about yesterday's events! Assuming Wikipedia won't undergo a virtual relocation to the international dateline, perhaps the masters of the mainpage could save us a click or two by providing a link to the forthcoming day as well as the last three? How about it? --Brian Samosa 22:42, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Um, actually, no, when GMT is at midnight, Beijing - which is UTC+8 - is just getting to work. So they have plenty of stuff to chat about that occurred that day. So while your request is a valid one, your reasoning is a bit off. A few hundred million people live east of UTC+8, but the bulk of the "four billion" is still asleep when UTC reaches midnight and Wikipedia ticks over - in particular, India still sleeps. --Golbez 00:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

However I'd say the largest amount of english speaking countries are east of GMT. Mike _{(T C)} 04:00, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

We now have pages for tomorrow (and yesterday!). subsections links are being worked on. --Quiddity 19:31, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

• Main Page alternative (tomorrow)
• Main Page alternative (yesterday)

I want to add a wikipedia search bar to my site!

Hi guys,

i would like to add a search bar on my site, that directs users to wikipedia results once they have entered a term. does anyone know of any tutorials or html to do this?

thanks guys

Just add this code:

<!-- wikipedia search -->
<form name="searchform" id="searchform" action="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search">
<input type="hidden" name="go" value="go" />
<input type="text" id="searchInput" name="search" size="20" />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">wikipedia</a>
</form>
<!-- wikipedia search -->

hope that helps :) --Quiddity 01:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Google's cache of en.wikipedia

Does anyone know how often or what day google re-caches or re-crawls en.wikipedia? I'm slowly correcting misspellings, and I use google to scan each article. Once corrected, it'll still pop up under the old cache with google, but going to the article reveals I've corrected it. Thus, I want to know when I should re-search to find fresh instances.

Thanks, JoeSmack ^Talk 01:14, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Pretty often, I think. Google cached my user page just yesterday, but I don't know how long the time lapse was before that. I include the current date at the top so I can quickly see how old my user page on mirrors and caches is. ~MDD4696 02:11, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I've been watching the recently created article Linda Marie Fedigan. This (still incomplete) timeline may help.

• March 8 2006: Article Linda Marie Fedigan started.
• March 9 2006: Article discussed at WP:HD, User talk:Meni Rosenfeld, and User talk:Hydnjo.
• March 17 2006: WP:HD entry indexed by Google.
• March 18 2006: Category:Primatologists and User talk:Meni Rosenfeld indexed by Google.
• March 21 2006: As of this date (noon, UTC) the article itself has not yet been indexed by WP or Google nor has the reference on my talk page  :-( I'll keep watching for the links mentioned and also for this fresh reference on this page. hydnjo talk 04:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
• March 22 2006: Update, User talk:Hydnjo reference found to be indexed by Google as of this timestamp.  :-) hydnjo talk 04:17, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it's related to the missing {{newpagelinksmain}} which somehow got lost when the Main Page was changed recently. I've added it back. --cesarb 16:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Would that affect indexing by WP, Google, or both? --hydnjo talk 19:11, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

• March 24 2006: Linda Marie Fedigan main article found to be indexed by Google as of this timestamp. Neither the article nor references to it yet indexed by WP. hydnjo talk 03:15, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Changing next/previous to earlier/later

On history pages, it currently says:

(Latest | Earliest) View (previous 50) (next 50)

But because it is in reverse chronological order, to get to later diffs, you have to press previous, which is silly and backwards. With your permission, I'd like to edit MediaWiki:Prevn and MediaWiki:Nextn to say "later" and "earlier":

(Latest | Earliest) View (later 50) (earlier 50)

I am worried that this might conflict with things like Category page listings, which also use (previous 200) (next 200). If so, it will need a real bugfix. See bugzilla: 5310. — Omegatron 02:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what the right fix here is, but I definitely second the concern. (The labels are indeed backwards, and not just "silly" but downright confusing.) —Steve Summit (talk) 17:10, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

possibly more a policy proposal than technical? technical aspect would be easy, it's getting people to agree that is hard!

However i do agree that the keywords used are misleadingly chosen. --Quiddity 08:17, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions

Current ordering/naming scheme

(Latest | Earliest) View (previous 50) (next 50) 

Potential reordering/renaming schemes:

(new names)

(Latest | Earliest) View (later 50) (earlier 50) 

or (original names, new order)

(Latest | previous 50) View (next 50 | Earliest}

or (new names, new order)

(Latest | later 50) View (earlier 50 | Earliest}

{others?} --Quiddity 07:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Watchlist via transclusion?

I would like to display watchlist on my custom portal page together with other templates such as Template:Announcements/Community bulletin board. But typing {{Special:Watchlist}} only creates a link to watchlist and does not output the list itself. iframe tag doesn't seem to work either. Is this possible at all?Hermeneus (user/talk) 02:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

It's possible to add some javascript code to your monobook.js that will query the watchlist page and replace that part of your page with what it gets from the watchlist. I don't know if there is an easier way. –T_if_eg_o^(t) _{00:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)}

Thanks for the info. It sounds a little too diffucult for me because I'm not so fluent in JavaScript... Hermeneus (user/talk) 03:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, most of the code is probably already written by other people, it might be pretty easy actually, let's see... –T_if_eg_o^(t) _{00:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)}

I am also looking for similar code to slightly different end as described at meta:Share watchlists. I would love a monobook.js script or similar that would scrape a watchlist, reformat into wiki-usable code, and copy to clipboard or better yet a user subpage as User:Here/watchlist. ∴ here…♠ 04:34, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I got it working! Only for what Hermeneus wanted though. (There's code in there from godmode-light to parse it as XML that could be used to wikify and transfer it somewhere, but...) Right now all it does is display part of the HTML from the watch list page in place of what the wiki code {{Special:Watchlist}} becomes.

For the watchlist to show up, edit your monobook.js user page (assuming you did not change your skin away from the "standard" Classic skin in your preferences) and paste all the code from my monobook.js into there. Or, I don't know if this will work, but you could also try only adding this instead:

document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="' 
             + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Tifego/monobook.js&oldid=44919775' 
             + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');

Either way, save the page and then fully reload with Ctrl-Shift-R or (in IE) Ctrl-F5, and when you go to your custom portal page you should see {{Special:Watchlist}} get replaced with your watchlist. Right now it's set to hide your own edits and only show 0.1 days but those are both customizable at the top of the script. This has been tested in Firefox 1.5, Internet Explorer 6, and Netscape 8. (But it has a very high chance of not working in other browsers.)

Note also, I have godmode-light (rollback button), extra edit buttons, and an IE6 alpha fix installed in the script, but those are easy to disable if you really don't want them. –T_if_eg_o^(t) _{00:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)}

Thanks! It seems to be working fine (MacOS X 10.4 & Firefox 1.5). Is it possibe to use it on ja.wikipedia as well if I replace en.wikipedia with ja.wikipedia in URLs? Hermeneus (user/talk) 08:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you can use it on ja.wikipedia with some small changes. Edit your monobook there and copy a different script into it, this monobook.js, and fully-refresh like before. Also, I don't know how to search for the japanese characters in the link that {{Special:Template}} becomes, so instead you will have to use <nowiki>{{Special:Template}}</nowiki> so it's text without a link. (Does anybody know of an easy way to convert a unicode character into its %##%## equivalent?) –T_if_eg_o^(t) _{00:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)}

My personal portal subpage on jawp is here and monobook.js here. jawp uses "利用者:" for "User:" and "特別:" for "Special:." Watchlist is the same "Watchlist." The watchlist link generated by Mediawiki seems to use the Japanese names converted in url code ( "特別" is "%E7%89%B9%E5%88%A5" The url code of a Japanese word could be found in the url when you google search the word), but they are accesible vis English name as well. (Both ja:User:Hermeneus and ja:利用者:Hermeneus works.) Hermeneus (user/talk) 11:27, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

When you type "{{Special:Watchlist}}" in the form of the portal subpage, it will generate <p><a href="/wiki/%E7%89%B9%E5%88%A5:Watchlist" title="特別:Watchlist">特別:Watchlist</a></p> in the source code of the output of the subpage. Hermeneus (user/talk) 11:50, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems to be working on jawp now as well. In ja:User:Hermeneus/monobook.js I replaced

var watchStringFF = '\{\{Special:Watchlist\}\}';

with

var watchStringFF = '\<p\>\<a href=\"/wiki/%E7%89%B9%E5%88%A5:Watchlist\" title=\"特別:Watchlist\"\>特別:Watchlist\</a\>\</p\>';

All seem well now. Many thanks! Hermeneus (user/talk) 12:06, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Database error

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
:Jump to: navigation, search

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 "SiteStatsUpdate::doUpdate". MySQL returned error "1213: Deadlock found when trying to get lock; Try restarting transaction (10.0.0.101)"

This happened when I had an edit conflict, instead of the usual edit conflict page. (Note that it was an edit conflict with myself, which I'm not sure should even be possible.) Anyone care to explain, or does it probably not matter? –T_if_eg_o^(t) _{00:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)}

Updates to CSS and JS pages to reduce redundancy

MediaWiki:Monobook.js

1. Replace addLoadEvent(func), as this one is already contained in ../wikibits.js; see this change on alsWP
2. Consider adding pTitle() from alsWP; see Template_talk:Lowercase#Redrafting_title_with_a_JavaScript_trick

MediaWiki:Common.css

1. Remove .hiddenStructure, as "speak:none" has been added to ../main.css
2. Consider removing .plainlinksneverexpand, etc. one day; see MediaZilla:714

Best regards, Melancholie 05:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

The disappearing line

This is not an urgent question, but I've been wondering why the text "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" can sometimes be seen under the article's title, but sometime it's gone. Even a reload can make it vanish. Thanks for your time. Mysid 10:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki pages and sidebar

Hello all. How do you edit the bar on the left, the one that holds navigation, search and toolbox and how to edit the contents of these 3 menus?

Also how do I list all the mediawiki pages or where is there a listing of the mediawiki pages? Special:Special pages works for special pages but MediaWiki:MediaWikipages does not for mw pages *sigh*

Thanks

Not to sure about the sitebar things, but I would not be supriced if they are somewhere in MediaWiki space too. To list all Mediawiki pages go to Special:Allpages and pick "Mediawiki" in the namespace filter[6]. --Sherool (talk) 22:27, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

See Mediawiki:Sidebar. This contains the navigation links. Editing search or toolbox requires hacking the PHP. See also Special:Allmessages which contains many, but not all, of the important system messages. Sherool suggestion should get them all. Dragons flight 14:48, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

AIDS in Africa

Someone has vandalized this page. Patchouli 15:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure? I'm not seeing it.

There are probably better places to report vandalism than this Village Pump subpage. One is Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism (a.k.a. WP:AIV), and there are probably others. —Steve Summit (talk) 18:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Bots undoing link to Neapolitan wiki

A number of bots have repeaedly changed the interwiki link on the Torre del Greco page to the Neapolitan wiki. It needs to be Torre d''o Grieco, not Torre do Grieco. Is there anything that can be done about this? Thanks.--E. abu Filumena 21:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

You might want to comment on the discussion page for the offending bot, or for the bot's owner. Sometimes it might make a difference. Otherwise just remain ever vigilant and suspicious of any bot edits. —Mike 04:03, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

AFD discussions

I tried to print Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jill Hardy. However, when I clicked Print Preview, all the text between the top and bottom header (the "this discussion is archived") was gone. I thought this was odd, so I checked out the March 14 AFD page, most of whcih are also archived. I clicked Print Preview again and all the text showed up. Did something suddenly change between December and March? - Hbdragon88 05:15, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Same problem here. To make things more precise: the "Print Preview" that causes problems is that of the browser (I use Mozilla); the same problem occurs when actually printing or using the "printable version". This must be a CSS problem, as downloading the page and printing the local copy (where the CSS files are not accessible) shows all content. - Liberatore(T) 13:18, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks like {{afd top}} is using class="boilerplate metadata vfd". According to Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes, metadata is "hidden when printed". The template is wrong; it shouldn't be using either boilerplate or metadata (and vfd would need to be modified to have the correct styling). Unfortunately, since the template is subst:ed instead of transcluded, a bot would have to be used to fix all the old instances. --cesarb 16:56, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I have proposed changes to fix this on Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion. --cesarb 17:27, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki Questions

1. How does Wikicities get the Google adds to appear on the side?
2. Can MediaWiki stop non logged in users from editing (except talk pages)?Found answer on Meta Gerard Foley 14:41, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
3. Activate file uploads?

Thanks, Gerard Foley 12:25, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I found the answers to these questions, thanks Gerard Foley 10:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible to give the form on Special:Blockip a name?

It'd make making my javascript helper easier if it did. Sceptre ^(Talk) 12:31, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's my Javascript function. It prompts, but won't fill in fields.

function block()
{
/*Yes, this is ugly, but it'll have to do for the mean while. 
Can someone use a "get pagename" script to work with this?*/
var user = prompt("User?");
var long = prompt("When is the expiry?");
var why = prompt("Reason?");
blockw = window.open('/wiki/Special:Blockip/' + user);
blockw.document.forms[0].name = 'block';
blockw.document.block.wpBlockReason.text.value = why;
blockw.document.block.wpBlockOther.text.value = long;
blockw.document.block.submit();
}

<ref>

I really like the new <ref>...</ref> style, but how does it work? Is it a recent software update? It doesn't appear to work on my relatively recent MediaWiki 1.5.6 installation. Similarly, how do I get variables like {{FULLPAGENAME}} to work? They appear to be hardcoded here, but not in the distribution I downloaded. dab (ᛏ) 14:01, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

This is one of very many enhancements to the production line version of Mediawiki, 1.6alpha. In theory you can download it out of CVS, but good luck getting it to set up correctly. I'd appreciate a developer comment on the time frame for a 1.5 -> 1.6 upgrade release. There are so many cool things in 1.6 that it is frustrating to be behind the curve. Dragons flight 14:53, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not an enhancement to the production line MediaWiki; it's an extension called Cite.php. I don't know if it works with MediaWiki 1.5 or if it requires MediaWiki 1.6, however. As for FULLPAGENAME, AFAIK it's one of the many new variables introduced on 1.6. --cesarb 16:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe it does require 1.6, so same difference. Dragons flight 17:16, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not the same difference. It is an extension which requires MediaWiki 1.6 to operate. Users of MediaWiki 1.6 don't receive it out of the box, so to speak. MediaWiki 1.6 can be set up in the same manner as all the other versions, so the comment about needing luck is rather misleading too. As to release dates, pester Brion Vibber for release information, since he's the MediaWiki release manager. Rob Church 18:40, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

What links here

Hi, Is there any way that this very useful option can be adjusted such that it displays the last reference article first? I find it very, very useful when monitoring topics of interest. I use it at least three times a day and where some of these references are getting long it is becoming more and more time consuming when checking the linked articles. HJKeats 17:03, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Didn't fetch many responses on this question. I'm sure many people use the What links here special pages, I know I do. I believe that it would be very useful to display the latest items first as opposed to clicking through many pages to get to last item linked. HJKeats 12:39, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

If I read this right, the request is to list the references in chronological order? If so, then that's not possible; we don't store the information required to do so at this time. Rob Church 03:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Rob for replying. Yes I guess it would be chronological order ordered from latest to first linked article. It would be ever so convenient. Do you believe that it could be incorporated in the next release or upgrade? Even if there was an option to select latest / earliest similar to the listing of user contributions listing. Thanks again… HJKeats 04:58, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't see us altering the schema to store that kind of information in the foreseeable future. It would increase the size of the link tables and introduce a whole new level of confusion. Sorry. Rob Church 16:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't "new" links show up in blue (the unvisited color), and "checked" links in purple (the never-seen-the-page-color)? Maybe you could use that to help you skim for new changes? I'm not sure I'm making any sense, but basically, the new links should show up in a different color because you haven't visited them recently....? -- stillnotelf has a talk page 19:11, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Correct, they do show up as an unvisited page. The problem I have is, the pages I'm interested in have many pages linked to them. When a new article is linked to it, I would like to know about it. It usually means a new article pertinent to that topic has been created. In order to check for those new pages added I have to scroll through many "What links here" pages to get to the end. Not a huge problem just a wee bit time consuming for some of the more interesting pages that have hundreds of linked pages. HJKeats 02:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

You could put a series of links like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere/User:HJKeats&limit=500 on your user page (one for each article you're interested in). If the articles you're watching don't have more than 500 pages linking to them this gets all of them on one page. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:15, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Floating edit links

I originally posted this at Wikipedia:General Complaints but haven't got any response there; maybe someone here can help. I was recently reading Marseille and noticed that the big column of right-floated images that appear at the top of the page has caused all of the [edit] links for each section to essentially be shunted down to beside the last of the images, all side by side. This must make section-by-section editing of this article impossible! Is there any solution to this either by editing the way the layout is achieved in wikicode or by changing the way the edit links are laid out by the software? BigBlueFish 17:10, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a browser specific rendering issue. Depending on the nature of the problem and the relative share of the browser in question, it might be worth trying to improve platform compatibility, though. Dragons flight 17:21, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

See also: Bug 1629. Slambo (Speak) 17:28, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I've had this problem on Public Ivies, see Talk:Public Ivies#Side pictures and edit links. The current version displays the problem in Firefox 1.5.0.1. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 19:14, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

listing subpages?

Is there a way of listing all the subpages of an article or user page? (Including, but not limited to, the ones you've forgotten about and don't have any extant links to?) —Steve Summit (talk) 18:08, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Try [7]. Fill the prefix box with the page you want the subpages of. You can see an example on my user page. Gerard Foley 18:15, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Cool! Perfect. Thanks. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:15, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

How do you add an article to a category?

Yup, the title says it. Assistance, please?

Simple. Add [[Category:So-and-so]] at the bottom to add the article to that category. Category convention is to put the last name first, in whcih case you would write [[Category:So-and-so|Last name, first name]] - Hbdragon88 04:19, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Colours gone crazy?

On the Central railway station, Sydney page which I've done a lot of work on, the template up the top describing the Cityrail stations is supposed to have white text so it is readable. However, it seems to have changed to black and isn't recognising written colours (only Hex coded ones). So wherever "color=white" is in the code, it doesn't work.

This will be a lot of work to fix up if I have to go through every page and manually change the colour to a hex code. Is this a bug or has something changed? (JROBBO 03:19, 24 March 2006 (UTC))

Sounds like a browser issue, the article looks fine for me in Opera 8.5, FF 1.5 and IE 6 on Windows. What browser are you using? -- Tim Starling 05:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Automatic additions to watchlist

Recently I've noticed that any new article I make automatically gets added to my watchlist. I find this incredibly annoying and a hassle to have to constantly keep editing my watchlist to remove these items. When was this bug "feature" added and can it be removed? Grutness...wha? 08:18, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Check your Preferences. Under "Editing" there are the options "Add pages you create to your watchlist" and "Add pages you edit to your watchlist". This changes the default for the "Watch this page" tickbox you get whenever you edit a page (below the summary field). HTH —da Pete (ノート) 09:11, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

The feature was added last week per user request. It can be switched off in preferences. Rob Church 18:37, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I discovered this out of the blue last night. I thought my preferences had gotten screwy. Was this new feature announced somewhere? User:Zoe|^(talk) 22:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

No, but since people are getting into a flap about new things being added, I'm going to start announcing every single little bug fix or feature implementation here. Rob Church 02:57, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Good. If I wanted my preferences changed, I'd do it myself. User:Zoe|^(talk) 03:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - please do that Rob - it saves people being annoyed by suddenly discovered, unwanted changes. Grutness...wha? 09:43, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Nocover.gif trouble

Hello, I'm having some problems with the image nocover.gif. It is used on the We Don't Need to Whisper article, the upcoming album from the band Angels and Airwaves. Instead of showing the actual image (an empty album case), it shows a cover from "The Flaming Lips". I cleared my caché, and I visited the article from different browsers (IE 6 and Firefox 1.5), but I still got that image. Is there any way this can be worked out? Thanks! --Greedy 14:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Image:Nocover.gif was vandalized, but the new image didn't show in the description page because of caching. I have reverted the change. - Liberatore(T) 14:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Not receiving watchlist email alerts

I thought the latest versions of Wikimedia would send email alerts when pages on your Watchlist changed. I even recall checking some box on my watchlist page to activate this feature. However, I'm not getting any email alerts, and I'm not even seeing the checkbox for activating alerts on my watchlist page. What's going on? How do I enable watchlist email alerts? Sorry if this has been asked, but I've looked around the Village Pump and other places and didn't see this issue addressed. And BTW, my profile says my email is authenticated. Thanks. --Nick 16:53, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Well there is an extention that does e-mail notification, don't think it's installed here though. --Sherool (talk) 23:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

That's never been enabled on Wikipedia yet. --Brion 00:02, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Searching histories

(Appologies if this has been suggested before)

It would be really useful if we were able to search histories by edit summary or user name. It would make finding out who made an anonymous post, or who has worked on a section, or what contributions an individual made to a page, all much easier. Sure I could set the view to 500 and use my browsers search function, but this isn't efficient if the page is many thousands or reversions long, and it doesn't collect a set of edits together for me.

Has this been considered at all? I can't imagine it would be difficult to immplement. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 17:40, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I know Tony Sidaway has a similar tool for searching for vandalism reversion edit summaries on the toolserver. It might be worth speaking to him. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Amusing Image Glitch - ADS ON WIKIPEDIA?!?!?

Firefox had a glitch earlier today producing an amusing effect - ADS ON WIKIPEDIA!

THE WORLD IS ENDING

I'm not trying to make a bug report - I just thought this would be amuse you all. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 19:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

List of Portuguese municipalities

Is there anyway I can make all the cells in the tables have the same size? In sections where the numbers have more digits, the column witdh expands. Could you help? Afonso Silva 22:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

new hidden toolbar button?

It seems that there's a new feature that adds the text "#REDIRECT [[Insert text]]" to the editing window, as some newbies have been adding it to pages. However, my toolbar hasn't changed. I've tried different skins, but I can't seem to find any new buttons or anything. So I'm wondering, how exactly are those newbies adding that text to the editing window? Thanks. --Ixfd64 23:15, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Try clearing your browser cache, the "insert redirect" button is there on my edit toolbar, so most likely you are still using an old cached version of the js file that build that toolbar. --Sherool (talk) 23:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

It does seem to be skin dependant. If I switch from MonoBook which has the #R button to Classic the button goes away. hydnjo talk 16:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Problem: Outdated WP always loads instead of the updated one.

It sounds more like a technical issue so I'm posting this message here. Whenever I load Wikipedia, I always get the outdated version with the old layout, forcing me to CTRL+F5 to bypass the cache. I already deleted all the files relating to WP in the IE cache which resolved the "outdated WP" issue. The bad thing is that it still happens. I still can load WP (it's the newer version), but it's still outdated as the dates in the "On this day..." section are wrong. E.G I loaded Wikipedia on 25-03-2006 but the "On this day..." section shows March 24: World Tuberculosis Day. Now, I always have the habit of having to CTRL+F5 everytime I load WP everyday. --Bruin rrss23 (talk) 02:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I don't want to clear the IE cache since my internet connection is quite horrible, especially at night (UTC +8).

The problem is probably your time zone. The 'On this day' information updates at midnight UTC... so until 8am your local time it will still be showing information for the prior day. You can use Main Page alternative (tomorrow) to see the updated information. There are instructions for having this displayed automatically at Wikipedia_talk:Main_Page_alternatives#Making an alternate page your main page.

Alternatively this could be a browser settings issue. There should be an option to 'reload page on every visit' or something like that which might resolve it. --CBDunkerson 02:32, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

UPDATE: It's horrible. When I loaded WP at 10:08 UTC, the same thing happened: The old, outdated WP showed up!!! Why is this happening?!? Looks like I just have to stick to my habit of CTRL+F5 whenever the old or outdated WP shows up. I'm using Internet Explorer as the main browser and I'm sticking with it. --Bruin rrss23 (talk) 02:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

User preference to force edit summaries

Some users whinged the last time I added a feature, so I'm posting here.

There's now (or will soon be) a user preference available which reminds users to enter edit summaries. When switched on, the software will check once for a blank edit summary, and bounce you back to the edit form with a reminder.

If you don't want to enter a summary, just hit Save again; you won't be bounced back more than once. The code is smart enough to detect cases where an automatic summary has been generated by the software (when using section editing) and see if that's been changed; if it hasn't, it's treated "blank" (i.e. bounced back).

This was added in response to several requests for it on BugZilla and comments all over the place. It doesn't affect you unless it's switched on and it shouldn't interfere with existing scripts that do this. Rob Church 02:53, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! -- stillnotelf has a talk page 03:05, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Patrolled edits - new preference?

Cruising my preferences in response to Robchurch's post above, I found a new one: "Mark edits you make as patrolled". The best I can find on this is m:Help:Patrolled edit which is a little hard to understand in detail or purpose. I was also wondering if this is a)permanently enabled on enwiki or just as a test and b)if it is, as the Meta page suggests, limited to sysops and c) if so, whether only sysops can see the difference between patrolled and non-patrolled edits. Also, a single edit is rather different to a page; is this just terminology overlap in the docs, or is there some difference? Thanks. -Splash^talk 03:15, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

This preference should be visible to those with the patrol permission, on wikis with recent changes patrol enabled. It was suggested that if users could be trusted to patrol others' edits, then marking their own as patrolled might be a time saver for them and others. There's some documentation on patrolled edits at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Patrolled_edits.

This shouldn't have shown up on En. since recent changes patrol isn't enabled over here; that bug is now fixed in code. Rob Church 15:34, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It still appears as a tickbox in my preferences, though. -Splash^talk 04:07, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion to improve search page and make it more user-friendly

Hello there, I see that the search page has the section "Search in namespaces" in a dirty manner. Instead of placing all the checkboxes into one continuous line (that is broken up by the word wrapping of the browser), please place them neatly in seperate lines (using the <br> tag of HTML for instance).

If possible please include a new checkbox "Search all namespaces". It should auto-check/auto-uncheck all other checkboxes.

(I wonder if this is a real problem with the search page, or just an imaginary one that happens in my Firefox browser.)

Thank you for considering my suggestion, --Agent007bond 13:01, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and would support changes along those lines. --Quiddity 19:44, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

• Provide a "check/uncheck all" button(s)
• Cleanup the formboxes layout/ordering/alignment
• a concise note explaining that the defaults can be preset in one's preferences menu.

Printing with links highlighted

Every way I try to print a Wikipedia page, the links come out as plain text, indistinguishable from the surrounding text. How can I print so that links are highlighted in some fashion, as on screen?

I've tried Firefox and IE, regular and "printable" page, and various skins, and I haven't found the answer yet. 67.81.189.75 16:33, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Have you tried the "print as image" option? -- stillnotelf has a talk page 19:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, how do I invoke that option? Thanks. 67.81.189.75 03:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Automated links to journals, like ISBN links?

For references to books, the standard Wikipedia template, if provided with an ISBN, links to library catalogs and bookstores to allow the book to be obtained. But there's no similar automation for references to journals. Should there be?

It's not clear how this would work. An ISSN number? A link to CiteSeer? But something useful should happen when the reader clicks on a journal reference. If the journal is online and free, a click should take you to the correct place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nagle (talk • contribs)

You may want to use {{ISSN|1234-5678}}, but a page similar to the one for ISBNs would be preferable. -- User:Docu

Some journals subscribe to the Digital object identifier system, for which we have the {{doi}} template. Not automated clearly, but useful nevertheless. -Splash^talk 21:19, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Can I use this image?

The article Oil refinery includes an image (ShellMartinez.jpg) which is labeled as "Licensed under Creative Commons Share Alike License". I would like to insert that same image in two other articles (Distillation and Fractional distillation) and in those articles I would like to change the caption from "View of Shell Oil Refinery in Martinez, California" to "Typical Distillation Towers in Oil Refineries".

Is it allowable to use that image in the two other articles? And is it allowable to change the caption? Awaiting your response, mbeychok 21:08, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Wikimedia's interpretation of the "Aggregation" clause in the GFDL is that we can include non-GFDL'd images in otherwise-GFDL articles. Somewhere, Jimbo has said we should accept all useful free images. So go ahead. The caption is yours for the making. -Splash^talk 21:20, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. mbeychok 22:15, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Image conflict

I want to use this image in an article, but this one shows up. How do I get the Commons image in when an image by the same name already exists in Wikipedia-en? zafiroblue05 | Talk 22:51, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Delete the local image. --Brion 01:31, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Alternatively, upload the Commons image to a new name here. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

RM edit page clutter

Is there any way I can remove all the stuff from editing pages except the edit box and the preview? I speak of the clutter in between -- the box with all the special characters, the reminders about the sandbox, tildes, and policies. I'll take the edit sum box, of course, and the essential buttons and links.

I agree that new editors should see all of this -- maybe a lot more of this -- but by now, I've seen it so often that it's just stuff to trip over. Can I edit my Cologne Blue stylesheet to hide it? John Reid 23:26, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Try #editpage-specialchars, #editpage-copywarn2 { display: none } --cesarb 01:40, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Protect tags (and other such tags) in printable version

For example, take a look at Caffeine. If you click on the 'Printable version', you get that protect tag in your printout. Is there a way to make it so that tags like that are excluded from the printable version? Thanks. tv316 00:13, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the CSS class metadata just needs to be added to the protection templates and they will not print anymore. --cesarb 01:35, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Signature Issue

Hi, I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but here goes.

I'm trying to effectively pimp out my signature so that it looks like this: The ikiroid (talk/parler/hablar/paroli/说/話)

However, when I copy the script of the signature from the sandbox to the signature space under my prefs, there is a message at the top of the screen:

Invalid Signature, Check HTML tags

What do I do???--The ikiroid | (talk/parler/hablar/paroli/说/話) 00:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

You go to Wikipedia:How to fix your signature. --cesarb 01:29, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

In particular, I'm guessing the problem is the font color=green, which needs to be changed to font color="green". --cesarb 01:55, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, thank you.--The ikiroid (talk/parler/hablar/paroli/说/話) 03:30, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Gerald Ford article

Hello. I am trying to get this into FAC and I am having a problem with the box "The Ford Cabinet." In particular, if you look at the page, there's nearly a run-on between the side of the box and the text of the article to the right. Is there anyway to insert a small buffer along the side so the article looks less crunched together? I have tried various format tricks and I have not come across anything yet that will work. Thanks for any help. Jtmichcock 01:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Such buffer is nothing more than the CSS margin. I've simply increased it from 3px to 1em. --cesarb 01:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Jtmichcock 01:51, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I also tweaked it so it's flush with the left margin. --cesarb 01:52, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

"We won't reveal your email address"

This untruth can be found at both MediaWiki:Emailforlost and MediaWiki:Prefs-help-email. They both should be changed to say something like "unless you use the "E-mail this user" feature."

Since they both are highly visible to newbies, I prefer that people check my proposed wording first:

• MediaWiki:Emailforlost:

<div style="width:30em">* E-mail address is optional; no confirmation is required. However, giving your e-mail address allows other users to send you mail, and enables you to request password reminders. We won't reveal your address to anyone, unless you use the "E-mail this user" feature.</div>

• MediaWiki:Prefs-help-email

* E-mail (optional): Enables others to e-mail you from your user or user talk page, without revealing your e-mail address. It will be revealed when you use the "E-mail this user" feature. Please note that if you change your e-mail address, you will need to <a class='internal' href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Email_confirmation">reconfirm</a> your address.

If nobody has a better wording after some days, I'll go ahead and use my wording.

--cesarb 02:07, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I've nothing against your proposal, but I felt that the most important place for this warning is in MediaWiki:Emailpagetext so I went and made the existing warning there bold. The message needed rewriting anyway, since now that we have e-mail confirmation enabled the original wording was unnecessarily complicated.

Incidentally, it would be nice if someone could change SpecialEmailuser.php to pass the recipient's name as an argument to wfMsg('emailpagetext') so that we could get rid of the annoying "this user" in the message. I thought of using {{SUBPAGENAME}}, but that wouldn't work if the recipient's name is passed in the query as "target=". —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:18, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

TeX markup

I'm seeing quite a few math formulae not rendering correctly, for instance in Faraday's law of induction. I've set my math rendering preference to both PNG and browser, but no change.

<math>\nabla \times \mathbf{E} = -\frac{\partial \mathbf{B}} {\partial t}</math>

$\nabla \times \mathbf {E} =-{\frac {\partial \mathbf {B} }{\partial t}}$

<math>\nabla \times \mathbf{E} = -{\frac{\partial \mathbf{B}} {\partial t}}</math>

$\nabla \times \mathbf {E} =-{\frac {\partial \mathbf {B} }{\partial t}}$

Is everyone seeing the second formula rendering but not the first? I'd be happy to go around inserting braces in any formula that doesn't render correctly for me, but wanted to see if this is a known issue first. EricR 03:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm using IE6 in MathML if possible, and both seem to work fine for me. However, if you're in a different browser it's entirely possible that your browser needs the braces. The odds that your particular browser is the only inoperable one are very, very low. Ingoolemo ^talk 03:43, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm using Firefox 1.5 and only seeing the second one render. If you've got a second could you try changing your math rendering pref to 'always PNG' and see if there is any difference? EricR 03:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.1 on linux, and can see them both render. --lightdarkness ^(talk) 04:28, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I can see both on Firefox 1.5 (mac), with math rendering = PNG. Have you hit refresh? Cleared your browser cache? Have you checked the page source (View menu, Page source) to see what the HTML markup is (i.e. does the markup for both images look similar)? Dmharvey 03:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. Now it's happening to me too. The first image, instead of being displayed as an image, is being displayed as the "alt" text. The HTML still has the <img> tag and all that. Dmharvey 04:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Even more interesting: if I navigate directly to http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/9/c/a/9cab6787646062d6e658cd1e83ad468f.png (which is the first image URL), I don't get an image; I just a page containing the literal text "http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/9/c/a/9cab6787646062d6e658cd1e83ad468f.png". If I do this in Safari, I get the image as expected. If I do this with the other URL, I get an image as expected. Very peculiar bug. I think it's probably a bug in Firefox, because when I clear my cache, everything goes back to working properly again. Dmharvey 04:19, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, thanks for telling me to look at the source, i should have done that in the first place. The wiki servers are always sending me PNG's no matter what my preference is set to. I wasn't seeing the first formula because Adblock was filtering it out. Now i'm trying to figure out why i can't get wiki to send me MathML. Firefox has no trouble rendering MathML from other sites.EricR 04:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Unable to confirm e-mail address

Windows XP SP2. Latest updates, blah, blah. Norton Internet Security 2006. Latest updates, blah, blah. I've tried in:

• IE 6.0.2900.2180 with Google search bar (pop-ups OK).
• FireFox 1.5.0.1 with Kaboodle.
• Opera 8.53.7722.

Here are the results per browser:

• I can click the button to validate my e-mail address in IE and FF. The button is no longer available and there is a message saying the message has been sent. No message arrives.
• I can click the button to validate my e-mail in Opera, but nothing changes.

I tried on Friday and Saturday with IE. I only tried today (past 1/2 hour) with FF and Opera. I commiserated (sp?) with Commander_Keane from the bootcamp chat, but it worked for him and not for me.

Is this my problem for not using OS X?

Seriously, is there something else I should try to do, short of turning off Norton? Or, should I go to Bugzilla?

--Bob 03:43, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

ETA: It did take adding my nickname when I clicked save this evening. So, something is communicating.

--Bob 03:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Have you cheked whether your email address at wikipedia preference is correct? --Pkchan 05:44, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll match your suggestion and raise you one. First I tried retyping the e-mail address I normally use (associated with my personal domain) several times. When in the Bootcamp, I tried using the e-mail address I have through my ISP. Neither has worked. --Bob 16:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Server clock

(originally posted at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Server clock)

The server's clock appears to be an hour fast. And I don't think the problem is in my settings. I've set my local offset to be +08:00 (HKT) for as long as I've been around and have never had a problem before today. And here in Hongkong we don't have summer time, mind.

More specifically, the problem I see is that those edits made between around 01:00 and 02:00 HKT today in real time (ie between 17:00 and 18:00 UTC) on my watchlist would sometimes be shown as been made between 02:00 and 03:00 (ie one hour fast), but sometimes be shown correct upon refresh. However, edits made outside that period appear to be correct.

Here is a snapshot of my watchlist just now:

   02:07 Arsenal F.C. (diff; hist) . . Qwghlm (Talk | contribs) (→Managers - expanded table to include stats)
   02:49 Wikipedia talk:HK wikipedians' notice board (diff; hist) . . Instantnood (Talk | contribs) (→Cantonese romanization)
   02:25 Talk:Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den (diff; hist) . . Pkchan (Talk | contribs) (→Re: Can Shi Shi mean Mr. Shi? - Yes, I think so.)
   02:04 Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den (diff; hist) . . Pkchan (Talk | contribs)
   00:51 User:Pkchan (diff; hist) . . Pkchan (Talk | contribs) (+zh-yue.)

My two edits should have been made on 01:04 and 01:25 HKT (I know it since I made them!). --Pkchan 05:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Seems to be correct; listed as 17:04 and 17;25, shows as 1:04, 1:25 in contribs when timezone set to 8. When exactly did you see this display? --Brion 18:15, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I've tracked this to a PHP bug in the version installed on some of our servers. An upgrade is in progress, should solve this. --Brion 01:50, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Update to Main Page code and CSS

I'd like to request that any wikimedia-experienced web-dev. admins help clean up our recent (beautiful! but poorly coded) Main Page code.

I know enough about css to know that things are wrong (primarily excessive duplication of embedded styles, and divs that should be spans?), but am not nearly experienced enough to fix. With humble apologies and much thanks from the Main Page Redesign creators and voters. --Quiddity 07:13, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

link to deletion log on upload pages for images

File:Fooo.gif

A nonexistent image

It'd be really nice to have a link to deletion log on page for uploads if wpDestFile variable is set, just as we have on red linked articles. For instance, if you click nonexistent image page, you get nice "Please wait and check the deletion log" link, but no such thing on or the form to upload it (which gets displayed if you click on red linked image)... Could we get the links? :-) --Dijxtra 15:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a reasonable feature request. WP:BUG. I'd like that idea, but in the meantime, I suggest looking into a JavaScript solution. — Edward Z. Yang^(Talk) 18:55, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Little apostrophe at my cursor on the search bar

it's a little annoying, does this happen to other users as well, or just me?

Sometimes, yes. FreplySpang (talk) 16:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Your operating system may display a text directionality marker if it thinks there's bidirectional text present. --Brion 17:52, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Using a vandal template when the vandal has no talk page

Hi,

My post has been vandalised by a vindictive individual, but the vandal has no talk page, and just makes rude and derogetory changes to my biographic posting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Foot_%28comedian%29

What is the best course of action?

Kind Regards,

SFS.

Please see Wikipedia:Vandalism. If the user has no talk page, simply create one. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:23, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Monobook red link formatting preference broken

If the "Format broken links like this" preference is unchecked so that red links show up "like this?", the option on subsequent visits will rather confusingly appear as

Format broken links like this?

which gives no indication that it turns off the question mark. æle ✆ 2006-03-26t17:29z

Sounds like a bug to me. WP:BUG — Edward Z. Yang^(Talk) 18:53, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

On second glance, this seems to be in CVS, so I'll report it on MediaZilla. æle ✆ 2006-03-27t01:15z

Images jumping around

File:Screenshot iraq error.PNG

Failing to merge with text

Images have been jumping around on wikipedia on my computer, they have been moving left right and centre despite what the code says the should be doing, and they are also refusing to merge text around them and forcing it below them, anyone having this problem too, or know what is wrong?

Even the screenshot there refuses to go to the right, or merge with text

also does anyone know what triple bendy breckets means {{{like this}}} ive encountered them on template templates, but when using them in another website which uses wiki code, it didnt recognise them. Philc 0780 19:52, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

triple brackets are parameters. _→AzaToth 20:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, for me it's seems to be no problem: Template:Imgbox, perhaps your browser is problematic? _→AzaToth 20:09, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

No, the problem described by Philc is happening in my browser as well. Last night, everything was fine. Also, I just realized that the layout of many little things have definitely changed. Someone has clearly been goofing around with one of the stylesheets or with MediaWiki itself.

FYI, I'm using Internet Explorer 6.0.2900.2180, Windows XP SP2, fully patched. I'm suspecting someone must have changed something and it looked fine in Mozilla but probably messes up in IE because IE isn't standards-compliant. I'm definitely looking forward to IE 7.--Coolcaesar 20:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

ok the problem seems to have miraculously sorted itself out, so if anyone wants to claim credit for it be quick! also concerning my questions about the triple bendy brackets, thanks for the reply, but unfortunately being as naive as i am, i dont know what you mean, does someone feel like exaplaining to me what they are and what they do etc. cheers! Philc 0780 21:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

It's simple, if you have a template, and calling it as {{template|foo=bar}}, then in the template you can access the parameter foo by typing {{{foo}}}, and it will then print out "bar"; _→AzaToth 00:33, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

How to tell an entry in the category SQL is itself a category?

I'm doing some code that schleps around in the category SQL dump, for example the 23 March dump is called http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20060323/enwiki-20060323-categorylinks.sql.gz (don't click that, it's 60 mb unzipped) after putting linefeeds in tuples for readability, the tuples look like this

(25,'Childhood_psychiatric_disorders','Autism',20060220171422),
(25,'Communication_disorders','Autism',20060220171422),
(25,'Disability','Autism',20060220171422),
(25,'Mental_illness_diagnosis_by_DSM_and_ISCDRHP','Autism',20060220171422),
(25,'Neurological_disorders','Autism',20060220171422),
(39,'Astrophysics','Albedo',20060125024948),
(39,'Climate_forcing','Albedo',20060125024948),
(39,'Climatology','Albedo',20060125024948),
(39,'Electromagnetic_radiation','Albedo',20060125024948),
(42,'Redirects_from_misspellings','ArtificalLanguages',20060211161958),
(42,'Unprintworthy_redirects','ArtificalLanguages',20060211161958),
(43,'Capitals_in_Asia','Abu Dhabi',20060103031449),
(43,'Cities_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates','Abu Dhabi',20060103031449),
(43,'Coastal_cities','Abu Dhabi',20060103031449),
(43,'Emirates','Abu Dhabi',20060103031449),
(43,'Philately_by_country','Abu Dhabi',20060103031449),
(56,'Redirects_from_CamelCase','ArtificialLanguages',20060211161859),

(with meanings "from", "to", "sortkey", "timestamp" (to is the category and sortkey is the char version of the thing in the category)

For my purposes I have a list of categories and want to generate all articles in the categories I am interested in. I am only interested in articles. How do I tell when sortkey represents a category so I can ignore it? Alternatively, where's a better place to ask this question if this isn't it? Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 21:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

SGML comment oddity

Within each of footnotes 8 and 31 to Hiroh Kikai is an <!-- SGML comment -->. Neither comment contains a pair of hyphens, or is badly formed in any other way that I can think of. (I don't think any of the other SGML comments is defective either.) But as I look at the article this morning, each is screwed up. For example, Anatolia"),<!-- The mag provides the title in English as well as Japanese --> 4, is rendered not as Anatolia"), 4 but as Anatolia"),UNIQ3c1f40ec3eb4bfb9-HTMLCommentStrip5ad9af7e6676b82c00000003 4,. I'm entirely willing to write a bug report at MediaZilla, but I've never written a bug report before and before writing the bug report thought I might ask people here if I'm overlooking something obvious or whether this is just some very transitory glitch.

Incidentally, I seem to be the only contributor to this article, so it's likely that you'll be looking at the same version. Anyway, the one I'm looking at is this one -- though for example this one of four days ago is misrendered in the same way. -- Hoary 21:44, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a real bug. That's an internal placeholder (like the ones used by <nowiki> and <math>), which for some reason isn't being replaced. You can go ahead and report it. --cesarb 01:40, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. I'll report it within the next 24 hours, and (unless of course the bug miraculously evaporates) will zap or move the SGML comments. -- Hoary 09:15, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Report it immediately rather than after some delay. That's just silly. :) --Brion 18:33, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Subcategory counting

On Category:Wikipedians in the United States, it says "There are 11 subcategories to this category." However, there are many more. Either the counting method should be changed to count all subcategories or MediaWiki:Subcategorycount should be changed to read "There are $1 subcategories in this section of the category." Kusma (討論) 23:06, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Currently it is displaying the number of visible subcategories; clicking "next 200" displays more of the subcategories. ~MDD4696 23:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I have asked (via {{editprotected}}) for this to be clarified at MediaWiki talk:Subcategorycount. Kusma (討論) 16:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Erratical behavior of CURRENTDAY

Sometimes it gives March 26, sometimes March 27. Do some servers follow daylight saving time instead of UTC? Kusma (討論) 23:51, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a bug in PHP, I'll have to fix up some servers. --Brion 01:46, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Navigation Content's box float

I am wondering why the Contents box for longer articles hasn't been automatically floated, or doesn't have the ability to be floated (left or right) to erradicate long areas of whitespace that can form when the contents box is large. I realise there lies the ability to hide the box - is this the solution? Is is because applying a default float could affect the layout of so many articles? Has this been discussed elsewhere? --Seriocomic 01:39, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Template Assistance requested

I need basically expert assistance in the development of a template. I am looking for particlaurly expert help, espically knowleg of css, floats (pin cords, and testing in both mozilla (firefox/netscape) type browsers, and IE type browsers. Please contact me directly via my talkpage. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 01:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Search bug

If you search for "404", you get "No results found". (And no, I'm not trying to make a stupid joke, though of course it is amusing.) Yet we've got 404 error, Ontario provincial highway 404, 404 (disambiguation), and even 404 the year. Is this a known bug? —Steve Summit (talk) 03:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Dunno if it's known, but I'll chime in and say it's reproducible, I get it too. It would seem that anything that's just numbers returns no hits. -- stillnotelf is invisible 03:49, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Template modifiers raw vs. msg

Are {{raw:}} and {{msg:}} really equivalent? If yes, how about replacing raw by something that displays the raw source like msgnw excluding <noinclude> parts? It's often interesting to show the code of a template in its docu as done by {{tim|x4}}, but without administrative stuff like the template category and any (not included) short usage info in the template itself. -- Omniplex 09:13, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Broken link with correct letter capitalization

I made two new articles, and added a link to them. They were behaving strange in the begining because of the database update delay. But then the link was OK. Today I see that the links are broken (in red), and when I do click on them it takes me to the page edit and the edited text is still there. And I can acces articles from my watchlist normally. The articles are Album (Quorthon album) and Purity of Essence and links to them are on Quorthon under section discography. I cleaned my explorer cache and refreshed it, but it seems the problem is with wikipedia, maybe. Post answers (if you have any) on my talk page. Thanks. Death2 13:52, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Broken links

Forget about it you lazy help-desk, fixed it myself. Don't know how but I fixed it. Death2 15:04, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Tool to see intersection of an article and an editor?

Is there any tool which would allow you to see, for a given article and a given username, only those contributions to that article which were made under that username? -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:24, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Interiot's tool. Click on the (Main) namespace in an editor's count, then on the article name, then on the (contributions) link on the left. -Splash^talk 17:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

How to link to main Wikisource?

Hello, I'd like to link to http://wikisource.org/, not http://en.wikisource.org/. But if I do s:Si I get to the en: page instead of the main Wikisource. 82.232.191.252 17:38, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Hum, I think I found out: oldwikisource:Si. 82.232.191.252 17:49, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Template amendment needed

Template:Infobox musical artist includes a bar to promote the Musical Artists WikiProject, but this doesn't belong on the tempate, as this then gets used in the mainspace, creating wiki self references. This kind of thing should only be used on talk pages, etc. Unfortunately I can't work out how to remove this from the template - is anyone able to help? Thanks, CLW 19:01, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Removed. [8] Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 19:07, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Sam! CLW 19:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Save Fuction .... / Wiki-Molasses / Time outs

Is another server fouled up ? The SAVE function is out 1/2 the time, and the lagtime is making dial-up look faster, then there are those "Operation has Timed Out" signals. Martial Law 20:53, 27 March 2006 (UTC) :(

Duplication of pagename

This is my first attempt at wikipedia and the name of the page I want to make already exists. Is there any way I can start a second version of that name whilst also ensuring it can be found via the search. Sorry if this info is available somewhere - I've searched and can't find it. Thanks.--Lilina 21:51, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Can you give some further details - is this because there are two or more things with the same name, such as the singer Madonna (whose page is at Madonna (entertainer)) and Madonna the mother of Jesus (whose page is at The Madonna)? (And, incidentally, for cases like this there are disambiguation pages like the one at Madonna.) Or have I misunderstood your question? CLW 21:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay. I suffer from having the same name as Sue Thomas FBEYE! Not only do I constantly get fan mail for her, but now I arrive at wikipedia wanting to set up a page for my name to link to the history of the organisation I used to run TrAce_Online_Writing_Centre and she is already here too! So, I would like a page called Sue Thomas. If I have to have a suffix, it could be Sue Thomas (trAce) - would that help? Thanks for getting back to me so quickly and for your friendly welcome!--Lilina 22:05, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. This introduces a different issue, which is that of vanity (please don't take that personally - I'm not accusing you of being a vain person!). A general principle is that it's not wise to create (or, some would say, even contribute directly to) articles about yourself, since if you're notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article, the chances are that someone else will either have already created that article or will create the article at some point in the not-too-distant future. Of course there's nothing stopping you from creating an article entitled Sue Thomas (trAce) or Sue Thomas (academic), but you'll probably find that unless your notability is clearly asserted it'll get nominated for deletion (or possibly "speedy deleted") on grounds of notability. And even if your notability is clearly asserted, you may find that it gets nominated for deletion as a vanity article. Does that help, or does that make things more complicated?! CLW 22:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I realised this when I read the helpfiles and I did give it some serious thought but decided to go ahead and risk it. I do understand the issue of vanity and why this is done, but I guess I hoped it would be clear that I am 'notable' enough for inclusion. It's difficult. trAce certainly should be in here, and if trAce is in here, then so should I be. (I notice trAce is already mentioned in a piece on Jane Draycott). It's late here and I can't work more on it much more tonight, but I would like to try adding just a short bio to Sue Thomas (trAce) to claim it, then come back to it later. I'll try, and see what happens. I do understand the constraints.--Lilina 22:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for tidying up my trAce page. I've created a Sue Thomas (trAce) page but it's not showing up in the search yet. maybe it takes a little while. I'll have to come back to this tomorrow now. Thanks for your help. --Lilina 22:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Creating Templates

How does one create and/or edit an existing template to better address a specific situation? In particular I was trying to edit the Airline Template on the Mesa Air Group article and I was unsuccessfull. The following is an example of the type of template I'd like to creat: File:Wikipedia Template.png

Mesa is a regional airline that operates for a number of "legacy" airlines and as such the standard Airline Template doesn't quite work. Thanks,

Gmurnane 00:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)