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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Nonsenseferret (talk | contribs) at 01:06, 5 August 2016 (→‎Firefox bug or just me?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bug reports and feature requests should be made in Phabricator (see how to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported differently (see how to report security bugs).

Newcomers to the technical village pump are encouraged to read these guidelines prior to posting here. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk.


User:MarkS/Extra edit buttons

This is an extremely awesome feature offered via a script but it is no longer functional and is not working even with the browsers and skins most preferred. Can a new version of this script be developed or someone fix whatever issues this has. I really want to use it but 'am unable to. Thanks VarunFEB2003 (talk) 11:58, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried User talk:MarkS/Extra edit buttons#Alternative way to add buttons and m:User:Krinkle/Scripts/InsertWikiEditorButton? Helder 20:49, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Helder: Thanks. VarunFEB2003 (talk) 10:18, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New "basic" usergroup?

Resolved
 – was a software bug. — xaosflux Talk 13:41, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is anyone else seeing a new empty "basic" usergroup at Special:ListGroupRights? [1] Was this the result of a phab ticket? — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 22:05, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Andy M. Wang: Yes I see it. And it is not just on enwiki but on meta and on commons as well. Which probably means it was a global rollout. It doesn't look like sysops have the ability to assign it though so not entirely sure what the purpose is. The only permission assigned to the group is the ability to bypass tor blocks. Seems like a duplicate of IPBE to me. --Majora (talk) 22:32, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot make sense of it. uselang=qqx says the name "basic" is made by MediaWiki:Group-basic but there is no such message. No group is listed as able to add or remove the basic group at Special:ListGroupRights. Special:UserRights/Example (admin only) lists it under "Groups you cannot change" in my admin account. But I can change IP block exemptions, a group which includes the only right by basic: torunblocked. I suspect basic is a bug or incomplete feature. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:39, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Don't see any phab requests, I asked on [Wikitech-l], awaiting response. — xaosflux Talk 01:11, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi all. Yes, as I just wrote on wikitech-l, this would appear to be a mistake. Some configuration code was being moved to a new system and a GrantPermissions line for 'basic' to have torunblocked was added under GroupPermissions in the new file instead of GrantPermissions. I'll see if I can get it fixed - thanks for pointing it out. --Alex Monk (WMF) (talk) 01:48, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Mystery solved, thank you for the speedy response Alex Monk (WMF). — xaosflux Talk 01:52, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Another developer merged and deployed my fix to the servers at 04:04 this morning. --Alex Monk (WMF) (talk) 17:29, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unregistered users see old revisions

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T141687

I have seen three reports today that unregistered users are seeing old revisions of pages. I examined it and it's true for many pages which have been edited since yesterday. It is not about browser caching. Reloading the pages doesn't help. They have to be purged to force the current revision to unregistered users. I tested random pages at Special:RecentChanges. For the majority, the time at "This page was last modified" at the bottom shows that the current revision is not being served. At Wikipedia:Help desk I currently see 18:30, 28 July 2016 when logged out. There are 30 revisions since then. I always see the current revision when logged in. I'm in Denmark and using a desktop browser. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:13, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've gotten the same experience logged out about 3-4 hours ago. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 19:28, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Unregistered users have always been served cached versions as opposed to logged-in users. Ruslik_Zero 19:53, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, cached versions for performance reasons but usually not old page revisions as far as I know, at least not in a majority of the cases. I don't think the multiple reports today is a coincidence. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:05, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I had the same experience a few hours ago when not logged in. It was disconcerting to not see a post I had made earlier on a ref desk and a reply to it. The post and reply appeared immediately after I logged in. Akld guy (talk) 20:55, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Cross-referencing from Help desk: Wikipedia:Help_desk#Why_No_Text_In_Article? I can only link to this section when logged on. Richard Nowell (talk) 13:27, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know whether this is related but seems like it might be. I'm an OTRS agent trying to answer questions that are emailed to Wikimedia. Every so often I get a message about not seeing the most recent version of the page but it is usually a one off email. A day or two ago I fielded three such emails in the same day, one of which claimed that purging didn't resolve it. As a possible aside they noted that the material look different in the mobile version compared to the desktop version. I just wonder if there was some issue keeping the database caught up.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:13, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've reported this on Phabricator as it does look like there is an increase in these occurences: phab:T141693. --Glaisher (talk) 16:50, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Happening with me too when I log out and these are increasing day by day. VarunFEB2003 (talk) 10:20, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've just uploaded a screenshot of the article Citizen Science when I am logged out, on to Photobucket.com. The screenshot shows the article with a 'Very Long' tag, which was removed at 17.11 by another editor. The screenshot I took was made at 21.45. I don't think the patch for T141687 has fully worked; it hasn't for me anyway. It was odd; I purposely went to the WP main page, logged-off, cleared my browser (IE) history and cache etc and then went to the CS article, which had the tag on it, but I had just answered on the Talk page about it being removed. Bizarre. So, I took a screenshot which has a 'created ‎31 ‎July ‎2016, ‏‎21:46:00' property as a time signature. I can send the image to anyone if needs be by email or post it somewhere, but it is screenshot of a WP article- just saying. Richard Nowell (talk) 21:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It didn't work because the edit (made at 17:11 UTC) was done prior to the fix deployment (at 17:49 UTC)[2]. The fix will only take effect for edits done after the patch was deployed to English Wikipedia so it didn't work in this case. If you think that all pages which didn't get purged during the breakage should be purged, please request that on Phabricator. P.S. I have manually purged Citizen Science now. --Glaisher (talk) 04:23, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ah,OK. Thankyou. So unless an article has been manually purged it will not be up-to-date, but then after a purge it will function as it should do? Or solely the act of editing itself is sufficient- just that I'd edited the CS Talk page at 20:42 UTC but I could not see the edit when not logged on, as above. Richard Nowell (talk) 07:17, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Richard Nowell: Theoretically, making an edit should invalidate the cache for both logged-in and logged-out users but this is not 100% reliable always. There is a very old well-known bug that makes it show logged-out users outdated revisions and you might have been affected by that bug but the recent bug only made that happen very frequently and also serve very outdated revisions. Since this temporary bug was introduced during last week's deployment train and was fixed in a few days, it shouldn't cause issues now but you may be affected by the old bug sometimes (which has been occurring for years). --Glaisher (talk) 05:19, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Glaisher: Thanks for reply. It's great to know the WP programming is in good hands. I'd assumed, wrongly, that any pages effected by this recent bug would 'retrospectively auto-purge', which is of course impractical for an unknown number of articles. Although having written that, some people might get a shock if they only planned to change a ref but then found a large section as the article 'catches up'. I guess a fix which compared "the last edit time on the edit page" with "the last time updated on the article's front page" and then adjusted "the last time updated" to be up-to-date could cause mayhem. Rgds Richard Nowell (talk) 08:02, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
One way that this has happened in years past is redirection caching. If you visit, say, Citizen Science, you are apparently redirected to Citizen science, but this might not be the current version but the version that was current last time the redirect was updated. If you make an edit to the article, the page that is sent back to you is the latest version, because you're not going through the redirect; but if you visit Citizen Science again, you might still get an old version. Try going to the redirect page Citizen Science and carrying out a WP:PURGE there. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:31, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this article showing an old version when I'm logged out?

Hi

I'm wondering why the article 3DBenchy is showing an old version of the article when I'm logged out, I've tried it on several computers and they all give the same results so its not my cache.

Thanks

--John Cummings (talk) 16:28, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is the same problem as above. —  crh 23  (Talk) 16:31, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks Crh23 I've been told that if I add ?=purge to the end of the article URL it will fix it, and it does :) --John Cummings (talk) 16:32, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@John Cummings: that should do nothing. The syntax is ?action=purge if there is no ? in the existing URL, but &action=purge if there is already a ? --Redrose64 (talk) 19:44, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not my area (almost nothing technical is ;-) so you are not to take these comments as if I were well-informed about this, but I think that one of the usual questions is whether the affected people might be from the same part of the world or using the same ISP. It's apparently possible for popular pages to get cached in between the WMF's servers and the user's computer. (Think about some corporate network employee saying, "We keep downloading Wikipedia's Main Page. Maybe we should just make a copy of that locally, and save the traffic..."). So if someone has location information and has some reason to believe that is relevant, then you could pre-emptively share it on the Phab task. However, given the number of people affected, it seems unlikely to me. (Also, ?action=purge doesn't affect those intermediate caches, so that's another strike against this idea.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:43, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Whatamidoing (WMF), well I don't know, I'm not sure what happened, I tried your solution on another page I had the same issue with and it works. --John Cummings (talk) 19:39, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've been going to the page history and clicking on the topmost version. This still (1 August) presents an old version, with the pink "old version" warning bar, but an arrow for a "newer revision" appears just beneath. It's possible to click through from here to get to the real latest version. Workaround until it's fixed. Its now happening to my sandbox drafts as well now.... --John Cummings (talk) 15:48, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@John Cummings:: Can you repeat what you just described above (clicking topmost link) and -- IF the pink header shows up again -- cut and paste the URL of the page displayed here inside no-wiki tags? Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 18:13, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
When I encountered the situation at the Refdesk a few days ago, an ?action=purge actually did fix it. Presumably a meddling ISP wouldn't have known about the purge any more than they knew about the intervening edits, so I think this rules out that idea, at least in my case. Wnt (talk) 23:21, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

30 months ago, I complained that when I entered "Brolin" in Wikipedia search, instead of being shown a list of search results, I was taken straight to this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brolin Today, the same thing is still happening!

This seems to be a serious flaw in Wikipedia. "Search" does not mean "Redirect me to a page that matches the search term."

If I google "Brolin" the first page of results shows 3 Wikipedia pages, including the one I was looking for. Wikipedia search, meanwhile, seems more like Google's "I'm feeling lucky" option, although I think most people would feel pretty unlucky if Google sent them to a page about Famotidine...

What went wrong with Wikipedia search? And when will this problem finally be addressed?? Dadge (talk) 13:07, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is a deliberate feature. The top right of search pages have a "Help" link going to Help:Searching. The lead shows three ways to make a search instead of going to directly to a perfect match. Registered users can choose three alternative skins at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. All three have both a "Go" and "Search" button. The current default Vector skin doesn't use buttons at the search box but relies on other methods. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:26, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Dadge: The old discussion is at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 123#"Search". PrimeHunter (talk) 14:43, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Dadge:While it is mentioned at the link, I'll add that I'm often in a position of not wanting the Search box to take me directly to the article (that said, I often do so I'm happy that it is the default approach). Whenever I want to do a search but do not want to be automatically brought to an article that might match my search string, I simply click on the magnifying glass. That brings up a search page which I believe works exactly the way you wanted to work.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:09, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I use MonoBook skin. In most Wikimedia project wikis, the action of the Return key is the same as clicking Go, but at Commons, it's as if I clicked Search. How can I configure that search box at Commons so that it sends a Go, so that it's consistent with the others? --Redrose64 (talk) 19:48, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to know this also. Rcsprinter123 (jaw) 22:33, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The OP's problem seems to be that "Brolin" redirects to Famotidine, where there is no mention whatsoever of Brolin or whether the name is somehow connected. It seems to me that instead of a redirect, Brolin should be a disambiguation page that includes James Brolin, Josh Brolin, and perhaps other individuals. Akld guy (talk) 21:00, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed - I included all tiles including the word "Brolin" on the page the OP expected to get. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:09, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the replies and for fixing this particular instance, but there must be more. I acknowledge that in most cases, e.g. "Birmingham" the search box takes people to the most likely (?) page, and there is a link at the top to a disambiguation page, but if there are a lot of examples of the Brolin kind that do not have a link to such a page, perhaps it'd be better if the search box didn't operate in this "deliberate" way. Is there a way to find out how many searches exist on WP of the Brolin kind? Dadge (talk) 14:16, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is not with the Search feature, per se. If the Search takes you to the "most likely" page, which is not the article you wanted, there is a clear need for a disambiguation page for the searched term. Whenever you find a case like that, you're welcome to follow Od Mishehu's example and create a disambig page. Akld guy (talk) 00:58, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As an aside, redirects to pages which don't explain the term and where it's not obvious are one of my pet peeves. A case like Brolin isn't actually quite so bad since if you have some idea what Brolin is, you can probably gues you're at the right place but I've definitely seen cases where plenty of people would have no idea the relevance of what they're reading. Nil Einne (talk) 17:33, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Cite journal

Hello. Is there any particular reason why titles are not displayed in italics with this template? I must point out that I'm not a technical geniusǃ So I'm just asking whether that's supposed to be like that.--Liuthar (talk) 21:10, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's deliberate. See MOS:TITLEQUOTES. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:51, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That was quick – thanks! Yet, I personally don't find it particularly aesthetic when the typography is inconsistent. But I'm afraid that will hardly count as an argument in this respect...--Hubon (talk) 22:23, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, by the way.--Liuthar (talk) 22:56, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Liuthar and Hubon: This sort of thing is best discussed at the template's talk page, i.e. Help talk:Citation Style 1 (redirected from Template talk:Cite journal). There (and in the archives) you will find many threads on matters of styling like this. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:26, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the advice, but I guess we'll have to skip that...--Liuthar (talk) 22:56, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My point is, it's not a VPT matter. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:09, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, then I guess we're done here.--Hubon (talk) 16:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New cite error "Check date values in date"

Plz, could someone check the new cite error that appears in accessdate for the date format "Month Year" ("February 1900")? Note that the table in Help:CS1_errors#bad_date explicitly allows for such format. This is a new cite error that appears only when editing. If access-date now needs a day, then this should be documented immediately or people will get upset. Rfassbind – talk 18:56, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your example itself is malformed for another reason (you cannot have an access date before recent times), so perhaps it would help us to understand the specific problem if you were to link us to the article containing the error, or which contained the error. --Izno (talk) 19:34, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Rfassbind: As with the previous section, this is a matter for Help talk:Citation Style 1, where you will find that there have been several recent changes to parameter validation. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:35, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would mention it in wikitable Examples of unacceptable dates and how to fix them. Best, Rfassbind – talk 20:51, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
 Done. I have updated the documentation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:20, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Correct drawing of the capital letter "i" and the lower case "L" on computer keyboards and in typing.

Computer keyboards and typing the letters do not have the correct drawing for the capital letter "i" and the lowercase letter "L". They both look the same. It can be confusing for people trying to learn our language or for young ones. Examples: Type in Isle or Israel into search box. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deanroysden (talk • contribs) 19:10, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What do you expect us to do about this problem? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:52, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It displays differently in the wikicode versus on the actual screen. I displays with the bars in the code but displays without it once rendered making it look just like l (lowercase L). We can't really change that without changing the way the entire site renders. Which really isn't going to happen. You could probably change the way the site renders for you in your personal CSS script though. --Majora (talk) 01:09, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia doesn't set a font in the default Vector skin or the former default MonoBook. It just uses the default sans-serif font of your browser. If you don't like this font then you can probably change it in your browser and it will also affect other sites which don't set a font. The edit box uses the default monospace font in your browser (assuming it uses monospace for textarea). Registered users have some options at "Edit area font style" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing. If you want to change font of rendered pages then it has to be done in your personal CSS. For example, this in your CSS will use the default serif font of your browser:
body {font-family: serif; }
No font-family specified by me: Illinois. font-family:sans-serif specified: Illinois. font-family:serif specified: Illinois. font-family:monospace specified: Illinois. See more at Wikipedia:Typography. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:53, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Who-has-edited tool?

Is there a tool which, for a given article, will tell me whether I, or another named editor, have edited it, and maybe list the first/ most recent contribution, or list all of them? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:47, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Click on "Edits by User" underneath the search bar in page history, and it will take you to that tool: Example. Mamyles (talk) 15:10, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. That looks like what I want, but it's not working; it says I have no edits on Ernest Durig, for instance, which I created yesterday, and still have the majority of edits. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:34, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It works now "Found 33 edits by Pigsonthewing on Ernest Durig (100.0% of the total edits made to the page)" [3]. I don't really know what happened for you. This suggests only a few minutes lag is normal if I'm understanding correctly, but maybe something was up then. Nil Einne (talk) 17:25, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Error display in Kraków article

Can you please confirm or otherwise that it is not a single PC error? There's a huge blank space below the article Kraków, five times the size of the actual article, making the scroll bar on my monitor tiny. I tried to locate the possible source of the error in the editing window, but found nothing. If you also get this enormous blank space below the article, please comment in talk. Thank you in advance, Poeticbent talk 17:42, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect {{Kraków districts}} which exhibits the same problem. You were the last editor of that template so perhaps you should undo your changes to see if that resolves the problem.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:56, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's because of {{Kraków districts}} but it displayed normally before this edit to {{Image label}} by Matt Fitzpatrick. Matt made changes to the documentation [4] but I haven't examined it. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:10, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Matt changed the default scale value from 400 to 1. I'm not sure how {{Image label}} works but calling it with scale=1 seems to have solved the issue here.[5] The documentation says x and y must be between 0 and 1 but they are large in {{Kraków districts}} so maybe my fix is not the best. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:29, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Anyhow, the error in display is gone. Thank you PrimeHunter. Poeticbent talk 18:44, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2016-31

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

Recent changes

  • A prototype for structured data on Commons is available now. [6]
  • The RevisionSlider beta feature can now be tested on mediawiki.org, German Wikipedia, Arabic Wikipedia and Hebrew Wikipedia.

Problems

  • Renamed users on some wikis were not connected to their account on other wikis between 20 July and 21 July. This has been fixed. [7]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 August. It will be on all wikis from 4 August (calendar).

Meetings

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

21:48, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Admins online now

I remember a page years ago that listed admins online with a green dot. What happened to that?

If that no longer exists, maybe we could have something like a page that shows admins who edited within the last 15 minutes listed in order of most recent. (I know you are already thinking of pointing out AN/I to me. ) I just thought this might be useful for editors to request a low-profile DENY-type sock block rather than an AN/I post or bringing the SPI back to life. I suspect some socks like the prestige of an AN/I mention or an open SPI. Also, such a page may be useful to editors for other purposes. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:31, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I just noticed {{Admin help}}. Well, I'd still prefer the "who's on now" page suggested above. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:33, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe MusikAnimal could create a script that would update such a page. It should probably be opt-in as there are content-focused admins who rarely do admin-type activities. --NeilN talk to me 02:48, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Good point about non-admin-type activities. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:50, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Try Special:Log/block. It shows blocks issued recently by all admins, which lets you know who is active. EdJohnston (talk) 02:59, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Does {{Admin help}} create notifications for all admins? Or only those online? EvergreenFir (talk) 03:18, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
EvergreenFir There are no notifications created. Admins have to look at the admin dashboard or monitor Category:Wikipedians_looking_for_help_from_administrators. --NeilN talk to me 05:49, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@NeilN: Oh okay! Was wondering! EvergreenFir (talk) 05:55, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That is a very good idea, EdJohnston. Thank you. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:37, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Or the protection/deletion log, etc., depending on what area you are seeking admin assistance. An "active admins" page isn't a bad idea but I think admins should opt-in to it, as many may prefer not to have themselves advertised — MusikAnimal talk 03:59, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Enterprisey's toollabs:apersonbot/recently-active may be useful to you. — JJMC89 (T·C) 16:06, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Strange increase in main page views on July 20th

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T141506

I was curious about the page view statistics on the main page, and there was a giant increase on July 20th-21rst. Like... from around 20 million a day to 60 million a day. Is this accurate? Did the page view statistics tool change somehow to count more visits? Rwelean (talk) 02:42, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am also baffled, see phab:T141506. I think it might be some sort of bot that is using a human-like user agent. I will try to reach out to some folks who may be able to do a deeper investigation — MusikAnimal talk 03:33, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinate formats

Please join a discussion of geographic coordinate formats. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:50, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Open Street Map

comme ca?

Hi, for some reason I can never successfully upload a map crop from OSM. It always comes up as a dead file or says it exceeds limit or something. Useless. What am I doing wrong. I want to crop a map of Atlantic City, new Jersey for use as a pin map in articles like Club Harlem. Can somebody crop and upload one?♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:10, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Map uploaded as File:Atlantic City, New Jersey - OpenStreetMap.png. Module as Module:Location map/data/Atlantic City NJ. I'd like to specify that I don't have a clue what I'm doing when it comes to modue naming / parameters / convensions, but it should all work. If you want the bounds of the map tweaking let me know ... happy to. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:39, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What are you doing wrong? I enter OSM, hit the Export button and specify that I want to "Manually select a different area". I select my area. Then on the right side of the page, hit the Share icon, tick "set custom dimensions", and arrange the share rectangle to be the same as the export rectangle. I download the map from the right side of the screen - the share - but take the coordinates from the left side of the screen - the export side. hth. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:43, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome, thanks. Boundary looks fine to me, though I'm not that familar with the city as a whole. Let me see, I access the site, find the location, crop an area, save the coordinates and export. It says it saves it, but then I access the file and it's dead. Perhaps I'm missing the "share" button, I'll look shortly.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:44, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Convert

Template:Convert seemingly still converts feet to meters in the wrong way, to the lesser side. Per Foot (unit) and as further confirmed by sources, e.g. Merriam-Webster it equals 0.3048 m. {{Convert|25,000|ft}}, for instance, currently yields 7,600 m, while per accepted definition of 0.3048 m it should be 7,620 m (meaning a significant 20 m deviation in this case). Is it fixable? Maybe other units in the template should also be checked for accuracy just in case. Brandmeistertalk 22:21, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Template:Convert#Rounding: 100 ft is 30 m or 30.5 m or 30.48 m? "25,000 feet" will often be a rounded or approximate number where 7,620 m will give a false sense of precision. The real value might for example have been closer to 24,800 feet (7,559 m) or 25,200 feet (7,681 m). You can request more precision when you want it. {{Convert|25,000|ft|0}} gives 25,000 feet (7,620 m). {{Convert|1|ft|6}} gives 1 foot (0.304800 m), so the correct value is used. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:43, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
PrimeHunter has provided the key information but as a matter of interest, the last convert update included a trick. If a number like 25,000 is entered with a decimal point (25,000.), the value is assumed to be accurate to ±0.5, but the decimal point is not displayed. That is the same as {{convert|25,000|ft|0}}.
  • {{convert|25,000.|ft}} → 25,000 feet (7,620 m)
Johnuniq (talk) 23:48, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How to include JS pages in a category?

How is it possible to achieve? I mean example like User:Ronhjones/pdcV2.js in Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons reviewed by a human. --RezonansowyakaRezy (talk | contribs) 10:13, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Because the MediaWiki parser expands templates on JavaScript pages, and in that expansion, ignores everything except categories. The page in question had 
txt = '{{Copy to Wikimedia Commons|human=' + mw.config.get( 'wgUserName' ) + '}}\n\n' + txt;
and the code inside {{Copy to Wikimedia Commons}} has this code 
{{#if:{{{human|}}}
   | {{#ifexist:Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons reviewed by {{{human|}}}  
    | [[Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons reviewed by {{{human|}}}]] 
    | [[Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons reviewed by a human]] }}
   }} 
  }}
and Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons reviewed by ' + mw.config.get( 'wgUserName' ) + ' doesn't exist, so [[Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons reviewed by a human]] is emitted. This edit fixes it. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:51, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict, some of this written before Redrose64's edit to the page, some after) JavaScript pages are actually evaluated like wikitext pages. The result is ignored when the page itself is rendered but it's used when link tables are built. That's why all the linkbacks in User:Rezonansowy/common.js work. For example, // Backlink: [[User:Where next Columbus?/commonsmover.js]] is in a JavaScript comment so it doesn't affect the JavaScript, but it's not in a wikitext comment so it causes an entry at Special:WhatLinksHere/User:Where next Columbus?/commonsmover.js. User:Ronhjones/pdcV2.js has the code {{Copy to Wikimedia Commons|human=' + mw.config.get( 'wgUserName' ) + '}}. This causes a transclusion of {{Copy to Wikimedia Commons}} which adds Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons reviewed by a human. It's probably unintentional here. Some scripts add code like /* <!-- */ at the start and /* --> */ at the end. The wikitext comment tags prevent the code between them from being evaluated as wikitext. They are inside JavaScript comment tags so they don't cause a JavaScript error. Redrose64 didn't do this in This edit so the JavaScript is still evaluated as wikitext. Page information still shows many transclusions and Category:Classified Chemical Structures. If you want to add a JavaScript page to a category then just remember to place the category code inside /* ... */ or after // on a line, so it's in a JavaScript comment and doesn't interfere with the script. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:17, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64 and PrimeHunter: Thank you for such quick and detailed answer! --RezonansowyakaRezy (talk | contribs) 12:19, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Enhanced editing toolbar messed up

The "enhanced editing toolbar", available as an option under the Preferences/Editing tab, has been messed up for the last couple of days. I've tried different skins, clearing the browser cache and restarting the browser, all to no avail. Although the different areas of the toolbar still have links that appear to work, the icon graphics are missing, e.g., the "I" for "Italic", the globe for "Link", etc. The areas that should have link icons or buttons are blank. Has anybody else seen problems with this feature? I've made no changes to my browser recently, so I blame some change on the Wikipedia end. Have any edits recently been made to the toolbar code, or is there an issue with the Wikimedia servers not sending the icon graphics files? — Quicksilver (Hydrargyrum)T @ 20:04, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Hydrargyrum: Works for me. Does loading https://en.wikipedia.org/w/extensions/WikiEditor/modules/images/toolbar/button-sprite.svg work for you? You should see an image with all the icons in it. Kaldari (talk) 00:24, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Are there faster tools?

Hello tech gurus,

I'm looking for enlightenment...

I use LINKY and AWB for loading and editing pages fast. Besides page-loading and regex search/replace, I rely heavily on AWB's list makers (both the built-in one and the database scanner).

Are there any other tools that can speed up performance for list building (straight lists and structured lists) and copy editing in general?

What power tools do you use to speed your performance? The Transhumanist 17:40, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You can take a look at petscan for list building. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 19:47, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Looks interesting. Thank you! The Transhumanist 22:32, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Made the plunge to Linux

I now have one Windows machine and one Linux machine.

Is there anything available for Linux for use on WP with the functionality of AWB? (Auto-page loading, list making, regex search/replace, etc.) The Transhumanist 17:45, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Transhumanist: Sadly, the answer is basically AWB under wine, as far as I know. —  crh 23  (Talk) 19:04, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I heard Wine is a (tweak tweak) nightmare for this type of thing. Would VirtualBox work better for this? The Transhumanist 22:30, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

August 4 Echo changes

Echo icons still backwards

I see echo has been updated with the new icons as mentioned by Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk · contribs), but the icons are still wrong in my perspective, and it's irritating because it always misleads, and the new ones even more so. I get alerts in what appears to be an inbox, and new messages in the alerts section. When I'm on another wiki, I always need to think about it when my bell lights up. Can these please be switched, or provide an option to switch them in echo?—cyberpowerChat:Limited Access 19:20, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What are you seeing in each section, and what do you think should be in each section? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:05, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well the right one, the resembling an inbox, should be for messages and mentions, while the left, the bell, for alerts like thanks, page links, etc... In other words exactly flipped around.—cyberpowerChat:Limited Access 21:11, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Cyberpower678: The sorting was reorganized a while ago using the criteria of "urgency" - bucketed into Alerts and Notices - because editors want a clearer insight into whether they need to distract themselves from their current task. I.e. Notification types that we are more likely to want to see immediately, are in the Alerts section now. The background and research is at phab:T123018 and m:Research:Notifications user survey. The clearest overview is mw:Help:Notifications/Notifications types. The new tray icon isn't perfect for making this intuitive, but no better alternatives could be found (phab:T135114). Hopefully this explanation and a little bit of time, brings familiarity and clarity. :-) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:25, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Echo bell icon glitch

My echo icon, or one of them, has an odd glitch. On all pages apart from prefs it has a light grey (#b0b0b0) rectangle over its upper half. Just the left most bell icon. It’s half the icon’s height, wider so I presume as wide as its clickable area. It disappears as I mouse over the icon. It also disappears on my Preferences and Beta pages, but is visible everywhere else (and I tried a wide variety of pages). I have no outstanding notifications, have had since the new icons appeared.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 20:14, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can you see if it is in the same location regardless of your window size? — xaosflux Talk 20:16, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If I narrow the window enough that line (user icon ... Log out) smoothly wraps onto two lines, but the grey rectangle stays attached to the icon throughout.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 20:19, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, my own darn fault. fixed.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 20:28, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Notification icons

My notification icons

Are the new notification icons supposed to look like this? If not, is there anything I can do about it? Tevildo (talk) 20:21, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Tevildo: This alignment is a bug with some versions of IE, when using monobook. See phab:T142053 for details. It should be fixed by next Thursday (following the standard deployment schedule). Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:47, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the information - it's not a serious problem. Looking forward to the fix, though. Tevildo (talk) 22:14, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Quiddity (WMF): Here's what I have. This is with Firefox browser, MonoBook skin. The figures are so tiny they're unreadable, and the contrast (black on colour) is poor too - I can only just make out that there's a character there, which I'm guessing is a figure. When we first got the icons, the contrast was good, as it used white figures on a dark-coloured background, and the figures were large compared to the links at either side - I think they were boldfaced too. I could fix this by working out the CSS rules (yet again) that would make it readable for me, but I shouldn't need to. This is an accessibility issue. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:33, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Filed as phab:T142149. Thank you for the screenshot and report :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:49, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much! Since I use IE with Monobook, I came here to ask about the situation, not because of what's mentioned here, but because the icons are overlapping the "watch" tab; it's still possible to click it, but it takes a good deal more concentration (annoying), and things shouldn't generally overlap each other (bad design). Nyttend (talk) 01:00, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Nyttend: That one is filed as phab:T141942. Skins! I love 'em, regardless of the complexities they cause. (Which pale in comparison with browser quirks...) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 01:04, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gadget filling {{tracked}} templates not working

Resolved

In preferences, I have "Enable tracking bugs on Phabricator using the {{tracked}} template" checked, but it's not doing anything. Just creating a generic template. JS problem?—cyberpowerChat:Limited Access 19:31, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In my error log I’m seeing the following on loading this page:
[Error] Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 (HTTP/2.0 500) (queryTasks, line 0) https://tools.wmflabs.org/phabricator-bug-status/queryTasks?callback=jQuery1113009742425801232457_1470344754910&ids=%5B141687%2C141506%5D&_=1470344754911
Don’t know if it is related.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 21:08, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've asked the service owner to restart it on labs. (per old notes at MediaWiki_talk:Gadget-BugStatusUpdate.js#Not_working). Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:56, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox bug or just me?

Suddenly I cannot edit using Mozilla Firefox. All was well earlier today. When editing a talk page, all starts off well but after a few lines of typing the edited page goes blank (all coding disappears) and if I save it, I wind up saving a blank page. All was fine at 11:52 PDT, but by 12:46 PDT I could no longer edit. Did some coding change happen at noon PDT? I'm using Chrome to make this edit. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:42, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can make this edit from Firefox. Monobook, if that matters. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 20:45, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This sounds a little like something that happened to me earlier. On trying to add a new section with my notification icon problem above I found I could edit the title but not the content, i.e. this box where you write your content. Whether clicking on it or tabbing to it it behaved as if it were non-editable, non-selectable, and stayed blank. Reloading the page fixed it, and it has not happened since. Safari 9.1.2 here.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 21:05, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It was still dead for me after updating firefox from 42.0 to 43.01. But I have now gone to my wiki preferences and reset them to default. It's working now. One of those preferences must have a bug. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:09, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I re-added back what I believe was all my gadgets and back to monobook. It appears to still be working. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:13, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am having this problem in Chrome and Edge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kvng (talk • contribs) 23:26, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
me too, firefox and IE - had to enable wikiEd to make this edit. --ℕ ℱ 01:06, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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