Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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Interlanguage links in different font

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T58346

The interlanguage links have changed their font-family. They used to be in the same font-family as the rest of the page (Arial), but now they are something called "Autonym" which is apparently pulled from

@font-face {
  font-family: "Autonym";
  font-style: normal;
  src: local("Autonym"), url("//bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.23wmf1/extensions/UniversalLanguageSelector/lib/jquery.uls/css/font/Autonym.woff?2013-10-24T17:33:20Z") format("woff"), url("font/Autonym.ttf") format("truetype");
}

It appears to be a result of <div id="p-lang" class="portlet" role="navigation">...</div>. The trouble with that font is that it's indistinct (Windows XP, Firefox 24, MonoBook) - it's blurred, with blue and red fringing, particularly on tall thin letters like lowercase i and l - see screenshot at right. Arial, by contrast, is sharp-edged without fringing. This isn't just English Wikipedia; it's others too e.g. French. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:13, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More specifically:

#p-lang ul {
    font-family: 'Autonym',sans-serif;
}

So, I should be able to override it with

#p-lang ul {
    font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif;
}

in my Special:MyPage/skin.css (as indeed I can) - but when and why did the change come in, and where was it announced? --Redrose64 (talk) 21:28, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gag, this looks horrible, especially as letters have "gaps" in them. Hopefully this can be quickly fixed... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:20, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/28/the-autonym-font-for-language-names/. The aim is to have all language names in all scripts visible, even where a user doesn't have the relevant fonts installed on their computer. It's a good idea, but I agree that the font itself could use some work. the wub "?!" 21:23, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

#p-lang ul { font-family: inherit; } should reset the font its original value. I agree the font does not render well at all on Windows. — Edokter (talk) — 22:48, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

...I find it hard to believe that there are very many computers out there that don't have Arial... thanks Redrose64 for the fix script (and btw, it works if you have it all on a single line in the skin.css as well). - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:56, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a script, it's a CSS rule. CSS is very tolerant of whitespace - generally speaking, if a newline is permitted, a space is permitted instead - and most spaces may be removed. In fact, in that particular CSS rule, only one of the spaces is mandatory - the one before ul - so you can put

#p-lang ul{font-family:'Arial',sans-serif;}

and it works equally well. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:03, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"inherit" is better because you don't need to specify any font; it resolves to the parent elements font, which is whatever the rest of the page uses. — Edokter (talk) — 14:54, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I know; but I was replying to The Bushranger, who was replying to me, so I repeated my example changing only the whitespace. I could have used

#p-lang ul{font-family:inherit;}

but this would not have illustrated the whitespace elimination quite so well, because there were other changes not related to whitespace. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:20, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was also replying to The Bushranger :) — Edokter (talk) — 19:26, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I like and use User:Equazcion/SidebarTranslate which solves the original missing-fonts problem (and a few others) entirely.

I liked the idea of using the native-language name, but in practice it made things so much harder for me to find (as a monolingual reader who occasionally wants to check out various other language examples) - I'd often have to mouse-over each of the links, looking for the 2letter prefix that looked familiar or correct. –Quiddity (talk) 20:08, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's spread to Main Page#Wikipedia languages. Not that I look down there very often: I wouldn't have noticed for weeks, except I got this edit on my watchlist. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:58, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Using some zooming, I just realized Autonym is based on FreeSans, possibly the worst rendering open source font out there. I realize FreeSans has extensive unicode support, but if possible, Autonym should source its glyphs from Nimbus Sans L (which is what FreeSans is based on). — Edokter (talk) — 10:41, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is ironic that a change specifically intended to make this list more readable has gone and made it less legible. I'm surprised that there isn't more of a fuss about this. Presumably the more vocal techies have larger screen resolutions and are unaffected. SFB 11:57, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I missed this thread and posted down below. It's a ghastly choice of font. I'm working on a 17" CRT monitor, and I'd hate to think what it looks like on anything smaller. It may look better on LCD, but I doubt it. Peridon (talk) 17:43, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It looks awful everywhere. I've got a nice big flat widescreen and it still hurts to look. Luckily I have SidebarTranslate, so I don't ever need to see it (shameless plug). equazcion → 18:01, 11 Nov 2013 (UTC)

Bugzilla bug report here. Do we have reason to believe the developers are addressing this problem? Eric ^talk 23:04, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bug already posted on top of section. See also bug report on Autonym page. — Edokter (talk) — 23:42, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, looked in text first, but didn't see the bugbox up there... Eric ^talk 23:50, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I just wanted to voice my concern as well. The new font is nearly unreadable for me in Firefox 25 on Windows 8 on a 1080p 24 inch LCD monitor. I've resorted to user CSS to change it back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimsey0 (talk • contribs) 22:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

-- YES - WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FONT OF LANGUAGES ? ? ? - the font has changed to something that requires "font smoothing" -- I thought that the previous use of Arial was just fine, now the list is almost unreadable!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.95.77 (talk) 06:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia error, site very slow, looks like when Internet first developed

I just got a Wikimedia error when I tried to go to any page on the site. I forgot to make a note of the number. Then I got a Gateway Time-Out error. Eventually, I got to the page I wanted. I was getting from one page to another just fine for the most part, then the site was very slow. On both the Technical Village Pump and on the page where I am now, fonts and blue links look like they did when the Internet was new, before anyone tried making pages appear more interesting.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:35, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pages look normal now. All other sites have come up normally.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect it was a temporary server problem that prevented style sheets from loading properly.--ukexpat (talk) 18:44, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So no major problem to report that caused the Wikimedia errors?— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:50, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Every Wikipedia page is built from many more than one computer file: besides the file which shows the layout and text of the actual page, the other files mainly comprise images, style sheets and scripts. When certain servers are slow, the files that are requested from them may fail to be sent back before your browser gives up. If one of those files is a CSS file (a style sheet that describes the normal page styling for Wikipedia), your browser cannot format the page using that styling and so falls back on its defaults. These look like 20th century internet because style sheets were not generally used until HTML 4 was released in late 1997. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:33, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose gives the correct analysis of the reported difficulty; however, I never saw this no-CSS-loaded problem, though I did see other problems like the ones below, where my just-saved-edit gives a faux error. Are you seeing CSS-rendering problems, Ottawahitech, like Vchimpanzee, every time? And Vchimpanzee, were you getting the error-messages below, and were you always saving an edit? 74.192.84.101 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:35, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have been getting sporadic "Wikimedia Foundation Error"s for a few days. I thought it meant my edit had to be repeated -- but so far that is not the case. Here is a message I got a few minutes ago:

Wikimedia Foundation Error

Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon. Please try again in a few minutes... XOttawahitech (talk) 15:49, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've been getting those too, at odd intervals, on pages of various sizes. The first thing to do is to check your contributions - try to do this in another browser tab or window, if your browser provides such features; this saves disturbing the tab where the error occurred. If the edit that you attempted appears at the top of your contribs, all well and good; if it doesn't, return to the tab with the error, back out and try to save again. A second attempt is usually sufficient; if that doesn't work, or if it happens on more than one smallish page, it's a sign that the servers are busy. Go have some coffeee and try later. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:24, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64:I have been getting those with increasing intensity, or at least so it seems. Coupled with the general slowness (?) of the site, it is definitely reducing my ability to contribute. Just wondering if this is effecting others' contributions as well. Are there pertinent statistics anywhere? Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 15:37, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64: I just got the same Wikimedia error, but this time as soon as I clicked the Edit. It looks like the service is deteriorating -- is anyone doing anything ahout it? Just curious. XOttawahitech (talk) 15:16, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have no cure, nor do I know if anybody is working on it. All I can do is observe and point people to existing discussions. If it helps, I got it when clicking [edit] for this section; also when going to Talk:East Coast Joint Stock - before I made this edit. When my Norah Jones CD finishes, I'm off down the shops. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:22, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can definitely confirm that the first couple weeks of November were giving me more generic errors than usual. "Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon." Every time, from what I can tell, it was after I clicked save, and after my edit *had* been saved... so the error was happening when the freshly-modified-page was trying to load itself, with the little your-edit-was-saved message at the top. I have also seen a notable uptick in the revisions to editFilter and abuseFilter things, at least anecdotally. Are myself and Ottawahitech the only ones who saw these problems? Maybe they are browser-version-and-OS-version-specific... or maybe we two are just especially picky about five-nines uptime. :-) I've noticed less problems recently; do not remember seeing any generic-errors in the past several days. But I too would like to know if there is an http://uptime.wikimedia.org website, or somesuch, which gives overall successful-page-load-percentages, and such. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:31, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on Firefox 25.0.1, Windows XP SP3. My two edits to Central line today both threw the error, but both went through on first attempt. I get quite a lot of this, but I've not been moaning about it: partly because it clogs up this page, partly because it adds more server load, but mostly because I know how to handle it. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:56, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Secure site default

Suddenly, half way through an editing session, all my links to http://en.wikipedia are automatically connecting me to https://en.wikipedia. I'm using W7 IE10 & Vector.
My preferences are still set not to connect to the secure site. I trust this isn't the same "accidental" side effect we had about 10 weeks ago, which took about 4 weeks to fix, after someone loaded some half-tested software.
(Could you please avoid the usual caustic comments about why would anyone still use IE, or use an unsecure site, it has all been explained before.) Thanks - Arjayay (talk) 10:17, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

28 hours later, and everything is still connecting to the secure site, despite the URL in the link being to the standard site.
When is this likely to be addressed? - Arjayay (talk) 14:28, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some Firefox users needed to delete certain cookies, as described at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 116#Help Needed: Problems due to Secure site change; this may be the case for IE as well. I don't know how to delete individual cookies in IE, but if there is such a function, you could try doing that. There may be cookies at more than one domain, not just for obvious ones like en.wikipedia.org and commons.wikimedia.org, but also for domains such as login.wikimedia.org Be warned, that if IE only permits deletion on a per-domain basis, deletion of all cookies for any one of these domains may cause you to become logged out, so be prepared to log in again. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:50, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But why would IE's cookies change half way through an editing session? The last time this happened, on 27 September (please see archive here), it was due to some problem introduced by software changes, (Bugzilla Bug 54626) which had to wait 2 weeks to be corrected. I don't pretend to understand Bugzilla reports, but is this not a repeat of the same problem? Arjayay (talk) 17:33, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Everything is still secure site only. Could someone please explain the purpose of the "Always use a secure connection" option box in "Preferences" as it doesn't do anything? - Arjayay (talk) 10:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here is what I believe is happening. The setting is ignored if you are currently at a Wikimedia page whose URL begins https: or you visit a link beginning https://en.wikipedia.org/ (whether from inside or outside the site). However, if you are

currently at a Wikimedia page whose URL begins http: and you visit a protocol-relative link beginning //en.wikipedia.org/
currently at a Wikimedia page whose URL begins http: and you visit a link beginning http://en.wikipedia.org/
currently outside Wikimedia and you visit a link beginning http://en.wikipedia.org/

the setting of "Always use a secure connection while logged in" is tested just before the page being visited is sent back to you. If it is disabled, you are sent a page whose protocol matches the link that you clicked; if it is enabled, you're sent the https: page. Please note:

if you change "Always use a secure connection while logged in" you must log out before it takes effect
if you disable it, it is necessary to clear all Wikimedia cookies
you need to set it the same in all Wikimedia sites that you might visit.

To amplify the last point: let's say that at English Wikipedia, your "Always use a secure connection while logged in" setting is disabled; but at Commons it is enabled. You start at a http: page on English Wikipedia, and then find a link to a page on Commons. This will initially begin http://commons.wikimedia.org/ but once you click it, you're sent a page beginning https: - you may be sent cookies which tell your browser to use https: If while at that commons page, you click a link back to English Wikipedia, you will be sent a https: page. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:10, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And then suddenly, at 09.17 UTC it solves itself, without me changing anything whatsoever, so it seems it was a WP problem, as it was on 27 September (see link above).

I have hundreds of "favorites" (mostly searches for misspellings) all prefixed http, which I click down, find a mistake, correct it and use the auto-complete to fill the edit summaries. However, suddenly WP started adding the s, although the favorites are all stored as http - as can be easily seen by hovering over them before selecting them. Autocomplete does not work in https (IE 10) so I have had to type them out, using copypaste if there are several.
I started such a session this morning, and they were all changing to https, until suddenly, the autocomplete worked again - and looking up it was the "correct" http address, without an additional s having been automatically added. - Arjayay (talk) 09:39, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Arjayay, this is a side-question, since the answer (whether yes or no) does not really solve your problem... but are you sure that IE10 auto-complete does *not* work when the protocol is HTTPS, whereas auto-complete *does* work only for HTTP connections? In other words, while I understand that if you connect to httpFooDotCom, that auto-completed entries there will not magically also work on httpsFooDotCom, once you have typed in some stuff on httpsFooDotCom are you saying that IE10 discards that stuff, and refuses to offer auto-complete at all, for any HTTPS website? Or are you just saying, all your work creating faves uses HTTP, and all your work creating auto-complete-stuff also uses HTTP, and that the switch to HTTPS therefore loses that work. Thanks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:42, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Technical problem

I have encountered problems in some recent edits on a couple of pages. Tried to make routine additions to Wayfarer (dinghy) of the following text: "An optional [[Asymetrical spinnaker]] and [[spinnaker chute]] is available; also available is a "sail patch" which provides flotation for the mast in the vent of a capsize (and particularly to prevent mast inversion {{ndash}}turtling." I did not intentionally touch anything in the footnotes. When I save it all of the footnotes were eliminated, which certainly was not my intention. I can't figure this out. Not sure if it is unique to me, a browser problem (I use Firefox, or if there is an issue on Wikipedia. I will also report this to the Village Pump technical people. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:40, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I just encountered similar loss of data when I edited User talk:Mdann52. I added 300 bytes, and did not subtract 24K like the edit summary said. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your edits seem to be removing all HTML tags. I've had this happen to me before on rare occasions, but never quite figured out what did it. Out on a limb, I'm assuming one of our many malfunctioning scripts must be to blame. I see you have a DYK script in your monobook.js, which you may want to try removing just to rule that out. There could be a gadget that's malfunctioning too, so you may want to try disabling those. equazcion → 15:43, 15 Nov 2013 (UTC)

The edits remove all tags (anything in <...>) and some words. [1] removed the words travel, Airport, makeup, silver, Pitt, Boxing, Gold. What is your skin and browser? Do you have any browser extensions? Please stop editing articles until this is resolved. Your edits have to be reverted. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:07, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This edit also changed {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2011}} (which is valid) to {{Use dmy |date=November 2011}} (which is not). Are you using Visual Editor? If not, do you have "^(U) wikEd: alternative full-featured integrated text editor for Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome (documentation)" enabled at Preferences → Gadgets? --Redrose64 (talk) 17:34, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't use a text editor. I do this all by hand. I uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it, but the problem persists. I feel very badly about any damage I have caused to our project, although I can assure you it was entirely not anything I knowingly did. So far as I know, I don't have any Wikipedia gadgets.

So I guess I'm out of the editing business. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don't feel bad. Your contributions show it has only happened for a few days and I have cleaned up the remaining cases. Which Firefox version? Any Firefox addons? See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-or-remove-add-ons for how to check it. If you click "Show changes" before saving then accidental removals may be displayed but it's not guaranteed. If you check the page history each time and selfrevert in case of problems then you can continue editing articles and hope the problem goes away. It's harder to revert when others have edited the article since. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:36, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I turned off every "gadget" (there was only one) and now seem to be editing without (as yet) discernible problems. That may have been the problem. Sadly, my new Firefox version is letting through all kinds of pop-ups, but that is another story. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 20:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Which gadget was it? equazcion → 21:09, 15 Nov 2013 (UTC)

I don't remember. Sorry. It would be whatever the default selection would be, I think. It went away, briefly. Then it returned.

My computer was infected with some very persistent malware which was highjacking firefox. Now that I got that removed, it seems to be working better. I used malwarebytes antimalware, which uncovered bugs that my Norton Systemsworks was missing. This seems to have helped. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 18:38, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What is a pool queue?

I got an error while searching.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 22:13, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 119#Pool queue? DES ^(talk) 22:26, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So it's not the long line of people waiting to go swimming or play billiards? :-) GoingBatty (talk) 03:51, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly a typo for pool cue. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:45, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly a developer with a sense of humour. The pool is the total # of resources of available set aside for a task. The queue is - obviously - the line of tasks waiting to access those resources (using FIFO, LIFO, whatever). Apparently, the lineup for resources was either overly-full, or had an error ES &L 12:10, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I guessed correctly.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:34, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Displaying angle brackets

Hi,

We use ⟨angle brackets⟩ on a lot of language pages, enough to include them under 'symbols' in the edit window (between the guillemets and the currency signs). However, it seems that WinXP and maybe Vista does not support them. These are the characters generated with <math>\langle ... \rangle</math> There are two other Unicode entries for angle brackets, one pair in the Miscellaneous Technical block, and one in Chinese punctuation. The problem is that if you enter the Western ones directly, WP changes them to the Chinese ones, which screws up the character spacing. You can get around this by substituting &#...; codes, but if anyone copies and pastes those, they get converted to the Chinese block. To illustrate:

	Code	Code display	Direct display
Misc. Tech.	〈 〉	...〈...〉...	...〈...〉...
Misc. Tech.	⟨ ⟩	...⟨...⟩...	...⟨...⟩...
Chinese	〈〉	...〈...〉...	...〈...〉...
HTML entities	&lang; &rang;	...⟨...⟩...

As you can probably see, only the top left cell has Western spacing.

Is this a bug in WP, and can we fix it so that we have angle brackets to use in our articles that hopefully are supported by XP & Vista? — kwami (talk) 16:05, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesrting. It seems to be somewhat intentional (even the spaces are added). You can also use the &lang; and &rang; entities: ... ⟨...⟩ ... They are not converted. — Edokter (talk) — 16:34, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!

I don't think those are spaces. It's just the character width is the same as Chinese characters. — kwami (talk) 16:42, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In HTML5 &lang; and &rang; are supposed to correspond to U+27E8 and U+27E9 (mathematical angle brackets), which are distinct from U+2329/U+232A/U+3008/U+3009. If/when browsers will implement this, though, I don't know. Anomie ⚔ 17:25, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict × 2) This is the behavior defined as part of Unicode normalization. You can look up these characters in the charts here (for the open angle bracket, search for "2329") and here (for the close angle bracket, search for "232A"). Anomie ⚔ 16:50, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I also note that the latest Unicode standard specifically says U+2329 and U+232A are deprecated (see http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2300.pdf), and that the math tag version you mention above (

\langle ...\rangle

) should actually be using U+27E8 and U+27E9 (⟨ ... ⟩) (and with the MathJax math render, this does in fact seem to be the case). Anomie ⚔ 17:03, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. So as long as we don't allow them to be decomposed, or have just the right fonts installed, we're fine, otherwise they become CJK. — kwami (talk) 17:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what exactly you're saying there, but it sounds wrong. You can try to use 〈 and 〉 all over the place, but if people change them to the literal characters 〈 and 〉 I'd recommend not edit warring over it. Anomie ⚔ 17:25, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It messes up the formatting when that happens, so I'd prefer a way of displaying the brackets that doesn't produce that result. Looks like we're out of luck. — kwami (talk) 17:34, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The entities work just fine. I'll suspect they'll soon be remapped to U+27E8 and U+27E9 in the near future. — Edokter (talk) — 19:11, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We've started a template {{angle bracket}} to keep all the articles in line. Some computers do not support the math-A symbols, but do support the math code (last and first items listed on the talk page). It seems this might be a problem w WinXP, but not everyone w XP seems to have a problem. Does anyone here know what the issue is? It would be best not to use the math code, cuz that slows down page loading. — kwami (talk) 13:53, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the browser; some substitute the old brackets, some don't. But the character entities are never substituted. — Edokter (talk) — 14:01, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks. We've got a user insisting that it's the OS, not the browser, and that we reformat our articles so that he can read them. — kwami (talk) 15:43, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not knowing/showing the character is one thing. But with me, the pair ⟨ ⟩ shows ⟨ ... ⟩ in a grey (or transparent?) color, inline. It is the only two characters that I see doing this. (In other fonts, they even are invisible; test). I use FF 25 atop WinXP SP2,3. No fonts installed manually AFAIK. -DePiep (talk) 16:23, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Again, depends on browser/OS combination. For me (XP/Chrome), those on the Help:IPA page use MATHEMATICAL LEFT ANGLE BRACKET and MATHEMATICAL RIGHT ANGLE BRACKET, which show quite clear for me, but the &lang; and &rang; display as LEFT-POINTING ANGLE BRACKET and RIGHT-POINTING ANGLE BRACKET, which are quite faded, probably as a result of font-smooting without proper hinting for those characters. — Edokter (talk) — 17:09, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pages inaccessible using IE8

I reported a problem a few weeks ago regrading trying to access River Usk using IE8 as a browser but didn't get a solution to the problem back then. I now find that I can't access Bristol Channel either using IE8. I can get them both using Chrome and no other pages that I've tried to access give this problem - just these two. have done the usual clearing of caches, and have also tried to access them on different machines - same negative result - I get thrown off the site and then end up with a message page saying that 'we were unable to return you to Wikipedia'. Any ideas? Any solutions, other than the obvious one of 'change your browser'? Given that all other WP pages work fine in IE8, I feel these two should also. cheers Geopersona (talk) 22:12, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm using Windows XP (home version) if that's relevant though the other machine which had the same problem was using Windows 7 using IE8 too. Geopersona (talk) 22:23, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I use XP Pro. Usk works fine in Firefox 20, but IE8 crashed trying to load it. I'll try loading something else now. Peridon (talk) 11:42, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rover Scarab loaded fine in IE8, but Bristol Channel crashed it, but it loads fine in Firefox. When trying to load the Usk in IE8, I noticed it connecting briefly to 91.?.?.? (too quick to see any more). Is this normal? I've not noticed it on anything else connected with Wikipedia. I tried to load from a URL not a search engine link. Peridon (talk) 12:02, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've got to say it - get Firefox... But there is still a problem that needs sorting. Peridon (talk) 12:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some JavaScript is crashing IE8 (loads fine with JS disabled), can't figure out which script; it even crashes when debugging. — Edokter (talk) — 12:26, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Haha, it really does. Lol. I'll try to pinpoint the perpetrator. Matma Rex talk 12:30, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've got it. I investigated with a web debugger (Fiddler2), blocking loading of scripts and loading them one-by-one: IE 8 crashes on Bristol Channel as soon as MediaWiki:Common.js/IEFixes.js is loaded. I'll leave it to you to find out why :) Matma Rex talk 12:44, 17 November 2013 (UTC) (Also, for whoever else digs into this – you can't reliably use the debug mode (?debug=1) because of another IE8 issue, tracked as Template:Bug. That is only relevant in debug mode, though, and most likely does not cause this particular issue here. Matma Rex talk 12:46, 17 November 2013 (UTC))[reply]

Well, it's not hlist, so it must be some other ancient snippet of code that triggers an unrecoverable error, probably fixIEScroll . How to find out? — Edokter (talk) — 13:03, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Transcluding {{River Severn}} causes the crash (on any page). Investigating... — Edokter (talk) — 13:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

#Unable to do anything through IE8 -- Stuff having to do with scroll seems likely. equazcion → 13:09, 17 Nov 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it may be hlist after all, the latest warp fix has unintended side effects with ordered lists. — Edokter (talk) — 13:23, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. I decided to remove the core reason from hlist (non-wrapping list items), and all its associated IE fixes that caused more trouble than I am willing to accept at this time. A horizontal list item wraps over two lines? Tough! — Edokter (talk) — 13:45, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to all involved. I don't use IE myself, but I know that a lot of people do. (Firefox for me, with Chrome on one phone and something called Browser on the other.) Peridon (talk) 15:42, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Guys! Not being at all techie, I don't pretend to understand what caused the problem was, nor how you fixed it but am grateful that you have. cheers Geopersona (talk) 16:06, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk user script

I have been pointed here by bugzilla #57047. {{HelpDeskTBLinks}} Would be a welcome tool for clerks and the pages they patrol. My first note is here. Note: I have email the script author, no response. Mlpearc (powwow) 22:16, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Writ Keeper has a general purpose script that adds a talkback link (|TB|) after all links to user talk pages which can be installed by adding {{subst:js|User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/talkbackLink.js}} to your Special:MyPage/common.js. Alternatively, it would be trivial to fork the code of HelpDeskTBLinks and create a version that runs only on the CHU page. Would that be beneficial? Theopolisme (talk) 23:25, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanx for the response, I was going to see if I (a self-taught dev.) could adapt HelpDeskTBLinks for use at WP:CHU/S, but I put that off until I could see what level of response I got here. I will load {{subst:js|User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/talkbackLink.js}} and check it out, I'm thinking a gadget would be best, I've helped at other pages where this function would also be helpful ie. WP:PERM, WP:FFU and I'm sure there's others. Mlpearc (powwow) 00:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Writ Keeper's script seems to have the same functionality and looks to do fine. Thanx for the help it is much appreciated. Mlpearc (powwow) 01:53, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I'll try and tweak the HelpDesk version, having the script active throughout all namespaces and pages is not as desirable. Mlpearc (open channel) 04:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Making a script activate only in certain namespaces/pages is pretty easy. I could tweak the generic talkbackLink script to do that, but I'd just need to know which namespaces/pages you need it to activate on. equazcion → 04:30, 17 Nov 2013 (UTC)

WP:CHU I believe. Mlpearc, if you'd like the learning experience, you can just make a copy of the HelpDeskTBLinks script in your userspace and then modify the first line, changing the page titles as necessary. Let us know if you need additional help! Theopolisme (talk) 04:35, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanx :), you just verified my idea of going through and changing the page titles. I'll give you a poke if I have trouble, Cheers Mlpearc (open channel) 04:56, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aaaaah, I love it when other people do my work for me. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:29, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don't be too glad yet, I'll prolly screw it all up :P Mlpearc (open channel) 17:25, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be working :). {{subst:js|User:Mlpearc/ClerkingTBLinks.js}} if anyone want to check it out. Thank you Theopolisme, Equazcion & Writ Keeper for your input. Mlpearc (open channel) 18:20, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No pageview stats since 15 nov

You guys should be aware of the issue at User_talk:Henrik#No_stats_since_15_nov. There have not been pageview stats for a couple of days now. User:Henrik has been contacted by email and on his talk page.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:24, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2013-46

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

There was a problem caused by too many requests to the database on November 14. [2]

Future

MediaWiki 1.23wmf4 was added to test wikis on November 14. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on November 19 and all Wikipedia wikis on November 21 (calendar).
The new Search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added to *.wikimedia.org, Wikimania and Wikisource wikis on November 19, and Wiktionary wikis on November 21 (except where it's already available). Once it is added, you can test it by adding &srbackend=CirrusSearch to the address of the search results page. It will become the main search engine on Wikivoyage wikis on November 21. [3]
The MassMessage tool will be added to all wikis on November 19 instead of November 14. It will make it simpler to send messages across wikis. [4]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Problem logging in

I received an email telling me that my account had been compromised etc. but I didn't pay any attention to it as I was under a three month ban then, now as my ban is well over and as i tried to log in I couldn't, I saw a screen with a hidden password already there, am asked to type new passwords but then I got an error message to the effect that I didn't have the permission to edit the page etc. I tried forgot password too, i received a password in my email but couldn't log in, tried forgot password one more time without success. I think I deleted the email I received. I could of-course create a new account but I am a little attached with my username. Please help. 103.29.99.176 (talk) 17:10, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The email might have been the one refering to bugzilla:54847? Would love to know what exactly is the error message, and which page it refers to. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 15:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Change password: you must be logged in to access this page directly", since I've tried logging in using 3 times using "forgot password" which sent a password to my email ID, however, on entering the new password, another page is evoked on which I'm asked to reset my password, and then get the same message:

"Change password: you must be logged in to access this page directly".

If could send screen shots if I am given an address where they are to be sent. 117.195.66.201 (talk) 01:31, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've emailed screen shots to your email address, the one on your user page aklapper(at)wikipedia.org, and thanks for looking into this. 117.195.66.201 (talk) 01:38, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Anyone there! 117.195.86.146 (talk) 13:21, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My user account was one of those affected by October 2013 private data security issue, I have been able to locate the email in my inbox. 117.195.86.146 (talk) 13:55, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

504: Gateway Time out

Hi,

For a while, I'm getting a 504 error when trying to access to my bot's ~~talk~~contributions page on the Malagasy Wiktionary, is that related to a limit in viewing user's conntributions for users/bots with a high edit count (over 10 million)? If so, should I report that to Bugzilla or is that a hard limit? --Jagwar - (( talk )) 20:33, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've seen a Bugzilla ticket before, but cannot find it, and bugzilla:45619 does not seem to be "related enough". --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 15:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Call for comments on draft trademark policy

Hi all,

The Wikimedia legal team invites you to participate in the development of the new Wikimedia trademark policy.

The current trademark policy was introduced in 2009 to protect the Wikimedia marks. We are now updating this policy to better balance permissive use of the marks with the legal requirements for preserving them for the community. The new draft trademark policy is ready for your review here, and we encourage you to discuss it here.

We would appreciate if someone would translate this message into your language so more members of your community can contribute to the conversation.

Thanks,
Yana & Geoff 23:16, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I will take your invitation quite literally, and hereby provide a translation of your request, into a language more suited for the specific purpose of ~~inciting~~ requesting members of my particular community to "contribute to the conversation". Hope this helps. :-)

Freedom is on the line! To arms, to arms! The lawyers at WMF are trying to pervert the core value of free as in freedom. This has been going on forever, but now it must be stopped. They dare to say, that if you want to make a birthday cake, which says "WikipediA" on it in big letters, that the only thing you can do is eat it, by yourself, alone in your own house, cowering. That is not freedom! Should you be so WP:BOLD as to go to the *store* and ask for the friendly helpful *bakery* to make you a birthday cake, which says "WikipediA" on it in big letters, and have the insulting gall to PAY them for the value of their work... you just broke trademark law in over two hundred countries, and the mediawiki lawyers will perma-ban your ass! They demand you first grovel before User:Jimbo_Wales, for a 'license' to utilize HIS trademark on YOUR cake. Grovel for our inherent freedom? Beg for our self-evident liberty? Nay!

THIS IS TYRANNY... and we must overturn it. You can help. You must help! For freedom! Visit their so-called talkpage. Read their so-called draft. Compare it side-by-side to the 2009 version.[5] Compare it metaphorically to the GPL, and the basic freedoms we all love. Repeated injuries and usurpations of the WMF shall not pass. Pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. They may take our usernames, but they will never take our freedom! p.s. Comments are closed January 19th; begin WP:CANVASSing immediately! — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 19:29, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Love this. Should save everyone a lot of back and forth. Now we can get right into the actual discussion ! :D —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

74.192.84.101, your translation skills are estimable. :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 21:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

<3 love Jalexander--WMF 21:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gracias, compadres, your appreciation is appreciated. And truth be told, as you can see from the comparison-table linked above (and here[6] for those too slothful to look back above ;-) the WMF lawyers are doing a great job loosening up the restrictions imposed in 2009. But they are, quite literally, preventing anybody from making a birthday-cake, unless *zero* fiat-money changes hands. That makes a lot of sense, truth be told: we don't want Microsoft reviving encarta, or Google reviving gknoll, filled with mediawiki-goodness and GFDL-CCBYSA-goodness ... but only sold in locked-down hardware devices which prevent cut-n-paste from working unless you've paid Ballmer the monthly fee (or in Google's case entered the SSN of all your neighbors).

So this is a balancing act: I *want* people to be able to charge for wikipedia content, just like people can charge for GPL'd software. That includes selling (for a profit) t-shirts that advertise wikipedia, selling (for a profit) copies of wikipedia on dead-tree-pulp / BluRayROM / flashdrive / whatever, and going to the local bakery to buy a cake that celebrates WikipediA's birthday. ALL those things will help wikipedia. None of those things harm wikipedia, or the WMF even. But it is tricky to formulate a trademark-policy which prevents tivoization by hypercorp-multinational-conglomerates, while at the same time permitting fans to produce cakes/shirts/etc as part of their small business. It can be done, though: look at all the GPL-based software startups. Please help me come up with the freedom-to-sell-wikipedia-trademark-policy language, and then we can "convince" the WMF lawyers to do our bidding, RMS-style. :-) — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:50, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you haven't already, please share your thoughts there. Lots of interested people pitching in, and they would probably be happy to help you. :) Whether they are convinced or not, the lawyers want to hear from you. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:02, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it (I'm not a lawyer, I don't play one on television, and I don't want to, either), Microsoft and Google are already free to revive their products and fill them up with mediawiki-goodness and GFDL-CCBYSA-goodness, and even to sell them in locked-down hardware devices that prevent cut and paste from working until you've paid up. The only thing that they currently aren't allowed to do is to take that encyclopedia content and slap the Wikipedia name and logo on them.

The trademark policy is specifically about whether Microsoft and Google are allowed to stick the Wikipedia globe on their (hypothetical) locked-down copies, not about whether they're allowed to make and sell locked-down copies of our articles in the first place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After graduating from theologian-school with EssJay, we parted ways, and after continuing my studies in another direction, I now hold law-degrees from *six* of the top ten law-schools. ;-) But yes, you are dead on the money: the next android phone or msftNokia phone (or iPhone or whatnot) *can* have a copy of wikipedia inside -- ignoring the exception of some enWiki fair use imagefiles -- with effectively-proprietary locked-down tivoization preventing anybody from using the content therein as intended. The only thing that stops them is trademark law. Consumers trust wikipedia, more than the trust those folks. No more; no less. Thus, the trademark policy is incredibly important. We cannot screw it up (that's legal jargon for making a big mistake).

And, if push comes to shove, and the only way to sell cakes and shirts for a profit sans an explicit licensing-contract, leaves even a tiny risk that some hypercorp can get around trademark protection somehow, and misuse the wikipedia name... well then, I'll back away from the freedom-to-sell scheme, for this year anyways. Stakes are very high here. But look at Red Hat Linux; they are trusted, Oracle tries to copy them, but not many people trust *Oracle's* commitment to freedom. You can sell a cake that says "Linux" on it, despite the trademark; Torvalds considers it fair use. Maybe we can do something similar. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 03:43, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just to comment about this, one of the questions about cakes/t-shirts etc was brought up and commented on by Yana (the lawyer heading up their part of the trademark discussion) about how you are obviously fine ordering your cake from a baker or t-shirts from a professional maker (whether for yourself/friends or for a meetup etc). You can see that in the aptly named the cake is not a lie section of the talk page. This doesn't answer your question about trying to find a good way to sell stuff using the trademarks for profit though and you're right that's really tough. I would definitely encourage you to chime in on the conversation though about it so that your thoughts can get down where they see it (and where others can respond). Jalexander--WMF 20:30, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll go out on a limb here, and submit that Yana will be absolutely against putting this language into section 3.7 -- "if you are a baker then you can sell a cake which says WikipediA on it to your customers" -- whereas putting the same language into the FAQ is non-legally-binding, and therefore effectively harmless, because WMF lawyers can always say exactly that in court. The problem is not whether *you* the birthday-girl-or-birthday-boy violate the trademark, by asking the baker to make you a cake, and then paying them money. The baker is the one violating the trademark, by producing and selling the cake. Trademark law puts shackles on producers, not on consumers. I'm suggesting that we partially loosen the restrictions on producers, as long as those produces are acting as Good Eggs. Section 6.2 gives the WMF all the power they need to revoke production-rights on any Bad Eggs, as needed, after all. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 03:43, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for technical mentors and tasks for Google Code-in

Hi, I'm one of the Wikimedia org admins at mw:Google Code-in. We are looking for technical tasks that can be completed by students e.g. rewrite a wikitext template in Lua, update a gadget, document the functionality of a bot... We also need mentors for these tasks. You can start simple with one mentor proposing one task, or you can use this program to organize a taskforce of mentors with the objective of getting dozens of small technical tasks completed. You can check the current Wikimedia tasks here. The program started today, but there is still time to jump in. Give Google Code-in students a chance!--Qgil (talk) 01:22, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Qgil: It's not clear how to add a new task to the page you linked to, so here's a suggestion: the Firefox add-on Cite4Wiki, which is open source, could become the way that a webcite url is converted into a citation/reference in Wikipedia articles. But before that can happen, it needs improvement - it seems incapable of correctly determining author or publishing date, and it doesn't do page titles correctly, either. It could also, potentially, be rewritten to run as a Chrome extension. (Hint: Zotero also creates Wikipedia citations from urls; if it does it more successfully, that could be a source of information on how to improve Cite4Wiki.)

More generally, there are a number of bots that performed valuable services but no longer run because the author is no longer active on Wikipedia. Some of these bots are open source, I believe. I recommend your posting a note at WP:BOTREQ if this is something that you think students might do. (That's also a good place to ask/identify those who might want their documentation for their bot(s) created or improved.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:08, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi John Broughton. Only GCI mentors can add GCI tasks, and only tasks with a mentor assigned can be created. This way the program avoids sending students to tasks that nobody will be committed to assess. Thank you for your recommendations. I have left a message at Bot requests and Cite4wiki (I had already posted at Lua requests). Since Monday, 9 tasks have been completed, and 10 are currently waiting for the review of a mentor. It seems to be working! We hope to welcome mentors and tasks from the Wikipedia technical community.--Qgil (talk) 16:19, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Qgil. I think you have an old email from me. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:21, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Style load problems continue

I'm getting intermittent style load failures again today. equazcion → 20:12, 19 Nov 2013 (UTC)

Same here. Helder 20:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've been trying to save edits to English Braille for 12 hrs. Evidently the server's overloaded? Small articles take a long time but eventually go through, large ones don't. — kwami (talk) 09:42, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And then you save the same edit to template talk:braille cell 11 times... ;Þ Van Isaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 10:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tip: if you get an error like the one at right, see my comment of 17:24, 13 November 2013 at #Wikimedia error, site very slow, looks like when Internet first developed, from "The first thing to do is to check your contributions" onwards. You can also check the page history. I see that you managed to save an edit nine times in under 12 hours to English Braille (and as Vanisaac notes, eleven times at Template talk:Braille cell). --Redrose64 (talk) 12:46, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I was able to make changes to the shorter sections of the article, since saving the entire article repeatedly failed. There are two longer sections to go, however, and I've probably tried saving them close to a thousand times.

When I back out of an error, I hit 'see changes' to see if the save went through. Nearly every time I save a longer article, I get an error, but most of the time when I check it did go through. And if it doesn't go through the first time, it usually does the second. This article is an exception, however. It's actually an AWB edit, but I've broken it up to try and implement it manually in sections. According to the page history, it's now been 35 hours since I've been able to get one of them to go through.

I haven't even been able to save the edits on the talk page for when the servers are working again. — kwami (talk) 13:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lost Password

I've lost my password for my alternative account User:DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER which I can't retrieve as my email address is only connected to my main account. I know generally when you lose your password & you don't have the email connected you will have to create a new account under a different username but given I have access to my main account is there anyway it can be retrieved? ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 19:37, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you've lost the password and it hasn't got an email address associated with it, then there's no way of getting it back, unfortunately. You might be able to have the username usurped if you can prove it is yours, though. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:46, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can prove it's mine but what does usurping entail. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 15:31, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at WP:USURP. Leaky Caldron 15:33, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Latest monthly metrics update

Something that people might be interested in and that was linked as usual in the monthly blogpost, officially called the monthly metrics meeting. That name hasn't really covered the content of these meetings for a while now, it's increasingly a movement update with a slight focus on foundation staff. It touches on a lot of topics: Metrics, Editor engagement, Education program, Multimedia beta team, Visual Editor, Trademark policy changes, WikiPR thing etc, etc, etc. It's rather accessible. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@TheDJ: They're called metrics and activities meetings, though we usually shortcut to "metrics" ;-). Rename suggestions welcome!--Eloquence * 02:29, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkle broken again?

Resolved

I tried to request protection by Twinkle, but it won't load properly to another page. --George Ho (talk) 00:20, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Give me the page and reason for protection and I'll test it. KonveyorBelt 00:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've already requested the page manually. What about Lindsay Lohan? The page was vandalized during PC. --George Ho (talk) 04:29, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

FTR: Works again, more at WT:TW#page protection request working?. Amalthea 08:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Any progress passing colon-data

Once again, I am getting a newline for data with a lead-colon, such as passing ":en:pagename" from a template, and I wonder if there is any hope of turning the colon crap off, similar to "_NOTOC_" as "_NOCRAP_". The most obvious hope had been to return the colon using pure Lua, put even the Lua Scribunto interface also generates a newline and destroys the lead colon, as when extracting the substring ":234" as follows:

"{{#invoke:String|sub|s=:23456|1|4}}" → "

234"

Also, I found using &#58 colon in a interwiki link does work, as "[[:en:hyperlink]]" which correctly links ":en:hyperlink".

Fortunately, an interwiki link to enwiki as ":en:page" could also be recoded with just "w:page" (and no leading colon), but long term, we need to fix Wikipedia to pass data without bizarre pre-formatting for colon, semicolon, asterisk, and hashmark '#' characters. Let a user pass any data in a template parameter. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:46, 21 November 2013 (UTC) [reply]

You can break the MediaWiki parsing of these characters by preceding them with <nowiki />; see Help:Nowiki. -- Gadget850^talk 14:09, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If it goes through the parser, then this behaviour occurs. It doesn't happen when passing output between Lua modules, as the parser is not involved in that. But the output has to be returned to a wiki page at some point, and when that happens Gadget850's nowiki trick is the only way of getting it to work. There is history behind this - see bug 12974. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:44, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's also covered in the first bullet at Help:Template#Problems and workarounds. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:40, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nowiki fails before Lua and kills a wikilink: The colon-data newline problem is generated by the Lua Scribunto interface, and "<nowiki/>" does not stop it. So perhaps the nowiki tag could be used inside a Lua module, to prevent the warping of the lead colon when data is returned, for cases where the data could be preceded by "<nowiki/>" without ruining the operation. Compare:
"{{#invoke:String|sub|s=:23456|1|4}}" → "

234"
"<nowiki/>{{#invoke:String|sub|s=:23456|1|4}}" → "

234"

Here is a wikilink with nowiki-data inside:
[[<nowiki/>:en:hyperlink]] → [[:en:hyperlink]]

Hence, using a string prefix as "<nowiki/>" would kill operation inside a wikilink (as could be expected), and cannot be used as a general-purpose prefix for substring results. We need a "_NOCRAP_" feature or "#invoke_no_crap" to stop Lua Scribunto from preformatting a colon as a newline. This is what I mean by making important changes to the MediaWiki software, as if arithmetic with "42" generated a newline and no one fixed it. I understand people want to rewrite the NewPP preprocessor parser, but just fix it for major problems instead. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:54, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
templates stop working past a certain point
In Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/Morning277/Archive, the templates after "19:39, 24 July 2013" do not work. For example, {{checkuser}} displays as Template:Checkuser. Can this be worked around by breaking the page up into smaller parts? —rybec 10:09, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You mean Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Morning277/Archive.

The html source is full of warnings: "WARNING: template omitted, post-expand include size too large". I don't know what to do about that. Johnuniq (talk) 10:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you; the error message you discovered led me to Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded which has advice about what to do when this happens. —rybec 10:53, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This could be fixed by rewriting the heavier templates in Lua (depending on the specifics), or alternatively you could split the archive up into multiple pages. The Lua part will take some work, so you might want to try the multiple-page thing as a stopgap measure. You can also fix it by simply removing templates, but that's probably not ideal in this situation. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:55, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Somebody broke the SPI pages a few weeks ago by making some changes to one of the templates that are used extensively there - either {{checkuser}} {{checkip}} or one of their subtemplates. I'm just wondering whether the change was fully reverted, or perhaps somebody's pulled a similar trick again without understanding the quincequonces. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm working on this. I've reduce the include size of {{La}} (used on the page) by 160 characters and undid a couple of revisions to {{Reply to}} which were about 272 characters. Apparently the include size is still too high, but I'm not sure where it is coming from yet. I've gone through all of the templates (and modified the ones with changes more than 20 character increases) and see nothing of significance since November 1st. Going back further now... Will update when found and fixed. Technical 13 (talk) 16:10, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so I've found the culprit, reverted it, and have started a discussion to figure out what's up with this. Technical 13 (talk) 16:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Mass rollback
It appears that the mass rollback script I was using is no longer functioning (User:John254/mass rollback.js). Is there an alternative, monobook friendly script available? --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 17:43, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Ponyo: That script would be very easy to fix: I think you just need to replace getElementsByClassName(document, "span", "mw-rollback-link") with $("span.mw-rollback-link"). (You need to get John254 himself or any sysop to do this.) Matma Rex talk 17:51, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm...John254 is banned, and I'm technically inept when it comes to scripts. Perhaps another kind admin perusing this board could assist?--Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 19:00, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done Legoktm (talk) 19:07, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It works! Legoktm, thank you, you're a star!--Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 19:32, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Out of curiosity, why is the pure DOM function not working anymore? equazcion → 19:33, 21 Nov 2013 (UTC)
It's not a pure DOM function, it was part of mediawiki.legacy.wikibits. See [7]. Legoktm (talk) 19:36, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure you know something I don't here, but aside from past experience, this seems to indicate that getElementsByClassName doesn't need to be added via a library. I'm not sure what I'm missing here, but I know it must be something :) equazcion → 19:48, 21 Nov 2013 (UTC)
document.getElementsByClassName / HTMLElement.prototype.getElementsByClassName function is a regular JavaScript DOM method which is always present (assuming the browser supports it). The window.getElementsByClassName, or just getElementsByClassName for short, was a non-standard function defined in MediaWiki back in 2006 or so when the DOM function was not supported by any browsers. I'd still suggest using the jQuery was instead of the DOM method for compatibility with older browsers. Matma Rex talk 20:03, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I missed that there was no document. here. Thanks for the explanation :) equazcion → 20:10, 21 Nov 2013 (UTC)
nitpicking: the jquery $(selector) returns a jQuery object, which, for 92.47% of the cases behaves similar enough to the old "getElementsByClassName()", but is not 100% identical. to get exactly the thing the old call returned, use toArray(). in the example above, this would be
$("span.mw-rollback-link").toArray();
peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 18:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Revision history: Page view statistics
Good afternoon, I was wondering if it is possible to get the number of total visits to one or more specific pages, instead of the three months that can be consulted at will now. Greetings.--Paritto (talk) 22:55, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Check out http://toolserver.org/~emw/wikistats/. It is supposed to be another representation of Henrik's tool, but I'm not sure how well it works for long periods of time. See external links at User:Killiondude/stats. Killiondude (talk) 23:42, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, it works fine!--Paritto (talk) 01:30, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Beta
I just got a new button called "beta". Have others experienced the same? It is a bit distracting to me, but there doesn't seem to be a way to remove the button (?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iselilja (talk • contribs) 23:37, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. If you click it, it gives you more information about why it is there. See mw:About Beta Features. Someone might be able to write you some code to hide it if you would like. I'm not sure why it's distracting, however. Killiondude (talk) 23:44, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think an official announcement update/post, with all the links and details, is coming any second now. –Quiddity (talk) 23:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think it already was - see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 120#Introducing Beta Features and Media Viewer. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't want to see it, add this to your common.css:
#pt-betafeatures { display: none; }
Legoktm (talk) 23:51, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Lego! But this left me with another question: Where/what is my common.css? I have seen it sometimes, but it is not among my subpages, so maybe I have messed it up? (Not a big deal to get rid of the button; just an extra button I don't need; leaving the other buttons slightly out of place.) Regards, Iselilja (talk) 00:03, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Iselilja: If you would like to hide the 'Beta' link in your personal menu, you can easily remove it by going to your personal style page ('Special:MyPage/common.css') and pasting in this CSS rule on a line by itself: "#pt-betafeatures { display: none; }" (do not include the quotes). Hope this helps -- but you'll be missing out on a lot of fun features and a chance to help improve them :) Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 00:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Fabrice. I'll think about it. Btw.; I do sometimes edit a bit with the VisualEditor as I also a bit on the Norwegian Wikipedia where it is not turned off(and I haven't turned it off there). Regards, Iselilja (talk) 00:12, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
For future ref, you can find your common.css in at least three different ways: (i) at Special:MyPage/common.css; (ii) by going to Preferences → Appearance and looking for the Custom CSS link on the "⧼prefs-common-css-js⧽" row; (iii) by going to your user page, clicking Page information in the sidebar, clicking "Number of subpages of this page" and then looking through the list.

As regards what the page is for: there are many uses, and Help:User style#CSS covers just some of them. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:30, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Beta Features live on English Wikipedia
Screenshot of the new Beta Features preferences page.
Media Viewer shows larger images to improve your viewing experience.
Hi folks, we're happy to let you know that the first version of Beta Features has now been deployed on the English Wikipedia and on all wikis worldwide.
Beta Features is a new program that lets you test new features on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites before they are released widely. Think of it as a digital laboratory where community members can preview upcoming changes and help designers and engineers make improvements based on their feedback.
This first worldwide release includes these features:
Media Viewer — view images in large size

Typography Refresh — make text more readable

Nearby Pages — see what other pages are nearby

VisualEditor Opt-in — edit pages without having to learn wiki code (see below)

VisualEditor Formulæ — edit algebra or equations on your pages (see below)
(Note that Visual Editor Opt-in is only on a couple hundred sites where it was already available, but not enabled by default.)
We invite you to test these new features on your sites and let us know what you think. You can share your feedback about this Beta Features program on this discussion page -- or about individual features on their respective discussion pages (see links above). And if you find any technical bugs, please report them report them here on Bugzilla.
We also invite you to join tomorrow's IRC office hours chat, this Friday, 22 November, 2013 at 18:00 UTC. (10)
Many thanks to all the community and team members who made this program possible! We hope it can help us improve Wikipedia together and provide a better experience for all our users around the world.
Enjoy, Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 23:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC) -- on behalf of the Multimedia, Visual Editor and Design teams[reply]
This looks great. I don't have to get annoyed about the new features because I can just bring them to life and kill them at will. Presumably, I can also, if I choose, take part in rational discussions where no-one needs to be accusatory or defensive and which will result in features being adopted, modified or junked purely according to what makes most sense. That's not meant sardonically, BTW. Here's hoping I am not speaking too soon... Formerip (talk) 00:35, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, but without the hesitation! ;)

I've been following this for a while, and I like the slow&steady nature of this new system. I've got lots of suggestions to improve some of them [cf. my comments at the typography page], but I'm not in urgent/panic mode whilst doing so. Huzzah for a calmer future! –Quiddity (talk) 01:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Good addition. And thank you for giving us a little more control over when and how we receive these features while they are in beta. Reso lute 01:39, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your thoughtful feedback, Formerip and Reso! You make some good points about how this program can give us all more control over our experience, as well as encouraging more reasoned conversations during feature development, while reducing the stress for everyone. We're also very hopeful about the potential of this tool for enabling more effective collaborations between foundation and community members.
Already, we're getting invaluable feedback on discussion pages like this one for Media Viewer. On that note, a newer version of Media Viewer is now ready for testing on MediaWiki.org, which displays larger images for a more immersive experience, as shown in the thumbnail above. It will automatically be deployed on English Wikipedia's Beta Features section in early December, but we would love to get early feedback, if anyone is interested. You can test it on this demo page (don't forget to enable Media Viewer in your Beta Features preferences page on that site). To learn more, check out this overview of that new Media Viewer version.
Last but not least, kudos to all the folks who contributed to this skunkworks program, across many different teams: Jared Zimmerman, Mark Holmquist, James Forrester, Jon Robson, May Galloway, Keegan Peterzell, and Erik Moeller, to name but a few :) While no particular team had a mandate to start this program, we all felt it was the right thing to do -- and just got it done. Sometimes the best projects come from these kinds of serendipitous collaborations. Onward! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 03:04, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Now 48 hrs that I haven't been able to save edits to English Braille
As noted above. I'm just attempting to format the article properly. I was able to make changes to some of the shorter sections 48 hrs ago, but despite maybe a thousand attempts, I've been unable to make any changes to the longer sections. I can't even break them up with temporary headers to do it a bit at a time. I know our servers are a bit screwy, but this seems extreme. Any idea what's going on? — kwami (talk) 02:00, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Could you tell us exactly what happens when you click save? Someguy1221 (talk) 02:14, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I get the error message shown in the previous section ("Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon. Please try again in a few minutes."). Specifically, the latest error message says,
Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=English_Braille&action=submit, from 208.80.154.77 via cp1052 frontend ([10.2.2.25]:80), Varnish XID 2514145362

Forwarded for: 72.197.230.167, 208.80.154.77

Error: 503, Service Unavailable at Fri, 22 Nov 2013 02:19:10 GMT

I've tried FF, Opera, Chrome, and IE. I'm on Win7.

BTW, I posted the changes to one of the sections on the Talk page (minus a couple paragraphs at the end with no formatting). — kwami (talk) 02:21, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I get the same error when i try to make the edit for you. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:05, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Same thing's happening to me. I tried to add the stuff from the talk page and encountered the error. Van Isaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 03:13, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've used AWB to make this formatting change to other articles, so that in itself is not the problem. They don't have as many changes, though. But again, I get the same error even if I don't add the template, but only try to insert sub-section headers in sections which do not yet have any instances of the template. I was actually surprised today that I was able to post one of the sections on the talk page; I tried and failed to do that two days ago, thinking that someone else might be able to do it for me. This particular page also has many instances of the {{angle bracket}} template, so maybe the two of them together is too much? — kwami (talk) 03:29, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm convinced this has something to do with {{braille cell}}. I was able to blank the article and then add sections one by one, til those braille tables started. At User:Equazcion/sandbox11, I tried just adding the braille glyph tables from the article -- saving got slower and slower, then I got the Wikimedia error BUT still successfully saved -- although the save only showed up after something like 10 minutes of delay. Another table later got the error and no save. User:Vanisaac recently (Nov 12 2013) changed {{braille cell}} and its sub-pages to use many safesubsts; since these problems are more apparent on save than on load, it makes sense that the server is having trouble expanding all the substs, maybe. I reverted all the safesubst edits to that template and its sub-pages, and was able to at least get edits including all tables through at English Braille -- as of right now, I still do see the Wikimedia error, though the saves go through for me. It's possible the job queue isn't done reverting the template completely, perhaps.
This is all sort of conjecture so maybe someone who knows more can look into it. equazcion → 05:38, 22 Nov 2013 (UTC)
PS. I just tried duplicating the article at User:Equazcion/sandbox12 and got the Wikimedia error but again the save went through, although there was a delay of several minutes before the save showed up. equazcion → 05:47, 22 Nov 2013 (UTC)
Damn. I thought that adding a safesubst was transparent to the handling unless you actually substituted the template. Shoot. Maybe I'll make an alternate template that bypasses all the handling, and just does a down-and-dirty call of the /dot-id2character. Van Isaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 06:22, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Equazcion, could you put the changes through, then? It still times out for me. It's a simple formatting change: Just enclose any braille cells it the 'bc' template, separating them with a pipe. — kwami (talk) 06:44, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I tried but got the error too, and the edit hasn't shown up for a while. Maybe the safesubst's weren't the issue, and removing them merely woke things up temporarily? equazcion → 07:24, 22 Nov 2013 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. — kwami (talk) 07:27, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
English Braille reformats 3 seconds with null Template:Braille_cell
A run-preview, when editing Template:Braille_cell as an empty template, to show page "English Braille" will reformat the entire article within 3 seconds, and so {Braille_cell} is using over 57 seconds in that page to hit the 60-second timeout of wp:Wikimedia Foundation error. Perhaps Template:Braille_cell can be streamlined to run 10x faster, as only 5.7 seconds or such in that page. More later. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:22, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Template:Braille cell is definitely not running with any practical efficiency, I'm just not sure why this is happening suddenly now. The template page itself even has intermittent loading problems. The safesubst's seemed likely due to the timing of the issues, but that doesn't appear to have been the primary issue. The template could contain some parser function or magic word whose workings were changed recently in MediaWiki, but I don't keep informed of those things much. Maybe someone who does could take a browse through the code. equazcion → 13:31, 22 Nov 2013 (UTC)
Rewrite Braille_cell 5x faster and test: I have created a test page, as User:Wikid77/Template:Test_Braille, which contains 64 calls to Template:Braille_cell, and ran 6 seconds with original version markup. A typical streamlined template can run 5x-11x times faster, but 10x faster is difficult to achieve with complex templates, so let's try to streamline {Braille_cell} as 5x faster to reduce 60-second timeout to 12-second reformatting. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:06, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Template testing
I want to experiment to see if I can make a change to a template.
If I were interested in changing {{Infobox NCAA team season}}, I think I would proceed as follows:
Make an edit to {{Infobox NCAA team season/sandbox}}

Check {{Infobox NCAA team season/testcases}} to make sure:
The changes I want work, and

I didn't break anything else

If fine, then copy the sandbox version to the working version.
However, I am interested in editing {{Infobox NCAA team season/name}}. Because that is a subtemplate, I think I need to make a sandbox version, and then make sure {{Infobox NCAA team season/sandbox}} calls that sandbox version.
However, I do not see how {{Infobox NCAA team season/name}} is called in {{Infobox NCAA team season/sandbox}}.
Two questions:
Is my general procedure correct?

Where in {{Infobox NCAA team season/sandbox}} is {{Infobox NCAA team season/name}} invoked?--S Philbrick (Talk) 02:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I think I see the missing linkage.
{{Infobox NCAA team season}}
calls
{{Infobox NCAA team season/link}}
which calls
{{Infobox NCAA team season/team}}
which calls
{{Infobox NCAA team season/name}}
Does this mean I need a sandbox versions of x/link, x/team and x/name to test?--S Philbrick (Talk) 03:02, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Generally that would be the best practice. Your general procedure also seems "okay". Note that some (most) testcases pages aren't all inclusive, and you may have to create new testcases to verify that your change is indeed doing what you want and not breaking other things. Technical 13 (talk) 03:43, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm smiling about your testcases comment, because my day job project today is to design a series of testcases for a software system, and they need to be complete enough that I can sign off that the software can be released.--S Philbrick (Talk) 13:34, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rfc: Wikipedia referencing and citations, avanues for more help
Hi,
Seasons Greetings to users on this forum.
We are currently discussing lack of referencing and citations in wikipedia articles and proposals for restriction for content without referencing at WP:Village_pump_(policy). One of the reaction/comment is "...that making referencing easier needs to happen long before you start even contemplating (any new restrictions)..."
Some suggessions given were:
A) a link on top of the edit window that will open up a new browser tab with a google search of the article title.
B) a bot that copies no less than a dozen refs from the most unique pages that an article links to (fewest other what links here) and puts them on the talk page.
My question is like new VE can guide on likely categories, Whether it would be possible to guide for references automatically from existent references in other related articles
C)Whether it would be possible to provide shortcut keys for opening up Reference help menu bar in VE and Help tool bar of vector skin.For an example if Control+vv (i.e.press 'v' two times) reference help window will open automatically.
Or can you think of any other avenues ?

@Vanisaac, Cyclopia, and DESiegel: @Sitush, Graeme Bartlett, and Thargor Orlando: @BD2412: and others ofcourse.

Thanks and Regards
Mahitgar (talk) 09:54, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment in respect of A) there is already a user script that does that - User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/googleTitle.js. NtheP (talk) 16:25, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Section edit links are appearing on diffs
Until yesterday, a diff would show section edit links, but only if the right-hand version was the current version. Overnight it has changed so that section edit links appear on all diffs. The main problem with this is that if sections have been moved since (such as talk page archiving), clicking a section edit may bring back an edit window containing a section that is not the one that you thought you had (try editing the "Secure site default" section here) - or it may throw an error (try editing the last section here) I'm pretty certain that this has happened before, some time in the last four years, discovered to have been an unintended bug and then reverted again. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:35, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Appears to be an unintentional side effect of gerrit:94150. Anomie ⚔ 13:46, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK, any idea how long before the fix is deployed? --Redrose64 (talk) 17:38, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64: Should be very soon (a few hours tops), Anomie is backporting a revert. There were some unforeseen issues which were first thought to be related, but turned out to most likely not be, and it was delayed. Matma Rex talk 19:26, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it looks fixed already. Matma Rex talk 19:30, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Pop-up curtailed
At the page on Calamity Jane, the moues-over pop-up for the Pan-American Exposition shows nonsense caused by some text being left out. What I see is "... The fair [line break] occupied of land...." Going to the Exhibition's actual site on Wikipedia, I found that the "The fair occupied 350 acres (1.4 km2) of land...." My guess is that there is something about the script ("350 acres (1.4 km²) ") that causes it to be omitted. I am using the most recent full version of Firefox on ME7. Kdammers (talk) 10:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The pop-up box is made by Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups which can be enabled at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. Templates are omitted from popups previews so {{convert|350|acre|km2}} is omitted. Templates cannot be rendered by popups but Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups shows the below option. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:48, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Configuration options
Option Values* Description

popupPreviewKillTemplates true, false If true, templates referred to in an article are simply deleted from previews; otherwise, they're shown as raw wikitext.
Thank You for the explanation. This condition is not acceptable since, e.g., in the case I cited, a meaningless sentence resulted. I thought the original needed cleaning up, so I went to it, wasting my time. Hopefully, a procedure can be developed that prevents this.Kdammers (talk) 13:29, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"not acceptable" is a bit hard. popups is a very useful script installed at some Wikimedia wikis by the editors. It's not part of MediaWiki. I imagine it would be very difficult and expensive to parse templates for the popups preview. You could suggest an indication like "…" to indicate that a template was skipped, but I think it would just be annoying most of the time. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:00, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Template:Clickable button is broken
The clickable button templates, {{clickable button}} and {{clickable button 2}}, among others, have been broken for a few weeks. I assume this was due to a css or js change or the like. Compare the working buttons on Commons: commons:Template:Clickable_button. Anyone know how to fix these?--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I assume you're referring to the lack of "button" styling? Interestingly enough, [8] makes the buttons there render correctly, but they are unstyled when not in edit mode. Chris857 (talk) 15:49, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. And I just noticed the same thing, that they show up correctly in previews.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
They currently work for me in all tested situations. There is a previous discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 120#Dark blue over the word "wikicode" to the point where I can hardly see it. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:41, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

jQuery.ui is no longer loaded by default. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 119#jQuery UI CSS may no longer load by default and linked mailing list post. Anomie ⚔ 16:50, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Log to text
Does anyone know of a tool that can turn a page of log results into normal wiki markup? I want to produce an edited list of some move log results keeping the links intact. Spinning Spark 19:08, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Twinkle
Hello guys,
My Twinkle is not working properly today. I updated my login to Beta version 3 or 4 hours ago. From that, my twinkle is showing error message. I don't know what was the problem with that! Could anybody help me on this?
The error is like...
User talk page modification: parsererror "OK" occurred while contacting the API.
Thanks in advance.

-- L o g X 19:11, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Permalink on talk pages
Linking to talk page or discussion page sections is a pain because they get archived and then the link is broken. Proposal - on a talk or discussion page next to the edit link for sections, have a link "Permalink" - this will link to that section no matter where it gets moved. This will require a possibly significant change in talk pages and might end up needing to be delayed till new talk page technology gets rolled out (is Flow for talk pages or just user pages or not for user pages, I'm not sure). In particular, every talk section will need a permanent identifier of some sort (or every talk page could have an archive-id which will be updated when a talk page gets archived). Still I think the investment will be worthwhile as it will make it easier to refer to active discussions that are going to be archived, and therefore help discussions be generally more informed. Jztinfinity (talk) 19:39, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]