Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bugs and feature requests should be made at Bugzilla (How to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported to securitywikimedia.org.

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Diffs not working

(Extracted from section above as appears to be a different problem) Diffs are not working on either the normal or secure server - is this a general problem related to the "down"? or is it (like "my preferences" above) only affecting me and a few others? - Arjayay (talk) 18:35, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Diffs have been working fine for me. Ryan Vesey 18:44, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

They flash up momentarily and then the text disappears leaving a selection of grey bars and white boxes with blue lines around them - but no text. Arjayay (talk) 18:53, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Diffs still just flashing up momentarily and disappearing leaving a selection of grey bars and white boxes with blue lines around them - but no text Arjayay (talk) 08:23, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm getting this problem too. Not even the flashing, just the blank diffs. Enhanced diff display also non-functional. Popups is working, though. IE8, Vector skin. --Stfg (talk) 13:51, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm also using IE8 and Vector - Out of interest Stfg, are your tabs under "My preferences" working? The "My preferences" problem above predated the "outage" that seems to correlate with the diffs not showing - Arjayay (talk) 15:58, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, my tabs under "My preferences" are working fine. --Stfg (talk) 17:01, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I've got the same problem, using IE8 and monobook. I deleted emptied my monobook.js and diffs were working again. I'd prefer to keep those skripts, they were working fine so far. I hope this is helpful to find the problem. --Trigonomie (talk) 15:22, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

This is on the german wikipedia right ? I just tested your scripts (at least on Safari on Mac, since I have no windows and no IE. I could not find any glaring issues with it. No idea. but you have so much scripts, I would not be surprised if there is something broken on specifically IE, because scripts break all the time, especially if you don't maintain them (that's why gadgets are better for most users than installing skin scripts for themselves). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:04, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

My diffs are still not working - and as shown above, it is not just me. Lack of diffs makes fighting vandalism particularly difficult. No-one has made any suggestions of what might be wrong, or if it should be reported elsewhere. Some help would be appreciated.
Interestingly, I had an edit conflict when trying to post the above - and the diffs on the edit conflict did work - does this information help track it down? - Arjayay (talk) 15:33, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Some more diagnostics: templates {{diff}} and {{diff2}} have the same problem; the diff shown by an undo from the history page shows the same problem; and emptying (not deleting, just emptying) my vector.js and clearing cache (Ctrl+refresh) had no effect. Popups are displaying just what they always have. This is desperate: any more diagnostics wanted? --Stfg (talk) 16:16, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Please try to empty both: your common.js und your vector.js --Trigonomie (talk) 16:32, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Emptied all my .js files hard refreshed and rebooted - no change whatsoever - Arjayay (talk) 17:27, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello Trigonomie. I've now emptied both vector.js and common.js. Then cleared my cache (Ctrl-refresh) and also done the action=purge job described at Wikipedia:Bypass your cache#Forcing the server to re-render. Still the same problem, I'm afraid. --Stfg (talk) 17:59, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

... and I've just tried it with several other skins: Classic, Monobook and Simple, for none of which do I have .js files. All the same. --Stfg (talk) 18:24, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

OK, any tech editor who knows what the JS console or IE developer tools are and of course has a Windows machine, would like to take a look ? I know there's few Windows using tech editors around, but please try to help your fellow OS users. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:04, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I was able to recreate those "empty boxes" in IE8 by enabling wikEdDiff in gadgets. Can it be so simple? Hard to believe the affected users didn't try checking diffs in any other projects. — AlexSm 20:32, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Alex. Disabling wikEdDiff has restored basic diff view to full function. I'll leave it disabled for now, but it is actually very difficult to use basic diff view when people insert or remove paragraphs breaks. To cause this, something must have happened in the last couple of days to disrupt the interaction between wikEdDiff and whatever else is in the black box. Is there a plan to resolve it? Regarding "Hard to believe ...", we non-experts don't always know where to look. Thanks again. --Stfg (talk) 21:14, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

No, it’s not that simple. DE is my homewiki. I have no problems here. In my opinion it is due to the fact that (some) scripts are processed not properly any more. WikEdDiff is no option in dewiki, WikEd is not checked. --Trigonomie (talk) 05:18, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I have determined the culprit: [2]. --Trigonomie (talk) 08:21, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

(e/c)So, I just need to solve the "My preferences" tabs not working problem above, which has been outstanding since 21 July, and then I can go back to the basic system - hardly a solution. As User:Stfg says above, basic diff view is, er, basic, and has several limitations.
I first discovered this problem just after the "down" on 6 August - are the problems related? will they be resolved when the database lag catches up? has a bugzilla report been filed? (sorry I don't understand how to do bugzilla reports) - Arjayay (talk) 08:28, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I had started composing my reply before User:Trigonomie's last addition - but it allowed me to post my comment without an E/C. If we have "the culprit" can it simply be reversed? - presumably the change was made to improve something else and this is just collateral damage? - Arjayay (talk) 08:35, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I notified the maintainer of the gadget. I don't see how this problem can related to users having trouble with the My Preferences btw, that's likely a separate issue. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:44, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

This is still not working, is it all down to the one individial editor? Arjayay (talk) 12:57, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:33, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Cacycle has fixed this (works for me using XP IE8 + Vector) - so it is safe to turn back on. - Arjayay (talk) 07:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Sidebar script

Hey guys, it would be great if someone could create a script that puts a link to Special:NewPagesFeed in the toolbox (or anywhere in the sidebar). Just something simple that can be added to a user's personal js page, no fancy gadgets or anything. Okeyes and I were talking about it and it would allow editors who frequent the NewPagesFeed to access it more easily.16:54, 17 August 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryan Vesey (talk • contribs)

Haven't tested this, but it should add it to the left toolbar:

mw.util.addPortletLink ('p-tb', wgServer+wgArticlePath.replace("$1", "Special:NewPagesFeed"), 'New pages feed');

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:57, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

It works perfectly! I added it as a new script in my userspace, but it can be moved to your userspace if you wish. Ryan Vesey 18:24, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

This goes where? in the js? MathewTownsend (talk) 19:42, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Yep, right now I have it sitting at User:Ryan Vesey/sidebar.js. You could import it using importScript('User:Ryan Vesey/sidebar.js'); in your common.js. I'll let Gadget take over the script if he wishes. Ryan Vesey 19:45, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

ok, thanks! I'll give it a try. MathewTownsend (talk) 19:46, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I ripped the basic script from someone else. You can use it to add pretty much anything to the sidebar. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:37, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

This is actually the advised way to do this now:

mw.util.addPortletLink ('p-tb', mw.config.get('wgArticlePath').replace("$1", "Special:NewPagesFeed"), 'New pages feed');

—TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:15, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Syntax highlighter reboot

Hello all, it's been quite a while since I've been active on Wikipedia. How have you been? I have found that I don't nearly as much time for Wikipedia anymore, but I wanted to come back to improve the syntax highlighter I was working on:

The big advantage to my script over something like wikEd is that my script does the syntax highlighting as you type without messing up your browser's undo/redo function. One day I would love to see something like this integrated into the site by default; I think it would really help make editing Wikipedia more intuitive and help attract new editors.

I have successfully resolved many of the issues that plagued the script before. In particular, the performance is much improved and it now works consistently in both Firefox and Chrome. I've moved the description page for the script to Meta. Please check it out and let me know what you think. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:32, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

And Opera? :-) mabdul 00:43, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Opera works better than it used to but it does not handle line breaks in textareas properly (it does not fully conform to the UAX14 standard) which can lead to misaligned highlighting. Generally though, it seems to work well and if you like Opera and don't mind the occasional weirdness feel free to use it! —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:45, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Remember the dot, it would be lovely to see this based on the new parsoid model and the annotated edit DOM. It would then basically be an alternative to the new Visual Editor, a new style wikicode editor. I'd love to see something like that. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:26, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Interesting, I wasn't aware of the VisualEditor and Parsoid projects. My highlighter works differently because it does not replace the textbox with a rich text editor, thus avoiding breaking the browser's undo/redo function as wikEd and Parsoid do. Also, my highlighter is ready to go now--I'm using it as we speak. In the future it probably is going to need a more sophisticated wikitext parser, but the one it has now works great. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 23:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Flexible collapsing

I recently found that I miss some more flexible collapsing then is currently possible with {{hidden}} and friends. The things I would like to be able to do are:

Infobox

Label	summary [show]
Details that are hidden unless the handle above is activated

or

summary ^[show] Details that are hidden unless the handle is activated

(This is needed for crowded navigation templates; I know that they can be split to reduce complexity, but this choice isn't always optimal.) Is it possible? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 18:00, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

You may find what you are looking for on mw:Manual:Collapsible elements / mw:RL/DM#jQuery.makeCollapsible. Helder 22:27, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!!! Indeed that was enlightening. The only question remains:

Infobox

Label	summary [ hide ]
Details that are hidden once the handle above is activated

Is there any way to make the external handle ([hide]) react on collapsing the way it happens in {{hidden}}? (These and linked docs only describe doing so with the handle inside parent div, which can't be done in infobox.) — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 01:23, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you want to do, so for now I will just point another topic where it is described an attempt to migrate that template to the new system: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 92#Deprecation of Collapsible tables and NavFrames (unfortunately it was archived and we are still sending to Wikipedia readers tree different scripts which do essentially the same thing...) Helder 02:55, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Literally I want to be able to change the text of the "[hide]" handle to "[show]" once the hiding action is performed and vice versa. Eg. in the infobox above the handle always reads "[hide]", regardless of the state of collapsible section. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 03:28, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

This can be done by javascript, by moving the toggle to a new location. Ruslik_Zero 11:28, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Infobox

Label	summary
Details that are hidden once the handle above is activated

Or, you can do like above. Ruslik_Zero 11:38, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot about nesting. My question is now answered in full. Thanks! — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 17:48, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Markup	Renders as
{{infobox |title = Infobox |float = none |bodyclass = vevent |label1 = {{nowrap|Label1-parent}} |data1 = Lorem ipsum |data2 = {{infobox |child = yes |bodyclass = mw-collapsible |label1 = Label1-child |data1 = {{nowrap|Here should be the handle}} |data2 = <span class="mw-collapsible-content">This should be hidden once the handle above is activated</span> }} |label3 = {{nowrap|Label3-parent}} |data3 = Lorem ipsum }}	Infobox Label1-parent Lorem ipsum Label1-child Here should be the handle This should be hidden once the handle above is activated Label3-parent Lorem ipsum

Well, it appears that child infoboxes are just converted to rows, so the |bodyclass=mw-collapsible just doesn't work. So the question of how to manage the handle remains open. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 21:10, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

You can do like this:

Infobox

Label1-parent	Lorem ipsum
Label1-child	This should be hidden once the handle above is activated
Label3-parent	Lorem ipsum

Ruslik_Zero 11:53, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Sure, but the whole purpose was to have collapsible section with no label and a control in another row. See template:infobox software/testcases for reference. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 12:20, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Unwanted item appeared on my watchlist

Upon editing my watchlist I discovered an entry which was spam. I certainly didn't put it there and I certainly didn't watch any page with that title. I checked to see if such a page existed and it didn't nor did it say there ever was such a page. So how did this entry get on my watchlist ? Was my account hacked or is there some other way it could have happened ? Wlhquest (talk) 15:02, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

If someone moves a page you are watching, then the new page is automatically added to your watch list. So a page you were watching was moved to that spam title, then moved back to its proper name and the redirect deleted. But the spam redirect stayed on your watchlist. --B (talk) 15:04, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. That's reassuring. It makes me think though that the deleted redirect should be automatically deleted from the watchlist. Wlhquest (talk) 15:10, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

That it stays around is actually helpful for vandalism fighting, as deleted spam or vandalism redirects are likely targets of future spam or vandalism attempts. A significant part of my watchlist consists of redlinks that I'm keeping an eye on to ensure they aren't recreated w/o a non-spam or non-vandalism reason. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 13:59, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

reference inside a reference cause no ending tag bug

ok when you make a reference group and add reference inside that reference group you get a no closing tag error

for example

</ref>

the only way to fix it is to do something like this

but if your not using cite you get this

but what you are wantin it to look like is this in the notes section using cite

Shared with Dumbarton F.C. after both clubs ended the season on 29 points. A play-off game at Cathkin Park on 21 May 1891 and finished 2–2, so the clubs were declared joint champions

Notes;

General;

if you cant reference a note which reference group n is a note about something it kinda defeating the propuse of the note to give additional information but still referenced--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 18:31, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

You see that help page link at the end of the error message? That leads you to the help page for that error which explains the issue. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:39, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

i know whay causes ut but its a bug which stop you using reference group correctlyAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 18:42, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes; it has been reported. One of these years it will get fixed. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:20, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

There is a workaround:

Markup	Renders as
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. {{#tag:ref|The text is derived from sections 1.10.32–3 of Cicero's De finibus bonorum et malorum<ref>On the Boundaries of Goods and Evils</ref>}} {{reflist}}	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

— Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 22:00, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

The help page will lead you to WP:REFNEST, which describes that usage, as well as {{refn}}. Please let me know if there are issues with the help page.---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:26, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I see a formatting issue in the markup I placed: the order of references is calculated in order of their appearance in source, not in rendering. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 12:41, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

that page is acutely harder to understand than your example but thanks for understanding and the help, sorry for the late thanks only just had time to checkAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 20:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Another coding glitch

I encountered another glitch in the coding and I am wondering what is going on? I've encountered this on articles and other pages around Wikipedia. See the image as an example, although it hasn't just happened to the contributions. Simply south...... flapping wings into buildings for just 6 years 17:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

One character in the HTML that was served to you has become corrupted. Specifically, the opening < of the element <a href="/wiki/Special:Contributions/Judetheobscure1" title="Special:Contributions/Judetheobscure1">contribs</a> has been changed into what appears to be a pipe character, so everything in the opening tag has been presented as plain text. Anyway, when I look at the same entry in my watchlist, it's normal. If the rogue character is a pipe, this could be a s simple as changing a single bit from 0 to 1, because < is the same as &#x3c; and | is the same as &#x7c; - a difference of 0x40, or 64 in decimal currency. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:32, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

What the, that should definitely not happen. Bits should not get randomly flipped. Bawolff (talk) 19:47, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

How to identify non-printing characters in diffs?

On the surface, these two versions appear identical. The diff highlights the year 2012 but it's not clear what changed there. The version history shows that the newer version lost 3 bytes, but what are they? Is there a way to tell? Thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 18:55, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

If you copy+paste the old text into this useful tool, you'll see that there was a U+200E character in there, a left-to-right mark. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Templates and expansion depth

I was pointed here for this query but I am sure there is a forum for techie template talk.

I have been around here a while but I have only now encountered the message Page exceeded the expansion depth when editing a page. Seems they all go to Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded. Currently about 16.000 pages in it. Two of the templates that seem to do it are {{Automatic taxobox}} and also {{atn}} when there is no following archive page. I am no expert on templates or coding but should this be sorted out? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:12, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

That is excessive. Categories marked as {{Monthly clean up category}} are also in there, and they should not be. Most likely a subtemplate somewhere has recently been edited to make it more complicated - perhaps by only a tiny amount - but just sufficient to tip all these pages over the limit of 40 levels. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:02, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

One of the templates common to all those subcats is probably causing it. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:25, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I thought of that - I took Category:Article sections to be split from April 2012 as one case and 5th Avenue Theatre as the other - I determined that the problem still existed if I stripped out everything except {{Monthly clean up category}} from the former, and {{Infobox Theatre}} from the latter case. Then I determined which subtemplates these two templates both used - and the only one these two have in common is {{max/2}} which hasn't changed in years. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:37, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you're on the wrong track. It's probably the use of various string manipulation templates in both pages. Anomie⚔ 00:58, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 99#Raising issue again: Page exceeded the expansion depth, Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 99#Page exceeded the expansion depth? and Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 100#Possible problem with the Article Feedback tool for previous discussions. My comment from the last still seems to apply for articles: "Sampling of Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded shows the main culprits are now {{Infobox German location}} (whenever the image_plan/Lageplan parameter is set) and species using one of several templates (even without parameters), for example {{Automatic taxobox}}, {{Speciesbox}}, {{Ichnobox}} or {{virusbox}}." All the four mentioned species templates cause it without any parameters. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:33, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

So how do we fix it? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 06:58, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Create less complicated templates, or wait for Scribunto to be deployed (but that is still a few months away). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:52, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

First one in the category: Category:1911 Britannica articles needing updates from August 2012. NewPP of that page: Highest expansion depth: 41/40.

(Curiousity: sister categories (e.g. June 2012) with 41/40 and so categorised too is not in this list - let's "hopothese" this is just catsort that went wrong). {{Monthly clean up category}} is very suspected indeed, it is the only code on the page.

Solved the August 2012 example, individual page. -DePiep (talk) 07:34, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Could it be this: This newPP limit is new this way (added recently to the newPP list). And the tracking category is from 8 May 2012 [3] by PrimeHunter. Has the newPP change + its category only surfaced existing pages, whose problem did not show this explicitly? -DePiep (talk) 05:33, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Also discussed at Infobox_German_location, May 2012. -DePiep (talk) 05:39, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

List of causing/suspected templates (see also notes above):

• {{Monthly clean up category}}
• {{Automatic taxobox}}
• {{atn}}
• {{Infobox Theatre}}
• {{Infobox_German_location}}

* (please expand list here)

-DePiep (talk) 05:59, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Continued for the cleanup talks: Category talk. Category talk:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded#Existing templates to be reviewed. -DePiep (talk) 06:18, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Still unexplained: {{Monthly clean up category}} has ~4700 transclusions, but only ~300 show up in the excess category (as Category pages, so on top). Now see example Category:1911 Britannica articles needing updates from June 2012. Page source newPP says: expansion depth 41/40, but the category is not added. (also tried ~nulledit to trigger March 2012 -- no effect AFAICS). -DePiep (talk) 07:34, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Vector skin colors

What is the light blue color used in the border of the left navbar? 68.173.113.106 (talk) 23:10, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

It appears to be #A7D7F9. --Andrew (User:90) (talk) 04:51, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

What makes wikipedia too much heavy to my browser...

...when compared to her sister projects? Well, occasionally, I cannot access WP due to "connection timed out". But I can access other sister projects and log in. Also when logged in (from other projects), the logging you to other Wikimedia projects shows a broken image for WP, but loads logos for all others indicating I am not logged into WP. Even when I get enough speed to access WP, it takes very much time to load a page completely (occasionally, twinkle and popups does not get loaded). All other projects give a faster loading of pages, very quick indeed. Why is this so. Can I take any steps to reduce this occasional timing out of WP. (Well my browser is Google Chrome, but I had the same experience when using Seamonkey) ···Vanischenu^「m/_Talk」 01:53, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

We use a lot of citation templates on the English Wikipedia (sometimes hundreds in one article), which slows down load time considerably. I've just given up trying to edit an article where preview and diffs were taking 30 seconds plus to load. Whether that's causing your problems I don't know, but when you next experience them, take a look to see whether the page is template-heavy (go into edit mode and search for the double squiggles that signify a template -- {{ -- ). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:49, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Can it be a cache problem? I sometimes also get problems with Wikipedia being incredibly slow to load, and mostly (when it is not server updates or anything else server-end related) bypassing the cache seems to be able to fix it. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:52, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Some syntax not displaying on Safari and Chrome for the Mac

Dear colleagues, this may be a well-known issue, but perhaps someone could confirm it: the small and font-size-percentage syntaxes make no difference to the display on these two browsers; they work in Firefox for the Mac. Tony (talk) 07:19, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

There is not enough context to answer this question properly. Please provide a proper example. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:48, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I guess it refers to this at Help:Wiki markup#Format:

Description	What you type	What it looks like
Small text.	Use <small>small text</small> if needed. A span tag can set text font-size as being <span style="font-size:87%">87% of prior size</span>, to match an image caption.	Use small text if needed. A span tag can set text font-size as being 87% of prior size, to match an image caption.

Do you see normal size for both "Small text" and "87% of prior size"? They are both smaller for me in Safari and Chrome on Windows. I don't have a Mac for testing. Which browser versions is it? PrimeHunter (talk) 11:35, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry Prime and DJ, I should have been more explicit. Yes, exactly those syntaxes you've illustrated. It's Mac OS 10.7.4 (latest), Safari 6.0, and Chrome 21.0.1180.79 (both latest, I presume), For example, the Signpost's News and notes just out, which I worked on, has 90% size for both indented block quotes. I previewed 60% just in case my eyes were not seeing it. Still no change from the normal text size on my default Safari. Tried on FF (works) and Chrome (doesn't reduce at all, like Safari). I've noticed this problem with the "small" syntax too, first about four to six months ago, at a guess. Now it's becoming an issue for me, and I'm wondering how many of our readers are not seeing these syntaxes in action. Thanks. Tony (talk) 11:48, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Do you by any chance have the "No small fonts" gadget enabled? If not, check the "Minimum font size" setting in Chrome/Safari, which may also interfere. — Edokter (talk) — 20:22, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much, Edoketerl. It's fixed! Tony (talk) 21:00, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Template "Skip to bottom" changes

FYI, I twicked the way Template:Skip to bottom works so that it can be placed at any place on the page. For a working example of the new options this opens see my talk page, where I used the template to place a "back to TOC" link at the end of each section. →Yaniv256 ^wind _roads 08:06, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Display size change

All of a sudden, my Wikpedia windows are displaying in a tiny size of font. My browser (Firefox 14 in a basic display mode - no fancy skins) is still set to 16pt, and other websites that I go on are as before both in display and editing. When I change my browser size to 18, things go bigger, but look odd. Changing to 14 makes no difference from the 16. Nothing has been changed on my machine - no installation or removal, no updating, no nothing. Just happened. OS is XP Pro in Classic view, and I use Monobook. The 'Delete' reason box that I had trouble with a while back is normal size. As I say, other sites are unaffected. Only Wikipedia has shrunk. Any ideas? Is there a way of changing one's display size here? I can't see it in Preferences. Just tried IE 8 - looks OK there. Odd. Peridon (talk) 19:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Try Ctrl+0 - does that fix it? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:07, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Try a reboot. Messed up fonts are a common symptom of a computer in need of a reboot. StuRat (talk) 20:12, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah. Ctrl-0 did the trick. Thanks. Any chance of an explain? Peridon (talk) 20:24, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Might be related to this. NtheP (talk) 20:44, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You somehow zoomed in (by accidentally hitting Ctrl++ or some other way). BTW, StuRat's suggestion is more reliable, and I strongly recommend using it next time. At least that would allow to fix problem quicker and with less people involved. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 20:47, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

A common way of accidentally zooming is to have the Ctrl key down whilst you roll the mouse wheel. Less accidentally, Ctrl++ zooms in, and Ctrl+- zooms out. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:40, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

(ec)I'd have had to hit Ctrl dash... (Very unlikely - I'd have had to mis-hit two keys at once, and I'm a keyboard watcher - started off on typewriters where you don't get much of a second chance. I've looked at NtheP's link, and think I'll just remember Ctrl-0 rather than get into all that, but thanks, I now know what they were up to. But not why. Thanks, everyone. Peridon (talk) 21:52, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Ctrl and mouse wheel is probably a more common way to accidentally change size. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:14, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Some laptop touchpads now also change the text size if you make a 'pinch' gesture, probably quite easy to do accidentally if you don't know about it. the wub "?!" 15:08, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Template:TOC limit functionality

I received and interesting question via e-mail today about the functionality of {{TOC limit}} at Military history of Canada . Currently when this template is used it hides the sub headers with the option only for [hide] not show all - I was asked if there is a template that will allow our readers to expand the TOC box to show the hidden sub headers at will. I personally never though of this until it was mention - but it would be a good idea to have more functionality of this template to allow our readers to see all the sub-headers if they like. Something like [show all]/[hide] options?Moxy (talk) 20:37, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Such a button would have to be implemented by Javascript and CSS (e.g. as a gadget). Having all of the levels visible at all times on all pages requires a simple change to a person's CSS file. --Izno (talk) 23:28, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

VisualEditor/Parsoid fortnightly update - 2012-08-20 (MW 1.20wmf10)

Hey all,

I've been conscious for a while that the VisualEditor project is a major change that is coming down the tracks, and that I need to do more to make sure you all know what is happening (and make sure you have as much opportunity to tell us when we're wrong, as well as help guide the priorities for development and improvement).

Right now (and for the past few months), both the core of MediaWiki and all the extensions on Wikimedia's cluster are updated on the live site every fortnight in a new branch. Though VisualEditor is currently only deployed to mediawiki.org, in time (when it's ready) we'll be making it available here, and on all other Wikimedia wikis. I've started to write up the technical "changelog" as a status update, giving some (hopefully) more useful, human-readable "release notes". (;-))

I thought it might be useful to copy them here — below, both for the VisualEditor tool and the new Parsoid service that is separate but vital for it to work — but I'm worried that they might be a bit spammy, so I'd love feedback not just on the content below (for which the best venue is the central feedback page) but also as to whether you would value me doing this every fortnight (or perhaps less regularly?), or if there are better, or additional fora that might be suited to getting this information for users on the English Wikipedia.

VisualEditor

The VisualEditor was updated as part of the wider on Monday 20 August MediaWiki 1.20wmf10 branch deployment.

The most visible new item in the two weeks since 1.20wmf9 is the much-improved link inspector. This now guides users to create a link to a suggested existing article, a redlink or an external link, and replaces the previous basic functionality that did not suggest links or inform you if the target of your link existed. We have also improved the save dialogue, streamlining the interaction based on feedback from the design team.

There have also been a number of bug fixes, such as preserving spaces before and after the content in headings and other forms (so that "== Foo ==" doesn't have spacing either side of it in the editor display, but doesn't strip them either — 37935), using browsers' native deletion mechanisms which helps with support for short-cuts and internationalisation (38461), and handling of "alien nodes" (pieces of content that the editor does not know how to edit yet) so that they do not break the rest of the editor when included. However, most of the changes have been improvements to the code architecture to allow it to be re-used and extended to support new 'node types' like categories or tables when we work on these later.

A complete list of individual code commits is available in the 1.20/wmf10 changelog, and all Bugzilla bugs closed in this period on Bugzilla's list.

Parsoid

The Parsoid team worked on the final tasks in the JS prototype, in preparation for the C++ port. The port will allow an efficient integration with PHP and Lua, improve performance and allow the parallelization of the parser in the longer term in preparation for production use.

An important milestone we reached is the implementation and verification of the template DOM range encapsulation algorithm, which now identifies all template-affected parts of the DOM for round-tripping and protection in the mw:VisualEditor. We are currently implementing template round-tripping based on this. Other new features include oldid support so that previous versions of pages can be edited, rather than just the current one, and more complete error reporting in the web service. Wikitext escaping in the serializer is much improved, and now also handles interactions across multiple DOM nodes. An ongoing task has been improving test coverage to enable us to refactor code with more confidence and also help test the correctness of the C++ port.

Most details of the C++ port were researched. A basic build system including the selected libraries was set up, and design work on the basic data structures has started, ahead of full porting which we expect to start next iteration.

The full list of Parsoid bugs closed in the last two weeks is available in Bugzilla.

Hope this is helpful! As I said, feedback gratefully received.

Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:25, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for this update.

If you could post this to http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/ as well, that would be great. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:01, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Of course - done. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 00:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

This is wonderful, it would be great to see such regular updates (although they can be monthly for me. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:24, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Education Program extension RfC

I've just opened up a request for comment on whether to enable the Education Program extension for managing and monitoring Wikipedia educational assignments. If it does get enabled, there are related technical (user rights) and policy (who should be able to use it, and how will user rights be assigned?) issues that will need to be sorted out. (For that reason, I'm cross-posting it here.)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 12:53, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

article display class wrong with gadget on

hiya all

this article Rangers_F.C._Supporters ive rerated c class from start however i have the gadget on i cant remembewr the name so it shows the article rating but it saying stub class, i have tried refreshing and purging cache still the same, tri4d on firefox to problem started on chrome "Rangers F.C. Supporters A stub-class article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 15:52, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean the gadget described as "Display an assessment of an article's quality in its page header (documentation)"? --Redrose64 (talk) 16:35, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

For me it displays C-class. You should try to clear your cash one more time. Ruslik_Zero 18:56, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

working now not sure why it wasnt parsing the data right--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 20:43, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Left margin stepping on top of article

An editor slapped a template:failed verification on Willian Borges da Silva, and the page display went haywire. What's up? Wbm1058 (talk) 16:48, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Like how? It looks OK to me. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:00, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Never mind. Now it displays fine in my Google Chrome browser, even though no edits have been made to the page, and a few minutes ago it was consistently displaying corrrupted with several page refresh attempts. Seems a transitory problem that cured itself. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:02, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Convert Village Pump to Wikia Community Forum software

Note: Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) by original poster (me) per discussion. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:30, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

White space

How do I create a half width line to create white space? I want to do it to Template:Botanist (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) to improve its appearance in articles.. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:10, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Add padding. --Izno (talk) 22:50, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Sweeeet... Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:07, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Update on Lua/Scribunto

The long-awaited Lua templating system has been deployed to mediawiki.org. Please help test it there. It needs performance and usability testing before it can be rolled-out to en.wiki. Here are some useful links:

• Overview page with status and roadmap
• Lua scripting tutorial
• Leave feedback here

Kaldari (talk) 21:38, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Exciting! All coders and template hackers should check this out, since it opens up vast possibilities for template programming. — This, that, and the other (talk) 11:13, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Just a note. I think given the vast number of templates on wiki we are going to need to devise a way of identifying which ones have been converted or not into the new Lua format. I am also not that familiar with this language so I think we are going to have some growing pains for a while and it might be necessary to setup a Template transition project to help identify problems, devise a strategy for converting the templates, identifying which ones are done/need to be done etc. Kumioko (talk) 16:25, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Lua's not intended to replace every template, only the more gratuitously convoluted and expensive ones. Probably a maintenance template with a category Category:Templates to be converted to Lua, or similar, would be sufficient. Happy‑melon 16:35, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

OK thanks. I can think of quite a few but do you know if there is a server process or something that the developers use to determine which ones are putting the most load on the servers/database. It seems like someone must have something somewhere and that would be a good place to start. Cite templates for example would be on the top of my list. Kumioko (talk) 18:39, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Lua will mostly benefit templates that are currently 'deep'. Everything that is 'flat' will likely still be easier and simpler to do with templates. Things that likely qualify: many math related templates or templates that use math templates, the cite family, some mbox templates and the main infobox template, coordinates (which I actually already tackled for a a large part) etc. A WikiProject around this is indeed a good idea. I'll try to finally post my experience of converting the coordinates template during the Berlin Hackathon, I think it might provide a bit more insight. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:35, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

What libraries are available in the Lua framework that MediaWiki will be using? If certain ones are enabled, it is possible to retrieve the browser session cookies and forward them to another site—not what I'd like to have a vandal do on a highly-used template. Reaper Eternal (talk) 19:43, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Also a good question and points. I think as this starts to develop it will make having a WikiProject, Village pump page or something much more necessary to be able to discuss changes and post information. Having it on Wikia is ok but IMO that should stay more general and cross project where this one would be more specific to En Wikipedia. Kumioko (talk) 19:56, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It's executed purely server-side and still goes through the parser -- you shouldn't be able to emit anything that you can't already in a page. Usable libraries and functions are also very restrictive. See mw:Extension:Scribunto#Lua environment and mw:Extension:Scribunto/API_specification for further details. Amalthea 20:06, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Revision history in mobile browsers

I was told about this problem by a friend, so forgive me if it isn't spelled out in the most complete terms. Basically, what I was told is that the previous revisions of various articles (Mystique (comics) was mentioned) are, on the Safari browser for iPad, displaying content that is actually the same as the most recent revision of the article in most cases. In other words, people looking for previous revisions of an article are actually loading pages that contain the present content of the article, aside from the "This is an old revision" note at the top of the article.

I can't think of any reason this should be, or how such a malfunction would actually take place on a technical level, but I have seen the problem in action with my own eyes. Really weird, so I thought I should tell everybody. Thanks. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 10:56, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Scroll galery

Hello,

per {{Scroll gallery}}: "This template is currently not functioning, as the required JavaScript code to use it is not integrated into the English Wikipedia. " - please could you do it? It is a very useful template. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 15:38, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

As it says on the template page it doesn't work with Internet Explorer and while that is still the case the necessary JavaScript is unlikely to be introduced. If Microsoft fix IE might be different. NtheP (talk) 15:54, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

That and you'd have to wait for consensus to actually support it. Come back if WP:VPR#Scroll galery actually demonstrates consensus, don't forum shop. Anomie⚔ 17:39, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

That wasn't forum shopping. Per the target of the link you provided, the user was directed to post here. --Nouniquenames (talk) 18:43, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

@Anomie what are you talking about? Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 09:31, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Mysterious image problem

As of 19:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC)…
This exists: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/lt/6/69/FK_Sutjeska_Foca.gif
This doesn't: File:FK Sutjeska Foca.gif

See the problems faced here.

How could this be possible? A server problem? We are supposed to be able to call up any file which exists via the search box, without needing the entire URL. What is the problem here? 69.155.139.90 (talk) 19:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC), last modified 19:01, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

It's here: lt:File:FK Sutjeska Foca.gif, i.e. it hasn't been uploaded to en.wp or at commons so it can't be used. Amalthea 19:07, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Can a transfer request be filed? 69.155.139.90 (talk) 00:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It's probably non-free so the easiest would be to just upload it here as well -- see e.g. File:F.C. Porto logo.png for how the fair-use reasoning might go. Amalthea 20:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I am an IP editor and am unable to upload. May I file a request for this? 69.155.139.90 (talk) 21:06, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

WP Editor loses main text when going to a different page, II

Follow up to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 102#WP Editor loses main text when going to a different page.

In the last 36 hours this has started happening for me in (almost?) every page that I edit. No matter how little text there already is in the page or thread, nor how small my additional text, if I hit "Show preview" then the "back" button, my edit is lost. Until 22 August, it remembered it for one or sometimes two levels of "back"; and some months ago, it would remember it for as many as six (or more?) levels. Firefox 14.0.1, windows XP. Example pages: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stations; Tenby railway station; Template talk:Citation; Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) so it's not just discussion pages nor pages with edit notices.

Something is definitely instructing the browser to discard changes. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

No problems with Safari for me. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:27, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm getting the same problem with Firefox 3.6.6 (example page Grantham railway station) - this is a machine which I've deliberately avoided upgrading. When I last used it, two or three weeks ago, it was definitely remembering the changes to edit window content. Now, if I go for "show preview" then "back", they're being discarded. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:36, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Hidden text in diffs

Is it just me or are all changes to hidden text now rendered invisible in diffs? For example, can anyone tell that this edit added 233 bytes of hidden text (I can't, unless I check the revision history). Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:47, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Hidden text, or commented text? Commented text, yes, there's approximately that much commented text added in that diff. What browser, version, and OS? --Izno (talk) 02:28, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Firefox 14.0.1, Windows 7 64-bit. And I thought hidden text and commented text were the same thing. Anyway, that's what this seems to be saying. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:04, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I also use Firefox 14.0.1, but my OS is Windoze XP. I see the following extra text: <!-- Please don't change it to Australian, while is known for including references of the country like the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney and having one to three actors that originated from Australia it is considered an American film--> --Redrose64 (talk) 09:09, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Odd. I'm also seeing signature formatting in diffs. Where before I would just see bare code, I'm actually now seeing signatures with customised colors and formatting wholly formed. There were a few of the recent diff display changes I opted out of, but that was months ago. Could that have something to do with this? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 09:25, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like you have some Javascript installed or something, as I'm also running Fx 14.0.1 on Windows 7 64b and I'm seeing the same as Redrose. Have you enabled a new gadget recently or something? --Izno (talk) 18:51, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Status template

At User:Thekillerpenguin/vector.js, did I get the script to work right? I want to be able to update my status with this template. Tell me if there is any problem, and I'll correct it. Thekillerpenguin (talk) 03:31, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorting tables with sort template

Note: Moved to Help talk:Sorting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Timeshifter (talk • contribs) 22:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Scribunto and citation templates

Further information: MW:Extension:Scribunto and Lua

Thanks to M. Starling, Scribunto is now on the test2 server, per the announcement in The Signpost a few days ago. I've set up a citation templates test page with a lot of templates in it there, that exercises a lot of our various citation, and cross-linkage, templates. The Beatles there is a copy of our The Beatles, and shows more results of real-world citation template use with Scribunto. Currently, the test2 wiki's version takes ~10 seconds, compared to ~17 seconds for the same wikitext on the English Wikipedia. But this is not a like-for-like comparison, as things stand right now. {{Infobox musical artist}} is missing from the test2 wiki, as are things like COinS generation.

I've implemented all of our major citation templates as very simple, usually only about three lines long, invocations of a LUA module that does all of the heavy lifting. The LUA module incorporates a fair fraction of the functionality of the English Wikipedia's {{Citation/core}}. Harvard-style shortened footnotes and cross-links work, as you can see, as do most of the parameters of citation templates. The major missing items are editor name parameters, the quote parameter, and COinS tags. I also haven't tried too hard to get the exact punctuation and item orderings, yet.

Notice that the citation template invokes the module, and that's it. LUA handles picking off the template parameters. There is no need for a system of templates that transclude templates that transclude templates and closing braces coming out of one's ears.

There are a few things that Scribunto doesn't have, yet, that I've tripped over:

• The mw.page table. It's not possible to pick up the current page name directly from LUA yet. One workaround would be for the calling template to pass in PAGENAME.
• The mw.text.ref function. I've had to roll my own, not very good, replacement.

Uncle G (talk) 22:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

• I pasted in an article I wrote as it's got lots of list defined references and page numbers using template:r. Numbering for list defined references doesn't seem to work right - at least it is doing them as 20.1 rather than using letters. Also r isn't implemented yet. I don't know if this is helpful. Secretlondon (talk) 01:15, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
• But starting work on this is great! Secretlondon (talk) 01:17, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
  • The reference links using numbers rather than letters isn't anything to do with Scribunto to my knowledge. That's a separate thing. You didn't have to copy over the top of the existing test page. The test2 wiki isn't exactly short of article space. I've created Dnestr radar, and it works just fine, list defined references and otherwise, now that there's a Template:R and a Template:Infobox radar. See also United States.

    You might care to look at Module:Infobox radar, which is what a simple custom infobox — {{infobox radar}} in this case — looks like using the Scribunto infobox module that I've just created.

    Uncle G (talk) 03:47, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

There is also my port of Template:Coord and it's testcases. They now make use of Module:Coordinates —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:21, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

• I think the most complex templates I use are the infoboxes which have co-ordinates and locationmap. An example is Template:Infobox_military_structure. I've got uses of locationmap many if that's useful: Location map~ on A-35 anti-ballistic missile system and locationmap many on Main Centre for Missile Attack Warning. Secretlondon (talk) 15:52, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
  • We need to build up a list of test articles on the test2 wiki. We have three at the moment. The downside to doing this is that there's a lot of ancillary work needed for a like-for-like comparison, including templates that won't be Scribbled. Uncle G (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
• "Numbering for list defined references doesn't seem to work right - at least it is doing them as 20.1 rather than using letters." That is actually the inbuilt style for Cite backlink labels, as is the ↑ for single backlinks. The test wikis seem to ignore the Cite MediaWiki interface pages. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:15, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
  • It's largely irrelevant as far as Scribbling goes. Uncle G (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
• For the purpose of making United States?action=purge versus United States?action=purge as much of a like-for-like comparison as it can be, we need Scribbled versions of {{convert}} and {{United States topics}}, particularly the former. I'm not about to take on the job of Scribbling every major template in the project at once. The citations templates are a large enough job for one person, and I'm already Scribbling them and infoboxes. ☺ So if you feel like tackling Module:Convert, have at it. I'm just about to Scribble Template:See also, which is used several times in United States, via Module:Headnotes and then enable more ID fields in the Scribbled citation templates. Uncle G (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

That citation template looks really awesome! I will spend some time profiling it. For {{PAGENAME}} you should be able to just use frame:preprocess('{{PAGENAME}}'). There's a cache shared across all #invoke instances which gives it a cost of about 17us per call (after a fix I just pushed out), and you could cache it on the Lua side as well. It would be good if you could add COinS metadata, since it is responsible for a significant amount of the time usage in the current citation template. -- Tim Starling (talk) 01:43, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

• I don't want to have to call frame:preprocess() at all. The temporary workaround that I mentioned before does not. I've implemented it in Template:Allmusic (q.v.). There's an approximation to COinS metadata generated now. I say an approximation because we are lacking the mw.url.encode() function to properly encode it. But it's a big string with all of the data in, at least. Uncle G (talk) 13:38, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Scribunto and headnote templates

Further information: MW:Extension:Scribunto and Lua

See also: Piedmont, Atlantic Ocean, deciduous, Appalachian Mountains, Great Lakes, Midwest, Mississippi River, River Missouri, List of rivers by length, prairie, Great Plains, U.S. Interior Highlands, Rocky Mountains, Colorado, Great Basin, Chihuahua Desert, Mojave Desert, Sierra Nevada, Cascade Range, West Coast of the United States, Mount McKinley, volcano, Alexander Archipelago, Aleutian Islands, supervolcano, Yellowstone National Park, 100th meridian west, humid continental climate, humid subtropical climate, Florida, alpine climate, Mediterranean climate, coastal, California, oceanic climate, Oregon, Washington, Gulf of Mexico, Tropical cyclone, tornado, Tornado Alley, megadiverse countries, vascular plants, flowering plant, Endangered Species Act, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, List of areas in the United States National Park System, wilderness, protected area, Geography of the United States, Climate of the United States, Environment of the United States, contiguous United States, Pacific Ocean, List of countries by area, China, India, and Bald Eagle

Here's some extra Scribunto goodness to anticipate: If you look at the headnote templates test page on the test2 wiki, you'll see that the Scribbled versions of {{main}}, {{further}}, {{see also}}, and so on have no trouble with more than 15 items in the list. Uncle G (talk) 10:49, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

• This is cool, but if there is an actual use case where a {{see also}} legitimately needs to list more than 15 links, well, Heaven help us!  :-) More seriously, if such a case exists, a "see also" section would probably be more useful than a headnote. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:08, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
  • More generally, there are a number of templates that will benefit from Scribbling because they contain limits seemingly derived from when the template writer became tired of copying and pasting the same lump of {{#if:}} parser function code and incrementing the numbers. TheDJ has just drawn my attention to the abomination that is {{loop15}}. Its only use on the project is to emit spaces. Believe it or not, it's used in United States, via {{spaces|2}}, to emit   , which takes no more characters just to type in directly. Uncle G (talk) 14:42, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    • What is truly scary, is the amount that that thing is actually in use right now... many thousands of transclusions. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:56, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
      • In the Afghanistan article, {{nbsp}} is used to emit  . People have become template-happy. This is why we need something like Scribunto, of course. Uncle G (talk) 17:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

• What puzzles me is that all these templates require at least as much typing as writing the citations manually, with lots of extra characters generated by the template itself, so I've never understood the attraction. Writing {{nbsp}} etc doesn't seem any worse than the others. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:37, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit conflict results in "Connection closed unexpectedly"

I reliably get "Connection closed unexpectedly" error if I manually merge my contribution after edit conflict. Is this a problem with my browser (Web) or a Mediawiki bug? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 00:35, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

It's just conceivable that it's a Mediawiki bug, but I think the first suspect would be your local software. I suggest you try using a different browser, like Firefox or Midori, to see if this is the case. If you don't get the problem in those browsers, then the problem is likely to be with your browser. If you can reproduce the problem with other browsers, let us know, and we can take a closer look. -- The Anome (talk) 12:04, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't experience the problem on this particular configuration with another ISP, so this issue is almost certainly unrelated to Mediawiki. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 13:11, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

In all likelihood, it's some sort of configuration setting of the router in your home. It detects something that it thinks is 'bad' or might be an indication of an 'attack' on your network and terminates the connection. Issues like these are actually quite common with the gazillions of ADSL and cable routers in the world. Many of them have quite serious bugs and the consumer is left in the dark with the problems. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:00, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I have this problem only with 3G (which I'm forced to use for a while). ADSL configuration works flawlessly. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 16:04, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Problem with the display of images

There is long standing problem with the display of images. Normally, when an image is displayed, any following text is wrapped round the image with some padding to prevent the text butting up too close to the image. However, when an image is left justified, bulleted items are not padded. There is an example here. Is it possible for this feature to be fixed? --Epipelagic (talk) 03:47, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

This is a problem with HTML/CSS. Bullets are not part of the 'content' of a list, they are just outside of it. Because of this it can overlap with other content. This is not a bug, this is how it's supposed to behave, it just doesn't look pretty. See also bugzilla:11782. We can add "list-style-position:inside;" but that changes the layout of lists significantly. I'm not sure it's desirable. It also doesn't fix the indentation, it just avoids that the bullets overlap the image. So it's not really bug, it's more 'undesired' behavior, but I know of no good way to define the proper behavior. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:58, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the MOS for images needs to include something like: "Do not position a left aligned image next to text formatted as a bulleted or numbered list." Roger (talk) 12:12, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Created a proposal for a "wrapper" class/template that you could put around a specific list to fix such an issue. It's not perfect, you'd want to solve this everywhere automatically, but that seems to be impossible. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:56, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Please see {{Flowlist}}, for dealing with such a problem. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Sidebar and top navigation panels disappearing

Anybody else having this problem? When I load my watchlist, the navigation links at the top and left side do not load. They load on other pages, just not on my watchlist. Can anyone help me out?(I am so totally not technical.) I'm on Firefox 14.0.1 Thanks, Cindy(talk to me) 13:19, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Not sure if they are the cause of this, but the following recently-added lines should not be in your User:Cindamuse/modern.js file as they are not valid JavaScript (the first two are css, and the last line is a wikilink):

table.persondata {display:table !important;}
strong.mw-watched { font-weight: normal !important; }

[[User:Cindamuse/prosesize.js]]

— Richardguk (talk) 20:47, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

• I appreciate the feedback and made the changes you suggested, but it didn't resolve the issue. Would you mind taking another look to see if there's anything else? I'm hoping you have additional suggestions. Thanks, Cindy(talk to me) 04:37, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Try bypassing your browser cache (Ctrl+⇧ Shift+R on Firefox). Goodvac (talk) 05:21, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the help. I went back just to make sure and bypassed the cache again, but it didn't resolve the issue. Open to any other suggestions. Thanks, Cindy(talk to me) 05:43, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Did you completely clear the cache as described at WP:BYPASS#Mozilla Firefox and other related browsers? What is your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? Does http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Watchlist&useskin=standard work? Does http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist worl? PrimeHunter (talk) 10:00, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

• Did you completely clear the cache as described at WP:BYPASS#Mozilla Firefox and other related browsers? Yes
• What is your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? I don't understand this question. Can you clarify? (sorry, not a techie.)
• Does http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Watchlist&useskin=standard work? Yes
• Does http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist worl? Yes Thanks, Cindy(talk to me) 11:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

To find your skin, go to Preferences → Appearance and check the Skin section (Chick through Vector). Which one is selected? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:47, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Blinkity Blink!

I just ran across a username that looks like this:

~~Username~~ Talk Page

This is invoked with <span style="text-decoration: blink">.

Blink? BLINK?? BLINK??? After the pitched battle to Kill The Undead Thing in HTML, here it is, like a zombie, polluting WikiMarkup. Kill it. Kill it with Fire.

In case I was too subtle, I dislike the blink tag. see Blink element, [ http://catb.org/esr/html-hell.html ], [ http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/tut17.html ], [ http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag ], and [ http://boingboing.net/2010/04/08/blink-tag-considered.html ]. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:12, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, absolutely annoying and disruptive. Is is possible to simply approach the user and offer some guidance and constructive rationale for changing it? Cindy(talk to me) 14:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Signatures#Appearance and color. Per guideline, this is inappropriate. --Izno (talk) 14:34, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the guidline link. I will pass it on to the users (who I am choosing not to shame here). He is a reasonable fellow so there should be no problem.

To look at the larger picture, why do we allow blinking at all? There is only one use for it... --Guy Macon (talk) 14:43, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

We allow most if not all CSS. Simply because it is bad practice doesn't mean we shouldn't. It's a freedom that authors should have to use, if even it should only be used in the rarest of occasions. --Izno (talk) 14:47, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, I also came over exactly the same signature and have exactly the same feelings. I hope there is a way to cut off such annoying markup, or at least disable it in preferences. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 15:54, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

For the record: I just found out that "text-decoration: blink;" part isn't recognized by my browser, so I see this:

~~Username~~ Talk Page

And I still find it overly annoying. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 16:22, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

It's Firefox only... Mozilla probably forgot to take it out of the Netscape codebase... or didn't they? — Edokter (talk) — 16:45, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Probably left in for backwards compatability. It can be disabled in your browser by entering "about:config" into your address bar, clicking through the warning, entering "browser.blink_allowed" into the search box, and then double-clicking the line to change from true to false. Anomie⚔ 18:53, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I think that [ http://catb.org/esr/html-hell.html ] should be promoted as signature formatting policy. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 18:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Just did a quick test; blinks in Firefox, doesn't blink in IE, Chrome, Opera and Safari. (Latest versions, of course. I am pretty sure that if you go back far enough, Opera and IE will blink.) As for Wikimarkup allowing most if not all CSS, I can think of some clever forms of vandalism that would be invisible to most patrollers but visible to users using certain browsers:

Test 0: Test <-- Does anybody not see the word "Test" in bold here? (No CSS)
Test 1: Test <-- Does anybody not see the word "Test" in bold here? (visibility:hidden)
Test 2: Test <-- Does anybody not see the word "Test" in bold here? (display:none)
Test 3: Test <-- Does anybody not see the word "Test" in bold here? (font-size:1%)
Test 4: Test <-- Does anybody not see the word "Test" in bold here? (color:white; background-color:white)
Test 5: Test <-- Does anybody not see the word "Test" in bold here? (color:#fefefe; background-color:#ffffff)
Test 6: Test <-- Does anybody not see the word "Test" in bold here? (position:fixed; bottom:16383px; right:16383px)
In my opinion, Wikimarkup should restrict some CSS tricks. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:53, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I see tests 0 and 3, spot tests 4 and 5 (I use modified color scheme) and don't see the rest of them. And I believe that such instances should be patrolled manually anyway — they show up in diffs. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 21:11, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I think anyone who has a blink tag in their signature needs shooting, minimum. I mean some signatures are anti-social but that's the worst I've seen. Secretlondon (talk) 21:25, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

On FF13, I see Test 0, 4 and 5 show up on highlight, 1 is a blank space, 2, 3, and 6 don't even show the space for the word. --Nouniquenames (talk) 05:48, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we should have Wikipedia:Edit filter add a "styling added" tag to make it hard for patrollers to miss such things? I didn't realize we had so many filters until I ran across Special:AbuseFilter. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:56, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, probably we should have edit filter for all or most CSS and HTML, and abuse filter for "blink" or "marque" within HTML or CSS... — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 22:19, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

And for visibility:hidden, display:none, font-size:[>10%], color:white, color:#[e-f][*][e-f][*][e-f][*], position:fixed, etc? See Whac-A-Mole. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 22:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

These can have legitimate uses under some circumstances (collapsing, spans in extra large labels, templates with dark background, etc.), but when one tries to add <blink> or <marquee>, he is definitely trying to secure mass vision loss among Wikipedians. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 23:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

If you set a filter, you'll be surprised about how often we use these. Navboxes, infoboxes, user boxes article history and tons of other templates make actively use of many of these. If you want to patrol them, I don't think anyone will stop you, but I doubt it's anywhere near as problematic as you think. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:09, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes please stop the blinking. and while you're at it, the "background/blurring" technique that's been popping up lately - it makes it hard (for me at least) to read the signatures at all. - jc37 22:59, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

IMO signatures customization should be limited to choice of prefix ("-", "–", "—", "--", etc). — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 23:21, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Yep, I agree. We are all equals here so our signatures should reflect that. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:54, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia:Edit_filter/Requested#Abusable_CSS. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:50, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

A hidden category that's not

Category:Wikipedia pages needing cleanup from November 2009 is marked as hidden yet it shows up on at least two pages. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:45, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Which pages? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 00:53, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

All the ones that I checked - Use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport, Matt Butcher, and some other random page. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:58, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

And now? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 01:07, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Fixed! WOW! -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 01:15, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

This category was created by user:AnomieBOT, who just placed {{Monthly clean up category}} with no parameters there, while this template only makes category hidden if |hidden= contains any value. The rest of "Wikipedia pages needing cleanup from MONTH YEAR" are equally not hidden BTW, so I invited Anomie (bot's operator) to this discussion. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 01:19, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

That analysis is incorrect, otherwise Category:Wikipedia pages needing cleanup from November 2010 would be showing up non-hidden on all the pages in that category. You can also look at Template:Monthly clean-up category and see that the default value for |hidden= is "y". Next time, try a purge or a null edit on the articles affected; it may be a manifestation of Template:Bug or the like. Anomie⚔ 02:24, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Interestingly, purging pages before adding |hidden=y didn't help. Probably all maintenance categories created before 10:00, 30 May 2010 (UTC) should be purged instead. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 09:02, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Why is that? Category:Wikipedia pages needing cleanup from November 2009 wasn't created until 5 July 2012, and it supposedly had a problem. Anomie⚔ 10:49, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh, then it is indeed most likely to be solved with articles' purging. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 16:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Something wrong with Vector skin?

I just noticed that the top gradient image for the Vector skin (page-fade.png, loaded as background image for #mw-page-base) is not displaying properly in any browser; it simply shows a a thin gray band. It is not a problem with ResourceLoader, as the static link (which is valid) has the same problem. I suspect the image may be corrupted, but I can't find any fault in the image itself. — Edokter (talk) — 09:28, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Never mind... (Anyone can tell me how my display got reset to 16-bit color?) — Edokter (talk) — 10:04, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Nobody can unless you at least mention at least your OS. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

XP SP3 with ATI Radeon 4650 (and old drivers). — Edokter (talk) — 11:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

And you wonder, why something breaks? Well, definitely it is a problem of your "OS — driver" combination, and your system logs ("Start => Administrative tools => Computer management" IIRC) could tell you something. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 11:16, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Garbage?

I stumbled into this page which only seems to contain garbarge. It is not accessable as a normal page: Dummkopf schicklgruber.
What is this? Should it be deleted? If so, could someone with the appropriate rights do that. Jan Arkesteijn (talk) 21:17, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

It's just a landing page. Every deleted page has it if you follow the url to the link. See this for example. Following your red link won't get you there because red links bring you to the edit page. Ryan Vesey 21:20, 27 August 2012 (UTC)