Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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

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Section B

Text paragraph.

|} </source> this is rendered as the following HTML5 structure

<div style="margin-left:0px">
  <table id="collapsibleTable0" class="navbox collapsible collapsed" style="background: transparent; text-align: left; border: 1px solid silver; margin-top: 0.2em;">
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <th style="background: #CFC; text-align:center; font-size:112%; color: black;">
          <span class="collapseButton">[<a href="#" id="collapseButton0" style="color: black;">show</a>]</span>Extended content
        </th>
      </tr>
      <tr style="display: none;">
        <td style="border: solid 1px silver; padding: 8px; background: white; font-size:112%;">
          <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Section_A">Section A</span></h2>
          <p>Text paragraph.</p>
          <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Section_B">Section B</span></h2>
          <p>Text paragraph.</p>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>
</div>

Looking specifically at the paragraph headed "Section A", the element with the anchor relating to that is the <span class="mw-headline" id="Section_A">Section A</span>. The next element out is the <h2>...</h2> which encloses it. The next element out from that is the <td style="border: solid 1px silver; padding: 8px; background: white; font-size:112%;">...</td> and the next one out from that is the <tr style="display: none;">...</tr> That is the one which is fiddled by the JavaScript, to add or remove the display: none;. When that is present, this <tr>...</tr> element is absent from the document, so any HTML markup, and thus any anchors, which it encloses are also absent from the document. We might consider shifting the id="Section_A", and therefore the anchor, to some point that is not within that <tr>...</tr> element, and thus make it somewhere that can be reached by clicking a link, like those in the TOC. It could go on the next element out, which is the <tbody>...</tbody> element. Moving the id="Section_A" attribute might be possible in JavaScript, were it not for the possibility that two or more section headings might be inside that collapsible section (as shown with Section B in my example). You then need to handle two or more anchors, in this case id="Section_A" and id="Section_B"; and an element can have only one id= attribute. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:57, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Isn't the issue of "unable to jump" from one element to another here because the ToC is still based in a HTML table rather an all DIV based scheme mimicking a table?

<div id="wrapper container" style="box-sizing:border-box;">
<div style="display:table; border-collapse:collapse; border-size:0px 0px; empty-cells:hide; width:100%;">
<div style="display:table-row-group; background-color:#E6E6E6;">
<div style="display:table-row;">
<div style="display:table-cell; text-align:right; width:11em;">Left</div>
<div style="display:table-cell; text-align:left; width:3em;">Sec.&nbsp;1.</div>
<div style="display:table-cell; text-align:justify; width:auto;"><!--
	--><span>Jurisdiction is based on diversity of citizenship, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(1). Plaintiff, Florence Simpson, is an individual residing in New Jersey. Defendant, Lifespring, Inc. ("Lifespring") is a California corporation with its principal place of business in California.</span></div>
<div style="display:table-cell; text-align:right; width:3.00em;">pt. I.</div>
<div style="display:table-cell; width:11em;">Right</div>
</div>
<div style="display:table-row;">
<div style="display:table-cell; text-align:right; width:11em;">Left</div>
<div style="display:table-cell; text-align:left; width:3em;">Sec.&nbsp;1.</div>
<div style="display:table-cell; text-align:justify; width:auto;"><!--
	--><span>Defendant John P. Hanley ("Hanley") is a citizen and resident of the State of California. He is President and principal shareholder of Lifespring. Plaintiff alleges that she participated in a group training program conducted by Lifespring in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during April 1981. She contends that she was subjected to psychological manipulation resulting in psychological and emotional injuries.</span></div>
<div style="display:table-cell; text-align:right; width:3.00em;">pt. II.</div>
<div style="display:table-cell; width:11em;">Right</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

Just copy and paste the above to your favorite sandbox, save and you should see an DIV based rendering of a 2 row, 5 column TABLE -- without all that HTML TABLE non-flexibility baggage. And THAT is one of the biggest problems facing Wiki-whatever; the over-use/abuse of the HTML TABLE spec for purposes other than intended. Fortunately modern browsers and OS'es recognize CSS3 and the above implementation -- and good reason for all existing legacy features built using TABLEs (like ToC) to be revisited and possibly redesigned. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:38, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@George Orwell III: there should be no connection between the way the TOC itself is rendered, and the current complaint: the problem here is that the "hidden" element kinda loses its anchors (or rather, the ability to "jump" to these anchors. @Martijn Hoekstra:, @Whatamidoing (WMF):: i believe it should be pretty straightforward (and short, sweet js snippet) to teach the collapsing script to create "alternative anchors" that will live in the header and will "disappear" (either through display:none, or simply by strict removal) when the hidden section is expanded. if i hve some time, i might try to knit a little prototype to do this: since jquery collapsible mechanism triggers events before and after collapsing and expanding, i think good chances something _like_ this could work

JS prototype (untested)

$( 'body' )
.on( '.collapsible', 'beforeCollapse.mw-collapsible', function() {
    $collapsible = $( this );
    var fauxes = [];
    $collapsible.data( 'fauxes', fauxes );
    $collapsible.find( 'h1, h2, h3, h4' ).each( function( index, item ) {
        var id = this.id; 
        if ( id ) { // don't bother with id-less headers.
            var $faux = $( '<div>', { id : id } ); // create faux div with the same id as the "h" about to be hidden
            fauxes.push( $faux ) // remember it, so we can zap it before expanding
            $collapsible.prepend( $faux ); // prepend the faux anchor to the collapsible element
        }
    });
})
.on('.collapsible', 'beforeExpand.mw-collapsible', function() {
    var fauxes = $( this ).data( 'fauxes' );
    if ( fauxes )
        for ( var faux in fauxes )
           fauxes[faux].remove(); 
});

this is 100% purely untested code - it might not even compile. it is meant as illustration for a simple mechanism to allow collapsible elements to provide "alternative anchors" when they are in collapsed state.

peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 23:58, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Another idea would be to uncollapse any sections that the targeted header is inside of, probably on the hashchange event. That would probably be more what the user is expecting. Anomie⚔ 00:02, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

hmmmm... @Anomie:: something like

$('.toclevel-1 a, .toclevel-2 a, .toclevel-3 a' ).click( function() { $( this.href ).parents( '.collapsible' ).trigger( 'expand' ) } );

i must admit it's more elegant than my "faux anchor" solution, and is probably exactly what the reader really wants... peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 00:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I concur. (not a hi-jack but...) Any of you scripting experts care to take a stab at my pitiful plea made earlier today and now somewhere down below? -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

took another stab at it. it is actually quite tricky when the section name contains non-ascii chars, b/c mw replaces it with ".xx.xx" (where xx are the hex for the bytes in the UTF representation), and the periods in the ID confuse the hell out of jquery (or rather, confused the hell out of the js programmer...). in any event, the following seems to be working:

$(function() {
	$('.toclevel-1 a, .toclevel-2 a, .toclevel-3 a, .toclevel-4 a')
		.click( function() { 
			var id = $( this ).attr( 'href' ).replace( /([ :|.()[=*\]])/g, '\\$1' ); 
			$( id ).parents( '.mw-collapsible.collapsed, .collapsible.collapsed' )
			.find( '.mw-collapsible-toggle-collapsed a, .collapsible-toggle-collapsed a, .collapseButton a' )
			.trigger( 'click' );
		});
});

what this code supposed to do is to expand the collapsible containing the section clicked in the TOC. i'd love to hear from anyone who tried it, especially if it didn't work: if it fails on some page on enwiki, i'll appreciate it if you can post a link to the page. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Template access to Preferences:Appearance:Offset (or local time generated from it)?

I'm doing a template that will show today in both the Western Calendar and the Hebrew Calendar. What I would like to have access to is the Preferences Appearances:Offset value (or something related) in order for the template to change what day it displays for the Western Calendar at Midnight based on the user preferences for offset (and the Hebrew date to change at 6PM). Is the information as to what the user has as their Offset value available to templates? (Asked on Help Desk, the suggestion was to post here)Naraht (talk) 13:53, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

That is not possible, as it would either show a version of the page cached with someone else's timezone preference or would fragment the caches. To do something like this, you'd have to have some sort of JavaScript (in common.js or a gadget) that would add in the user-specific date on the client side. Anomie⚔ 17:32, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I guess that makes sense, everything that the offset affects are pages where they have to be calculated each time in areas like special. However it is possible to have templates that include the date and time, so this would cause a more rapid flush of the cache, correct?Naraht (talk) 15:20, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, they do to an extent. Also the times displayed by such templates may well be out of date. Anomie⚔ 11:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Anomie: And to the extreme, they can include time. Can this cause the cache to empty every second? (I'm curious as to whether there are things in pages that would force the cache to be emptied quicker) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naraht (talk • contribs) 18:47, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

No, there is a minimum. Offhand I think it's one day, but I don't recall for certain and I'm not feeling like looking it up at the moment ;) Anomie⚔ 04:14, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Having problem with SFN template.

Hi, I hope this is the correct place to ask this. I have never had problems using this template, however I have ran into trouble with the following one. Can anyone advise what the issue is and how to get it to work? Thanks.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 04:51, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• Boyer, Paul S.; Clark, Clifford E.; Hawley, Sandra; Kett, Joseph F.; Rieser, Andrew (2009). From 1865. The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People. Vol. 2. Boston MA: Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-547-22278-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)

@EnigmaMcmxc: Yes, this is the right place. You need to leave "Rieser" out of the sfn template, as it doesn't support adding more than four authors. (That's why it says "Boyer et al. Rieser" instead of "Boyer et al. 2009".) If you use the code {{sfn|Boyer|Clark|Hawley|Kett|2009|p=526}} then it should work. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:23, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much!EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 00:11, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

New menu

Where can I find a discussion of the new menu? And it may have settled down, but I've been getting some pages with the old configuration and some with the new. Dougweller (talk) 10:45, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Dougweller: what do you mean by "the new menu"? What page(s) does it show on, what does it look like, how does it differ from "the old configuration"? --Redrose64 (talk) 13:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

When I look at a talk page the menu at the top that I see says Read Edit + View history More ▼ Page ▼ User TW - "View history" used to be the Page dropdown menu, which now has new analysis tools and a set of tools for copyvio detection, checking external links and checking dab links. Some pretty major addtions which look great, but I don't recall them being announced. Dougweller (talk) 13:38, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Do you have Preferences → Appearance → Add Page and User dropdown menus to the toolbar with links to common tasks, analytic tools and logs enabled? There were some recent changes to MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition but this option has been available for a while. --  Gadget850 ^talk 14:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah, not a menu but the tabs on Vector skin. Since I use MonoBook, I see no changes. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I've had that enabled for yonks, so it has something to do with recent changes, perhaps by User:MusikAnimal. Dougweller (talk) 14:59, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Dougweller: Indeed, we pushed out a long overdue vectorized update to the "dropdown menus" gadget. The relevant discussions are here and here. A link to those was also dropped at WP:VPR.

There are some big differences from the old menus (see documentation). Admittedly moving View History back as a tab (as it is natively) was my bold doing. I figure, along with "Edit", these are buttons we hit so much we wouldn't want it nested in the menu. I think you'll get used to it and prefer it, but that's up for debate, though! We can easily move it back to it's old place. Note also when the browser window is so small that the View History tab would not be visible, it is in that case placed under the Page menu. Are there any other concerns you have? This is a big update so it's without surprise we'll have some feedback, good and bad. Thanks (PS – please ping me when on this page) — MusikAnimal ^talk 15:47, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

User:MusikAnimal, I really like the history tab being on its own so I can open it with just one click. And now that I can find the documentation I'm very pleased. I like the new tools (although at least one gave me a 408 - is wmflabs ever going to work properly? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 16:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• User preferences can be offered as well if some people would prefer that the view history was always nested in the menu. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 16:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Example of wmflabs problem: [1] Dougweller (talk) 16:37, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Bug found in new menu usage

I went to The Simpsons (season 7) and selected Page -> Analysis -> Analysis - Wikichecker. The Wikichecker received the name of the article with the Parentheses turned into %28 and %29, which Wikichecker did not turn back into ( and ) and so it didn't run on it. When I changed the value in the Wikichecker input box to ( and ) it ran fine. Having the drop down fail on any page with ( or ) seems a really big flaw.Naraht (talk) 16:47, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Another one. My talk page, and others, now show Read Edit + View history Unwatch More TW - none of the tools I saw an hour or so ago. Dougweller (talk) 17:04, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Dougweller: I can fix the wikichecker issue. It sucks because some tools like it encoded in different ways, guess I missed this one. If the Page and User dropdowns recently disappeared it's because we just added ResourceLoader back to the core script. It may take a few hours for it to return. We can restart xtools as needed but for now there's bound to be regular outages. T13 is working on a permanent fix. — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Ping Naraht as well. — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Try bypassing your cache (in Chrome: CTRL-F5). -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 17:24, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks all, bypassing the cache fixed the menu problem and I can wait for wikichecker. But while I'm here, [[User:MusikAnimal, what I and others really need is xtools, eg the ability to check range contributions. Why are they so problematic? Dougweller (talk) 17:44, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The problem is the service is so popular yet lives on a shared instance on tool labs. On top of that, there's memory leaks. So it's slow to begin with (presumably due to traffic), then eventually locks up after so much usage. A restart always temporarily fixes it, which I, T13 and Cyberpower678 do regularly. T13 is working on the memory leak issue, and once that's resolved I believe they'll be moving xtools to it's own dedicated instance where it can have more dedicated resources and performance will be improved. — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:49, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

User:MusikAnimal - thanks, that's very reassuring. Dougweller (talk) 17:51, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Dougweller: I can also add a link to tools.wmflabs.org/rangecontrib, an alternative tool for range contribs. Does that one work well? — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:53, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

[[User:MusikAnimal ouch, that's the one I was thinking of and have had problems with, but it seems ok today. Dougweller (talk) 17:56, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

No it isn't. I got it to work once for 71.127.128.0/21 which needs blocking as it is Til Eulenspiegel socking, but then when I tried 2 other ranges he uses, 71.127.132.0/22 and 71.246.144.0/20, no luck. Dougweller (talk) 18:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Range is blocked. Dougweller (talk) 19:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Spelling in search - broken record?

I go to wikipedia first for a factual/reference question and too often, I get the confused look on wikipedia's face. It happened again this morning with "X-ray Phase Contrast Tomography". While that did produce the same quote about scanning the same scrolls and a few other links, it did not show this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-contrast_X-ray_imaging - I went to the article about Phase-contrast imaging and under X-Ray, it said Main article: Phase-contrast X-ray imaging.

Of course, for those who use google as in index to wikipedia, this is not a problem.

So, here is my question, does anyone look at the search failures to see if there are common mistakes or easy algorithms that can be applied? If not, are they easy to get, just in case I have some spare time this weekend?

BTW, I added a redirect from "X-ray Phase Contrast Tomography" to Phase-contrast_X-ray_imaging. I spose I should add a link from the quote in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_papyri

Bodysurfinyon (talk) 18:23, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think so. From what I've heard, the terms that people search for are not kept at all (not even temporarily or anonymously). When editors happen to find issues like that, they create WP:Redirects to solve the problem (just like you did), but there's no systematic way to find out what people are searching for, much less where they ended up.

User:^demon or User:NEverett (WMF) might be able to tell us more about how the search tool is expected to work in this sort of situation. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:32, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Whatamidoing (WMF). Regarding "the terms that people search for are not kept at all (not even temporarily or anonymously)", the WMF:Privacy Policy states that the WMF "may use cookies to learn about the topics searched so that we can optimize the search results we deliver to you." Surprisingly, that's all it says about privacy related to search. I'd like to see the Policy explicitly state how search information is stored and precisely how it's used. Ideally it is not stored or used at all in any way that connects to users. This lack of specifics regarding search in the Privacy Policy seems like something that requires more discussion. The search box should have "no memory" at all. The best way, I think, to view the search box is as a librarian whom you are asking for help, and I expect some confidentiality with a librarian. It'd be interesting to review some different code of ethics for various librarian organizations like the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions to how well the idea of treating the search box as a "librarian" could/should be taken. I believe that librarians make some exceptions to confidentiality under some circumstances but I don't know if we should. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:01, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Even though the privacy policy may permit it, the last time I heard anything about it, nobody was actually doing it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:52, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for all of your responses. I certainly don't want to associate the failed searches (or any searches) with anyone. I just want the searches got more hits. Bodysurfinyon (talk) 21:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

downloading complete revision histories for >10K pages

I am a researcher and would let to download complete revision histories for about 10,000 musicians because revision frequency is an indicator of popularity. I have a list of artists but do not know how I can download the quantity of data in an automated fashion. Could someone point me in the right direction? I should mention that I'm not a programmer or technical person. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicholashays (talk • contribs) 19:52, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

See WP:DUMP. Sorry I cant give longer answer, but I'm on a tablet. - X201 (talk) 21:49, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

You can also sign up for Labs access so that you can perform the database queries on the Labs servers without downloading the entire dumps yourself. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 22:36, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Or you can export the relevant articles with their revision histories (that's mentioned in the link above about dumps, but I thought I'd clarify it here). Graham87 10:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Special Export is limited to 1000 revisions. The user wanted the full revision history of each article.- X201 (talk) 11:39, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know about the revision limit! Never mind me, then. Graham87 10:31, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

"Your edit was saved" notifications

Hello! When a page is edited and the changes are saved, but a browser tab is closed before updated version of the page is fully loaded, the "your edit was saved" popup-style notification is displayed the next time that page is freshly loaded in another tab. The update information is probably stored within the session, so it's propagated and used the first time the page is loaded, no matter whether that's immediately after the edit was saved or at some later point in time. Such behavior could be confusing, so it might be worth fixing. Thoughts? — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 07:45, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Don't remove the feature completely if possible, with my often lousy connections it's no nonsense. –Be..anyone (talk) 11:55, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

It's been doing that ever since the feature was first added. It was mentioned on this page at the time, by myself amongst others. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:03, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

My thought has always been....

/* Hide popup "Your edit has been saved." */
.postedit {
	display: none !important;
}

... can't say that it prevents the behavior but not seeing it all -- either way -- is just as good when comes to avoiding possible confusion. -- George Orwell III (talk) 13:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Judging by previous posts on this matter, e.g. Small new feature coming on Thursday; Pop-up box when edit saved; WP page editor changes; Question; Pop-up (and pop-down...), you don't actually need that !important --Redrose64 (talk) 14:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

On a related pop up note, what's the code to stop the messages about "this page has been added/removed from your watchlist"? Nthep (talk) 15:17, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

• Nthep, it seems to be .mw-notification-tag-watch-self. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 15:46, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion, perhaps I haven't explained it clearly enough. I'm not complaining against this notification, in fact I love it. :) What I'm complaining about is a possible bug in its implementation, as I've described it; in a few words, this notification is displayed on pages that weren't edited immediately before. Makes more sense? Please let me know if it's still confusing and I'll try to explain it better. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 15:58, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I understood when I made my first post above. There are Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 105#Small new feature coming on Thursday and Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 104#"Your edit was saved" problem - yes, I saw the above discussion where Steven (WMF) (talk · contribs) commented on fixes for that. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:50, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, and sorry if I was overexplaining it. Went through both discussions, and all bugs mentioned there are either already fixed or different from what I've described. That makes me think a revisit might be a good thing. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 17:02, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

A diff without markup?

Is it possible to generate a diff without markup - just the text and references as they appear on the public-facing page? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand what you want. Can you clarify? PrimeHunter (talk) 20:58, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I think Anthony means a diff using rendered page content rather than a diff of the source wikitext. I don't think there currently exists code to do it, but it's presumably possible. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 21:05, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

You mean the diff page showing the rendered text of both the old and new version? I don't know a way to do that. If the goal is a side-by-side diff with rendered text pieces to the left and right when the source differs then there would be a lot of complications and it would probably often be impossible to produce a meaningful result. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:13, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

It seems like it'd be fairly simple for prose, but HTML, templates, and tables—especially in combination or when nested—would complicate things. You'd want to expand the scope of the quoted portion of the diff to include the entirety (opening to closing syntax) of those elements, which would probably require analysis of the rendered HTML and be prone to breaking. It might be worth some experimentation, though. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 22:00, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

There was some talk about a different diff-viewing approach last year. I'm pretty sure that the information is in my other brain. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Expert-reviewed versions of en.Wikipedia articles are starting to emerge, and I'd like readers to see something they can understand when comparing that version and the current one, WhatamIdoing's other brain. Unlike this "diff". Is there a solution? User:Eloquence, User:Magnus Manske, does this interest either of you? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:30, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I think it is called "inline diffs". -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:33, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

• OHH!! I think I know what the OP is asking for now! This wouldn't be overly complicated to offer as a userscript or gadget. The API actually will return rendered version of the page. The only tricky part might be deciding how to highlight the differences if difference highlighting is requested. The reason this might be tricky is I'm unsure how things like images or parts of tables would be highlighted. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 13:20, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Technical 13, I think a user script or gadget would need to be installed by the reader before they could use it wouldn't it? If that's the case, it wouldn't really do. I'd like all readers to be able to access a simple diff with one click, not just those with an account who have installed a script or gadget. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:40, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Anthonyhcole, typically yes although it could be set up as a default gadget after being tested and vetted. The problem is in the way that they store the diffs in the database, few past the current one are cached in a rendered state so the API returns "not cached". I just found this out with a little testing. Sorry if I got your hopes up more than that. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 14:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• No worries. Thanks for looking into it, anyway, Technical 13. Much appreciated. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Creating a link parameter

Piggybacking on this question: We have been trying to create a template for a successful expert certification or peer review on an article. The template can be seen at User:Konveyor Belt/sandbox and a transclusion test at User:Konveyor Belt/sandbox2. When entering the parameter for a link at sandbox2, it does not convert it into a link properly as seen there. What would I have to do to make it work? KonveyorBelt 19:32, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Your broken example says {{User:Konveyor Belt/sandbox|google.co|bing.com}}. It's unclear from that how you intend the parameters to work but if you use external link syntax like now then you need http:// or https:// or // to make the link work. See Help:Link#External links. If it isn't added by User:Konveyor Belt/sandbox then it must be included by the caller. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:08, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Off topic!

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T87396

A disruptive editor has moved Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple to Topic:Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple. Someone please move it back! — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 21:46, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Tried manually using Special:MovePage/Topic:Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple, but got the following error: "You do not have permission to move this page, for the following reason: Moving a discussion board is currently not supported." Since it seems admins can't revert moves like this, I've boldly created filter 658 to disallow any other moves like it. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 22:22, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I've reported this in Phabricator at phab:T87396. This needs to be fixed ASAP - could someone let Ops know on IRC? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Most of Ops is supposed to be dutifully paying attention in a meeting right now. I'll send e-mail to the team in the hope of distracting one of them, but if you found someone else, please post here. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

• There is a wikibugs feed in the -dev channel that some of the "ops" watch. Also, it's not critically important because no-one can move Main page ⇒ Topic:Main page. (Please, don't try...) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 00:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

• IMO <option value="2600">Topic</option> should not be a selectable option in the wpNewTitleNs dropdown on Special:MovePage, especially since it is not revertable. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 00:34, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
  • If it is a big concern or becomes an issue, it wouldn't be hard to eliminate that option from the menu with JavaScript in MediaWiki:Common.js. if ( mw.config.get( 'wgCanonicalNamespace' ) === "Special" && mw.config.get( 'wgCanonicalSpecialPageName' ) === "Movepage" ) { $( '#wpNewTitleNs option[value=2600]' ).remove(); }. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 00:50, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The Flow devs are looking into it. Thanks, Nihiltres, for the quick bandage solution. --Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

• The history of Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple has now returned to its rightful place, so I've deleted it again per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple. Thanks for the quick response! — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

  @Mr. Stradivarius: The article was actually up for 2nd AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple (2nd nomination) (this first was speedy'd as author requested). It appears the all the 22 January revisions are still at Topic:Kuttiattoor Thittayil Sree Daivathar Temple, so I don't think we're done here yet... :/ — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:09, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

  Oops, sorry about that... — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

  Not all of the history was in the right place, unfortunately. We're working on repairing this, so please don't anyone else work on this for now. I've undeleted the topic page temporarily. We'll move it into the main namespace, then re-delete it. The goal is to get it into the state of a normal deleted article, so it can be handled with normal processes e.g. if someone files a Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion or whatever, and all attribution is in the normal place for a deleted page. Mattflaschen (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

  This is done. Mattflaschen (WMF) (talk) 01:09, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Generating a numbered list of Wikipedia's medical articles

I want to take a random sample of 300 (1%) from our 30,000-odd medical articles (listed here). I think the most objective way to do that would be to generate 300 random numbers between 1 and 30,000 (here), and pick those numbers off a numbered list of our medical articles. Can anyone here generate a numbered list of those 30,000 articles for me? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:41, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@Anthonyhcole: See [2]. The 300 articles in the result are randomly selected (For another set, run the query again). Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 08:03, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Yay! Thank you Zhaofeng Li. I am truly very grateful. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:08, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Zhaofeng Li, could I ask you to run it just one more time, please, this time retrieving 400 random articles? I don't know how to. (A few of those results are biographies, companies, etc. and I'm just looking for diseases, symptoms and treatments.) Never mind. I worked it out. Thanks again. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:28, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

There is some sort of a bug, in this page. As you can see, in the first line, it looks like there is no space between the words "the" and "Crown", although there is a space between them in code. Even if you add as many spaces as you can think and then press preview, the words remain conjoined. Moreover, this bug exists in previews versions of the page, at the exact same place but with different words.--85.74.124.232 (talk) 08:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see a problem in any of the recent versions in Firefox 35 on Windows Vista. Maybe your browser has problems handling lines with Arabic text. Did it help that an editor used {{lang-ar}} in the current version? Before without {{lang-ar}}:

Muqrin bin Abdulaziz (مقرن بن عبدالعزيز آل سعود) (born 15 September 1945) is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

Now with {{lang-ar}}:

Muqrin bin Abdulaziz (Arabic: مقرن بن عبدالعزيز آل سعود; born 15 September 1945) is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

PrimeHunter (talk) 11:51, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes. It has been solved.--85.74.124.232 (talk) 13:09, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Banner ad with non-obvious "hide" button

There's a CentralNotice-type banner advert up at the moment, which has this background image, and linked text "Help choose the best image of the year. View the candidates and vote for your favorite." which I couldn't hide at first, because it doesn't have an obvious "hide"/"dismiss" link/button at upper right. Eventually I found two: one is in the usual place, to the right of the "Image credit (2007 winner)" link but is not at all visible because this image doesn't exist, so it falls back on the alt text "Close" in the default colour for unvisited links - which would be OK were it not that the effect is of blue text on a blue background. The other is very tiny, and in a non-obvious place - the × symbol halfway across the screen, below the banner's background image and above the link "Round 1 of the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year competition ends January 31. Click here to learn more about the contest and vote for your favorite image." Does anybody know where I should complain about this? I got as far as m:Special:CentralNotice, but I can't work out which notice it is, nor where to discuss it. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:19, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Awesome tip, thank you! It's so much better not to have it eating vertical space. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 13:22, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Redrose64, found it at this config page. From the code inserted when "Insert close button" is clicked, it looks like whoever created the banner forgot to click it, as it depends on this image instead of the broken one.

We can ping anybody listed at m:Special:CentralNoticeLogs with "POTY_2014_R1" (the code name of this campaign) listed under the "Campaign" column. I'll go ahead and ask m:User talk:Beria, as he or she was the last admin to edit the banner. APerson (talk!) 15:56, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah, POTY_2014_R1 - right at the top of the list. I passed over that one, because it's now 2015 and I assumed that the notices were listed oldest first. However, it also doesn't have any immediately-obvious discussion page. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:24, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

It should probably be Closewindow.svg and someone screwed up, but I threw together a quick PNG that will do in the meantime. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 18:12, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

By the way, can I just say that that Image credit is rather shameful? Instead of actually giving credit to, say, User:Newton2 who took the photo, it just states the image was the 2007 winner. That's not what image credit is. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 18:14, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

It's a wiki, you can edit it. I've added a FYI on c:Commons_talk:Picture_of_the_Year/2014#banner_spam. –Be..anyone (talk) 03:49, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

@Be..anyone: The file description page is easily editable, yes; but I believe that since Adam Cuerden said "the image was the 2007 winner", this is the "Image credit (2007 winner)" link, which is part of the white text in the banner. I cannot edit it, because I don't know where or how to do so. I strongly suspect that it's only editable by those with appropriate rights, otherwise we would see a lot of banner vandalism - but I've never seen any. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:06, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. This may be a wiki, but I'm not a global sysadmin. I can't edit text on the ad, even if it's shameful behaviour. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:12, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The page on commons isn't protected, I miss a clue what you're talking about. But c:Template:Credit line is tricky, I added it, please fix what's missing. –Be..anyone (talk) 03:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Be..anyone: We're not talking about the page that the link takes you to, we're talking about the text of the link itself, the phrase "Image credit (2007 winner)". This is not in any editable page, so far as we can tell: it's part of the CentralNotice code that is set up on Meta. If it is editable in the normal way, please direct us to it. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

No idea, I block these notices. Looking now, m:Special:CentralNoticeLogs shows the history, and m:Special:CentralNoticeBanners/edit/POTY_2014_R1 is the current text with "Image credit (2007 winner)". That's a link text, the link goes straight to the image page with full credits, attribution, license, etc. Beria (on m: or c:) is one of the POTY committee members, and the POTY help desk on Commons should be also able to arrange required fixes on Meta if you tell them. –Be..anyone (talk) 16:31, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

BTW the × link has been removed, and the blue "Close" link now shows as a cross-in-circle image, so that accessibility issue is sorted. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Interwiki link

Hi, Can someone put in links between The Sea Girl and A Menina do Mar on the Portuguese Wikipedia, Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 15:25, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

•  Done ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 15:38, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Admin assistance needed for overdue DYK sets at Template:Did you know/Queue

The queues are empty at T:DYK/Q, it doesn't seem like someone noticed the bot message. - Anonimski (talk) 19:46, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's an example of the type of things I'm looking for

Throughout your activities on Wikipedia, no doubt you've picked up a useful trick or two that few other people know about.

Here's an example of such a trick:

---

You've just grabbed the page's title to place a link on another page, but now you want to add a section title to it to create a section link, but the copy cache is already full. Instead of making two trips back and forth to the page you wish to add the link to, try this...

...use the search box as a quick-and-dirty edit window:

1. Copy/paste the title into the search box, followed by a "#"
2. Copy/paste the section title after the "#"
3. Enclose in double square brackets and copy/paste the whole string to the page you wish to edit.

The search box is also a handy place to store copy text while you copy/paste something else.

---

Do you use any interesting or useful tricks or little known but cool tools (for navigating, editing, anything to do with using or improving WP)? If so, please tell... The Transhumanist 23:01, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: I would do it this way:

1. Scroll up to the table of contents, and click on the section you wanted
2. Copy the article title and section from the browser's URL
3. Paste the string in the page you wish to edit, and add the double square brackets

Hope this helps! GoingBatty (talk) 00:24, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: Cool, I hadn't thought of that. What other cool tricks do you know? The Transhumanist 00:32, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: You can use CTRL+C and CTRL+V to do the copy and paste. I also have a list of tools I use on my talk page. GoingBatty (talk) 01:37, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: I amended your post - {{button}} is for marking up clickable buttons, keystrokes are marked up with {{keypress}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:40, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: You can also use User:Bility/copySectionLink to generate sections links directly. I've made a prettier version on User:Zhaofeng Li/common.js along with other tools I use. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 14:41, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Speaking of little-known shortcuts, you may have a need to convert a full URL into a wikilink. See User:Js/urldecoder for that. If you have the script installed, you place the cursor at the end of the URL (in your edit window) and click a button. It converts the URL into a proper wikilink, with square brackets and everything. EdJohnston (talk) 18:19, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

You can also use my very own Template:Urltowiki for that if you don't feel like installing a script. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 00:07, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

How do you put comments on your vector.css page?

The Transhumanist 06:30, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

They are done with C-style comments. /* Like this */ —EncMstr (talk) 07:10, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah, just like on the .js page. Thanks! The Transhumanist 08:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Not quite the same - js (and some flavours of C) allow end-of-line comments // like this

but these don't work in CSS. The inline kind /* like this */ can be used anywhere that a space is valid in CSS, besides js (and all flavours of C). --Redrose64 (talk) 12:17, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

TOTD

I'm in the process of updating the WP:TOTD department's tip collection, as some of the tips have gone obsolete. So I'm looking for useful techniques and tools, that is, tips, to replace them with.

Any leads on the latest and greatest wiki-related programs, extensions, plug-ins, scripts, commands, or methods, would be most appreciated.

So far, I've added the following new tips:

• Wikipedia industrial-powered search
• How to make redirects turn green so you can see them

If you spot any errors in them, please let me know. Or edit them directly. Thank you. The Transhumanist 08:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Some 2007 stuff might be seriously obsolete. You can ask Help desk or Teahouse regulars what new users would want to see, if they add the TotD-template to their page. Some tricks for the Visual Editor (I don't use it and therefore can't judge it) or the Media Viewer, maybe, because that certainly didn't exist eight years ago. New ways to archive talk pages could be interesting. Or something about user boxes, #babel:-extension, and scribunto. How to get Tech News or Signpost, what's a Village Pump, where are the real help pages, the works. –Be..anyone (talk) 10:21, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, some things to do with VisualEditor might be nice. It is very useful for basic to intermediate editing, and especially for editing tables. However, any tips relating to VE would have to include information about turning it on, and would also need to be updated in the future when VisualEditor becomes available by default for all users. — This, that and the other (talk) 11:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Template:Discreet abbreviation

This doesn't appear to be functioning as advertized – can someone confirm and, if so, use their powers to fix..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 11:22, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

It has never omitted the dots at the English Wikipedia. The template code was copied from the French Wikipedia but they define the abbr class without dots in fr:MediaWiki:Common.css. It may be controversial to do that here. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:39, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

It was controversial when created, see Category talk:Wikipedia formatting and function templates#New template requested — Discreet abbreviation - IIRC there was discussion elsewhere too. Is there any reason why {{abbr}} is unsuitable? --Redrose64 (talk) 12:23, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

RSS feeds for Edit Filters?

I've recently taken an interest in edit filters and feel like having the option of an RSS feed for the log of any given filter is a feature which could be very useful. For example, a filter set up to catch a vandal who often acts very quickly making dozens of subtle vandalism edits would be enormously more useful if I received a notification when the filter was tripped; I could stop them instantly rather than a few hours later when I happen to check the log. That might not be the best example because such a filter can be reported automatically to AIV using Mr.Z-bot, but I think the feature could be useful regardless. Is this something which can be enabled here or would it need a software change of some kind? Sam Walton (talk) 11:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Opt-in for removal of "patrolled" notifications

There are many who create a lot of articles. I browse through the PERM pages to evaluate requests and place a {{nao}} if required, but I have observed one thing common to many (including myself): Most don't like to get notifications for their pages being patrolled. A lot openly declare it while requesting for autopatrolled while others express it through other means. I am a coder as well, so from the technical perspective it's possible, and I thought of creating a script; but there's a problem. To begin with, I do not know the code architecture from top to bottom- and thus I do not know what triggers the notification when a user clicks "patrol". Secondly, it has to cater to a lot of users and thus it being a MediaWiki gadget is a much better idea, than people pasting importScript("..."); into their scripts page. Thirdly, I personally prefer client-side operations, and thus JS is the language for me. So if anyone thinks about implementing the idea here, I think it's worth a go. The only thing to make sure is that it should be optional: if the user wants, he enables it, else it's just not there and he gets those patrolled notifications. Ethically^Yours! 13:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

• Preferences → Notifications → Notify me about these events → Page review for both web and email and you'll never get another notification that your page was patrolled. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 16:52, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I am working on an article

about the muralist Ethel Edwards and have discovered that some helpful person has already linked her name to the article about her husband, Xavier Gonzalez. I believe that their wedding vows were 'till death do us part", so since they are both deceased, can someone let me know (or just do it) how to make this separation so that Ethel can have her own article? thanks, Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 15:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Redirect#How to edit a redirect or convert it into an article. The page history has a stub [3]. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks PrimeHunter, looks like a fun time ahead. Perhaps I'll do my laundry first. Carptrash (talk) 15:54, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I can get as far as "To do this, go to the redirect page by clicking the redirect note on the target page, " and then peter out. Namely, where do I find this " redirect note on the target page,"? Presumably somewhere on Xavier Gonzalez, but where? Carptrash (talk) 16:23, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

@Carptrash: When you click on Ethel Edwards, you're automatically taken to the Xavier Gonzalez article. Right above "Xavier Gonzalez (1898 – 1993) was a..." is text that says "(Redirected from Ethel Edwards)" Click there to get to the redirect page. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 16:29, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

life is sweet. Now off to the Duffeeland Dog Park Club exec committee session. then back to this business. Thanks Gone Batty Carptrash (talk) 16:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I broke a talk page

Good friends, I've broken the wiki. It did not seem very complicated at the time but when I turned a redirect into a real article at Garfield Park Conservatory its talk page is to the old redirect article talk page and not to the proper article. Help please and mea culpa. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

You can just edit the talk page redirect in the same way as the mainpage redirect: Click Talk:Garfield Park Conservatory, click "(Redirected from Talk:Garfield Park Conservatory)" at the top, click the "Edit" tab, remove the redirect code. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:49, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah, yes. Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:57, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

ABC no longer showing as disambiguation page

Any idea why ABC is no longer showing up as a disambiguation page in tools such as WPCleaner and Dab Solver? The page still has the {{disambiguation}} template, and the page hasn't changed since October. Some examples of articles where I would expect ABC to be reported as an ambiguous link are Firelight (2012 film) and MetLife Building. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 21:21, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

There's a bug (which I can't find the number of at the moment) where the links tables somehow-or-other don't get updated, which seems like it might be triggered by ClueBot reverting very quickly. It should be working now, after a null edit. Anomie⚔ 22:58, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Compact Personal Toolbar beta removed

This is notification that Jared Zimmerman has now removed the beta feature Compact Personal Bar which reduced the top menu items to a dropdown menu and simple icons for the watchlist and notifications. I'd even forgotten this was a beta feature so very sad to see it go. It was the first time I'd seen a design move away from a text-heavy interface, one of the—if not the most—important factors in Wikipedia's look being off-putting to readers and those we should be encouraging to edit. Hopefully this is just a prelude to the introduction of the Winter/Fixed Site Header feature (which uses a similar system), but I don't see why it isn't available as a gadget for those people happy to keep using the toolbar before that is released. SFB 22:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

It requires some server-side code, so a gadget is not possible. Personally, I found the design pretty horrid, with it's non-descriptive icons, which jumped all over the place when scrolling, so nothing had a fixed spot. Imagine a car where the accelerator and brakes moved around depending on which way you steered... I do hope that Winter is more intuitive and not too afraid of text. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 22:37, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

@Sillyfolkboy and Edokter: Well, since the extension, VectorBeta, is still loaded, you can activate it with an one-liner in vector.js: mw.loader.load("skins.vector.compactPersonalBar"); There is a discussion on undeploying the extension from WMF wikis. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Edokter: I feel that the Winter prototype strikes the image-to-text balance in the interface very well. I understood the setup within a minute. I think this is the first technical change for Wikipedia that I've actually been excited about and immediately see value in. If categories and portals are added to the right rail then that will completely transform the way we interact with and use those areas. SFB 00:56, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Contradictory template instructions

Template:Infobox hockey team says, in subsection Subtemplates:

Use {{start date}} for the date on which an organisation was "established", "founded", "opened" or otherwise started, unless that date is before 1583 CE.

and somewhat lower down

Use {{Birth date}} for the "founded" date.

Isn't this a contradiction? Which is right? Not that I expect to use the template myself, but I noticed this while browsing randomly and editing HC All Stars Piemonte.

To discuss this with me, please {{Ping}} me. Thnidu (talk) 23:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

MOVE: I'm putting this item on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey#Contradictory template instructions, which seems more appropriate. To discuss this with me, please {{Ping}} me. --Thnidu (talk) 04:01, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Renaming of User:Zhaofeng Li/Reflinks

Hello, folks! Since the the original Reflinks tool is working again on his own server, User:GoingBatty suggests that we use another name for the new tool on Tool Labs. This makes sense, since it's confusing to have two tools with the same name, and the current name doesn't get the purpose of the tool (expanding bare references) across very well. The localised version of the name in Chinese is 来源扩充 (as in "citation expander") which makes its purpose clear. Any idea for a concise name? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:37, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Zhaofeng Li: Bummer - looks like Wikipedia:Citation expander already exists. GoingBatty (talk) 01:23, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: True, and it's too long anyway. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:31, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Zhaofeng Li: "RefMaker" or "CiteMaker" also seem to be taken. Maybe "CiteExpand"? GoingBatty (talk) 01:38, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps we could have a naming contest on Zhaofeng Li's talk page, or a brainstorming session. I thought of "CiteIt", but that's a commercial product. Could we include all or part of Zhaofeng Li's name, or the English meaning of the characters, in honor of the creator? Any groan-worthy puns, like "AppleCiter"? – Margin1522 (talk) 04:40, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Maybe something like "zLinks", "zLinkRefs" or "zLinkrefs" could fit the bill? With "zLi", any of them would honor the creator. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 08:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Zhaofeng Li, Margin1522, and Dsimic: Agree with the idea of a contest/brainstorming sessiom on Zhaofeng Li's talk page. As of now, I would pick something with "zLi" in it over my previous suggestion. GoingBatty (talk) 13:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

New Help:Internet Explorer information page

This is a note to let people here know that Help:Internet Explorer has been created as a location for FAQs about the Internet Explorer web browser's issues with certain Wikipedia display features. The page was created as a result of a discussion at a citation Module Talk page.

Anyone who cares to expand it, or link to it from relevant locations within WP's other Help pages, is welcome to do so. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

It should be merged or linked to Wikipedia:Browser notes. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:14, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree, there is not enough information to warrant a separate page. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 09:43, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Article assessment links STILL not working

These links have been broken about 50% of the time for the past 6 months or so, it is very frustrating. I refer to the links on this table here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anatomy#Article_assessment_statistics. Is it possible to file a bug report or change the links to a tool that works? Cheers, --Tom (LT) (talk) 04:13, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Day 3 and still not working. Tool is "enwp10". Example link is [4]. --Tom (LT) (talk) 20:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

If you urgently need some lists, Catscan 2 on WMFlabs can provide similar results. Just search for the needed category and check the correct page type in "Namespaces" (usually the talk page). A pre-defined example query for Anatomy templates would be "http://tools.wmflabs.org/catscan2/catscan2.php?categories=Template-Class_Anatomy_articles&ns[11]=1&doit=1" (nowiki here, because of [] characters). You can also search for specific importance levels, listing both class and importance category as selection criterion. Hope that helps a bit, while we wait for the "enwp10" project to recover (can't help with that - not a developer or tools writer). GermanJoe (talk) 00:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@CBM: ^^ (as the only obviously active maintainer listed at https://tools.wmflabs.org/ :-) --Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 01:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I was logged in for other reasons and noticed this message. I am no longer a maintainer. I have requested to have my name removed from the list - I think that a cached version is being shown. I can say that the wp10 project could use one or more additional maintainers, but I cannot do it at this time. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Arabic display issues

The last line of the lead section of Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean isn't displaying correctly (the link is to Zeta Ceti). I think the problem is the Arabic earlier in the line (right-to-left problem?). Anyone know the fix? Thanks Wbm1058 (talk) 04:40, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

It looked OK to me but I've added a {{lang}} template as a good idea anyway and properly marks it as Arabic.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 04:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, that fixed it! {{lang}} is exactly what I was looking for, but I was at a loss as to how to find it. WP:Arabic... didn't give me any clues. Wbm1058 (talk) 05:14, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Vitamin B12 on the mobile site

Drmies asked me, on my talk page, to take a look at strange stuff displaying at Vitamin B12 when viewed on a cell phone. I normally view using the desktop site on my Android smart phone, and the article looked fine that way. But when I switched to mobile, there is a bunch of stuff that looks like gibberish. My hunch is that it is coding for the Simplified molecular-input line-entry system that isn't displaying properly. Can anyone correct this? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:47, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Cullen328: For me, the SMILES gibberish looks the same. The only different is that I have to click the show button on the desktop site to see it, where it's the default view on my phone. GoingBatty (talk) 07:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Cullen328: You could post at Template talk:Infobox drug, and ask if the SMILES and InChI information is supposed to look like that. Personally, I would say that it is. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:00, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Indian Religions: mobile site picture cropping

I don't know what team to talk to about this, but I figured you guys would know. https://www.dropbox.com/s/fqgcmgjmtw38qa5/Screenshot_2015-01-25-13-20-50.png?dl=0

While this is a great shot of the statue, I think that on mobile devices, this is probably not the photo we want to see here. The crop places undue visual emphasis on the statue's genitals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spaceboss (talk • contribs) 18:49, 25 January 2015‎ (UTC)

Is this the Wikipedia app? It seems to center the first image it finds. I've swapped the two top images. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 19:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that was the Wikipedia app. It's good to know how to change the picture it grabs for the header - it looks great now. Spaceboss (talk) 20:32, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Search utterly fails on dashes

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T87548

A search for U.S. Route 75 Alternate (Sapulpa–Beggs, Oklahoma) should be able to find U.S. Route 75 Alternate (Beggs–Sapulpa, Oklahoma). --NE2 20:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Added a phab bug for it. No guarantee I'll be able to get to it quickly but I agree it should certainly work. NEverett (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Arabic font

Does anyone know if something about the way WP displays Arabic has changed recently? For me, it seems to be clashing with the proceeding Latin script, which I'm 100% certain it didn't used to. Formerip (talk) 20:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@FormerIP: Is this the same as #Arabic display issues above? --Redrose64 (talk) 23:19, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

It could be related, but it is happening for me with the lang template already in place. I am seeing the last part of the Arabic (bearing in mind Arabic reads right-to-left) overlaid with the last past of the preceding Latin. I also *think* the font looks different overall. I was wondering whether maybe someone who has access has been playing around, which might explain it. Formerip (talk) 23:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Search Reverts

Is there a way to contributions search an editor's history of "undo" reverts?

If not, is there any possibility of implementing a tag, or preferably and easier a checkbox, that would filter the contribution list to show all the "undo" reverts implemented by an editor?

It appears that "tags" has "Rapid reverts" as an option, but when I put the option in the tags field, it doesn't work for registered editors (as indicated by the description "Non-autoconfirmed user rapidly reverting edits") –GodBlessYou2 (talk) 21:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

You can use the "Edit summary search" tool at the bottom of their contribs page, and search for "undid" or "reverted". There's really not a better way to do it, since revisions don't contain any other indication of whether or not they're a revert. Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. That's very helpful.GodBlessYou2 (talk) 22:02, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I've checked this tool out for a number of editors who frequently do a total revert of other's edits. For some, what you suggest works fine. Some editors, however, delete the autogenerated comment line, replacing it with some other explanation, or even nothing useful for recognizing it as a revert.

As a diagnostic and evaluation tool, I think it would be helpful to be able to develop metrics on editors who have a tendency to "protect" articles with rapid deletions instead of working to refine articles collaboratively. Being able to identify how frequently editors revert without refinement would be a helpful tool. I'm sure there are plenty of reasons not to add an extra field to the database, but it would be helpful if there was an automated log showing that an edit completely reverted the previous edit. This would be helpful in being able to review the "revert" activity of specific editors for discussions regarding whether or not their pattern of reverts are generally helpful or generally disruptive or may indicate a tendency to WP:OWN an article.—GodBlessYou2 (talk) 22:18, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

If you use the "undo" link on a single edit, the default edit summary is "Undid revision nnnn by [[Special:Contributions/xxxx|xxxx]] ([[User talk:xxxx|talk]])". But if you are viewing a diff of two or more edits, and use the "undo" link, the default edit summary is blank. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. A record of a reverting multiple edits should also be logged. Couldn't the database record that the "undo" link was used to initiate the edit and save a tag in the tag field (or some other field) indicating it was initiated as an "undo" when the edit is saved?–GodBlessYou2 (talk) 15:31, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Templated reasons in MediaWiki:Ipbreason-dropdown

Many of the user talk templates were standardized several years ago, including block messages; Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace#Blocks. It appears MediaWiki:Ipbreason-dropdown was missed in the update. I'd like to correct them to match the correct template names, and add an informative note beside each one. For example,

{{spamusernameblock}}

would be changed to

{{uw-spamublock}} <-- Promotional username - Bad faith -->

. Any objections? I'll do a full mockup of all changes in a sandbox if requested. --Geniac (talk) 03:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Edit notice filter

Hellow, how can I add an edit notice when some wants to edit an article and imform him not to add a common misconseption. Eg. above the edit box there is an notice saying: wait until the results are published (eg). --C messier (talk) 12:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Editnotice#How to request an editnotice if you are not an administrator. --  Gadget850 ^talk 13:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

And if I am (I want to know how add one in el.wikipedia, where I am am admin)? --C messier (talk) 14:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Editnotice#Other namespaces for the name of the page you must create. The English Wikipedia has made it easier by creating MediaWiki:Editnotice-0 which links to the edit notice page when you edit an article with an admin account. It may be difficult to convert it for use in el:MediaWiki:Editnotice-0. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

You can see examples at el:Special:PrefixIndex/Template:Editnotices/Page/. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

If you are and admin, then you can simply use Wikipedia:Editnotice#Creating editnotices. I don't see the the Greek Wikipedia has the help page, but you could translate it there or just copy the section to your userspace. --  Gadget850 ^talk 15:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Vertical bar in a table?

I'm trying to build a table that has cells that contain a vertical bar character, |. I tried {{|}} but that gets interpreted as }}. Anyone know the trick? Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Use the magic word {{!}} (formerly a template). --  Gadget850 ^talk 13:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Using | as a HTML escape also does the trick. However, using {{!}} is a cleaner solution. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 13:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you want to display a pipe and not make it part of any syntax then you may have to use {{Pipe}} or |. It looks like that is needed for your intended usage. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Unenforced non-blank edit summaries

Hello! While editing lead section of the Data scrubbing article, I've accidentally clicked on the "Save page" button instead of "Show preview" and my edit was saved with no edit summary. The trouble is that I have "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" ticked in my preferences and blank edit summaries shouldn't be allowed; that enforcement seems to be working as expected when editing non-lead sections, but fails to protect lead section edits. While editing that lead section, I've used the "edit" link provided by having "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page" ticked in my preferences.

Perhaps this bug has something to do with the automated insertion of /* top */ into edit summaries when lead sections are edited, what was introduced about a year ago or so. However, IMHO it should be fixed, if you agree. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 13:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Dsimic, I'm not sure if this is what happened in your case here, but if you click save, and notice some text out of place or something and go back to fix it or whatnot I've found it easy to forget I clicked save once. When you click save again, it goes right through because you've already clicked once and technically gotten your blank summary warning. It's actually never prevented saving, it just takes you back to the edit window and doesn't let you know why. It can be very confusing to new users. I'll try to put in a phab ticket today if I can remember. :) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 14:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Technical 13: Yeah, I didn't mean that edits with no summaries are completely impossible, instead I had those "first click" warnings in mind. Sorry for not describing it more precisely. However, just to make sure, I've tried to reproduce this bug, and a test edit on a lead section, with no edit summary provided, was saved immediately after clicking on "Save page" with no warnings or anything. So, that's what happened in the first place. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 14:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)