Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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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. If you want to report a JavaScript error, please follow this guideline. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk.

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Bot to replace highjacked links

Is there a bot to disable hijacked links in refs/ELs that may now be unfit/malicious? At Wikipedia:Teahouse#Hijacked site with possible malware, Lyndaship has reported that www.clydesite.co.uk has moved to clydeships.co.uk, and the new www.clydesite.co.uk host may be malicious (certainly misleading). The layout of the new site has changed, so it's not an easy replace of the hostname (though maybe editors could help construct a translation table?). Meanwhile, disabling the links would probably be reader-friendly. Is there a bot or some other means to handle this? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:07, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

@GreenC: poke. --Izno (talk) 01:11, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

@AlanM1: Agree on malicious domain: http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=2467 it is a sketchy domain. Normally would set the domain to Blacklisted in the IABot interface and run IABot and archive them all (since we don't know the new URLs second option is archive). But they will also require adding |url-status=usurped, to suppress displaying the malware link, which is custom coding. WaybackMedic can do it. Post/move this request to WP:URLREQ. Might also edit filter request. -- GreenC 01:44, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

@GreenC: Thanks for the quick response. I'll explore a little more to find out whether a translation table is reasonable before continuing. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 01:55, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

(Moved to WP:URLREQ#clydesite.co.uk and resolved.) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:23, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@AlanM1: A few years back I used AWB and some manual editing to replace all references to the now defunct exchange.dnv.com to instead use {{cite ship register}} or {{ship register}}. This way, now only could I make them all point to the new vesselregister.dnvgl.org address, but should the linking scheme change again in the future, only those two templates need to be updated. Both templates already have been changed to point to the new clydeships.co.uk address, so the best long-term solution would probably be to switch over to the template instead of just marking as usurped. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:23, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Thats a great little tool which I was unaware of. All the clydesite links are now sorted but I don't think this template would have been of benefit in this instance as the vessel id numbers also changed when the domain changed Lyndaship (talk) 07:03, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Problems with separators and semicolons on RecentChanges, Watchlist, History and Contributions

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T233649

• Update: many of these appear to be realted, see phab:T233649 for the master ticket. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:44, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

What's with the semicolons in the watchlist?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T237685

I just noticed today that titles of pages in my watchlist end with a semicolon. I'm a big fan of semicolons, used correctly; this one, I have to say, just looks weird. When did it start, and what was the rationale? --Trovatore (talk) 20:45, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

WP:ITSTHURSDAY - seems to be:

.mw-title::after {
    content: ';\00a0';
}

code with a bug? Will open a phab ticket. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:48, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

phab:T237685 opened. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:52, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! --Trovatore (talk) 20:53, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@Jdlrobson: can you take a look at that ticket? — xaosflux ^Talk 21:48, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

very curious about this one - I'm a fan of consistency where ever possible and I'm not sure why the semicolon wouldnt appear here but would appear on history. What is the problem it is solving on history but not solving on watchlist? Jdlrobson (talk) 01:39, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Missing separator

Resolved

 – Unable to duplicate this part - possibly related to other sections. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:22, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

On a perhaps related note, a few minutes ago I lost the space between page title and revision time, e.g.

m Meteotsunami‎22:37 . . (-35‎) . . ‎LizardJr8 ( talk | contribs )

Note the missing space between "Meteotsunami" and "22:37". Daß Wölf 22:54, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@Daß Wölf: is that on the watchlist? What interface language are you using, what skin are you using? Do you have any special watchlist settings enabled? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:49, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: yes, it's the watchlist, forgot to write that. Vector skin, JavaScript watchlist. Of all the settings that look like they might have impact, the ones I have enabled are unread changes in bold, and the subtle update marker. Daß Wölf 01:04, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Actually, it seems to have gone away. Now for the separator I have a semicolon and a space (e.g. "Meteotsunami; 22:37". I don't remember if the semicolon was there before. Daß Wölf 01:05, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Daß Wölf: thanks, I hadn't been able to break it like you did - was going nuts :D The semicolon appears to be new (and unwanted), from the parent section of this above. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:10, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Bad semicolon in history

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T237705

@Xaosflux: Again unrelated, I just went to thank you for this edit and a new semicolon has popped up in the article history: "(cur | prev ) ¤ ¤ ; 01:10, 8 November 2019‎" - bolded for clarity. Now that one I'm sure wasn't there! Daß Wölf 01:13, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Daß Wölf: phab:T237705 is open for the bad semicolon here. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:21, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Yep, that's what I see too, thanks. Daß Wölf 01:35, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Note, in come cases a double set of bad leading semicolons are also appearing, updated the phab ticket. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:54, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Xaosflux, I see a double set when I do an RD1 — I dropped a note at the ticket S Philbrick(Talk) 14:37, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Semicolon before timestamp of edits in "View history"

The lines for each edit at any page when viewing under "View history" start with a semicolon (;). Is this intentional or a mistake? 37KZ (talk) 15:32, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@37KZ: see above. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:49, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Missing separators in page history

Resolved

 – This issue is no longer presenting. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:53, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Parenthesis and pipe characters have disappeared in the page history for me (image). &safemode=1 did not solve the problem, suggesting it's not a problem with my scripts. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 01:19, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@K6ka: could you trying clearing you local cache and trying again? (I can't duplicate this one). — xaosflux ^Talk 01:27, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: The issue seems to have fixed itself (or someone fixed it behind the scenes) and I'm not getting this problem anymore. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 03:48, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Temporary CSS fix

At the moment, I get the stray semicolon before the date in Special:Contribs results. I resolved it with the following in my common.css:

.mw-changeslist-date::before {
	content:'';
}

The debugger said the content was ';\u00a0' (semicolon followed by a non-breaking space), which was then prefixed to the timestamp, after the bullet. Should I leave the \u00a0 there? It looks fine to me without it. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 03:21, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@AlanM1: shouldn't hurt anything, keep an eye on the master phab ticket, they may fix all of this for you sooner than later. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:24, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Semicolons on Contributions pages

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T233649

I have noticed that the entries on Contributions pages (Special:Contributions) begin with a semicolon for each entry. Please fix this. —Etewilak (talk) 08:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Probably T233649? --rchard2scout (talk) 11:08, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Same for "View history" on individual pages. 37KZ (talk) 15:57, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

37KZ, There could be a reason for this, perhaps? It could be using the same coding for other pages, which have information which precede the current diff. Doug Mehus (talk) 16:37, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Semi-colons before timestamps in Special:Contributions

I just noticed that, as of today, there's semi-colons before the time stamps of edits when you look at a user's contributions. I don't remember this being the case before today and I don't remember there being an announcement of this happening. Is this a glitch or an intended feature? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 02:04, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

• +1 ... Just came by to talk about these semicolons. What is happening??? Steel1943 (talk) 20:27, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
• Yeah why is this still a problem? 24.193.164.209 (talk) 12:31, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Contributions have a semicolon

To the left of each edit. I don't think that was true before.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:00, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

See above. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:07, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:24, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikitable header centering: desktop vs mobile

I noticed wikitables set with a global alignment in style will show headers centralised on desktop and according to that global alignment on mobile. Is that how it's meant to be? Guarapiranga (talk) 07:27, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Guarapiranga, pls give examples. It helps avoid ambiguity. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:22, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Here's one, TheDJ (but basically any table with figures set to align right at the table heading). Guarapiranga (talk) 20:54, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Unable to view diffs of deleted pages

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T237709

Apologies if this is the wrong location to report...but lately I've been having issues with viewing the diffs of deleted pages and was wondering if it was just me. When I try to click on a diff of a page that's been deleted, I'm met with "Internal error: Fatal exception of type "InvalidArgumentException" ", but strangely, when I click on the time and date of the revision I want to see as opposed to the diff button, I can view it just fine. So, for example, I can't see [1], but I can see [2]. A minor inconvenience, but annoying nonetheless. Also I can still see diffs that have been revision deleted as normal. Anyone know of an easy fix? Sro23 (talk) 19:09, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Sro23: it's broken, just confirmed on testwiki too. Will open a phab ticket. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:13, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Sro23: phab:T237824 has been created. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:17, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Upmerged to phab:T237709. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:24, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Good to see that I'm not the only one who is having this problem and that there are alternative ways to view deleted edits. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 15:56, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Post-expand include size

Seeking a better understanding of post-expand include size. Reading the description, this data structure doesn't appear to be synonymous with HTML page. Is there an available picture of an example of it? And, is there an easy way to determine the size of the HTML page? ―Mandruss ☎ 16:03, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are asking, but you can use Special:ExpandTemplates to see the post-expand output of any wikitext, which is different from the HTML output - it's just wikitext with all templates expanded recursively and parser functions replaced with their output. The post-expand limit is applied to the length of the expanded wikitext. An easy way to determine the size of the html page? Not that it's relevant per above, but you can right click, click view page source, and get the character count using any software that has a character counter in it, like Word. SD0001 (talk) 19:30, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

The output of all templates, modules and parser functions called during the processing of a template can contribute to the post-expand include size so it's often larger than the final output. Click "Parser profiling data" at the bottom of a preview to see the post-expand include size. It's 39 bytes for {{green|Hello}} because {{green}} does not call anything. It just outputs 39 bytes. {{ISO 639 name|en}} only produces 7 bytes "English" but the post-expand include size is 28 bytes because {{ISO 639 name}} makes its own calls. "English" is output four times during processing: By {{ISO 639 name en}}, #ifexist, #if, and finally {{ISO 639 name}}. A template with no output could break the 2MB limit if it calls other templates with large output without passing that output to the original caller. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:18, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

See the examples of pages with a problem at Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded or the API list of articles. Taking List of political ideologies as an example, view that article then view the HTML source (Ctrl-U on some browsers). Search the HTML source for "NewPP" to see "Post‐expand include size: 2097066/2097152 bytes". In megabytes, that is saying that 2 MB of wikitext was included (transcluded) in the page from the expansion of templates. As an example, pasting {{green|Hello}} into Special:ExpandTemplates shows it generates <span style="color:green;">Hello</span> which is 39 bytes. In other words, using that example, the template would count as 39 bytes for the 2 MB limit. Johnuniq (talk) 21:28, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Is there an easy way to determine the size of the HTML page (in bytes)? ―Mandruss ☎ 03:40, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

No, because it differs for every reader. The preferences (skin, etc.) of Logged-in users make a difference to what is displayed, and hence the output HTML. Even for logged-out users, the "You have a new message" orange box may appear or be absent. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:21, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Good point. Now I wonder what the cached version of an article looks like. I had assumed it was the final HTML, but that can't be the case – unless all of that "customization" happens on the client side after download. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:52, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Cached versions of articles look like this - the output of the MediaWiki parser, which is same across all skins - all user customisations are applied over this client side, via CSS or javascript. SD0001 (talk) 12:35, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Deleting ancient redirects from moves and attribution

In the early days of wikipedia, moving a page didn't leave any trace in the history of the page moved, only in the redirect that was left behind. And if at some point that redirect gets deleted for some reason, then there won't be any record of that move anywhere. Is that bad? Are we required to preserve some sort of information about the past names of articles for attribution? Are there any technical considerations that could be relevant? – Uanfala (talk) 00:43, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Generally old redirects should just be left alone unless there's a really good reason to delete them. Partly for attribution issues but also due to link rot. As for what was done historically, I believe history merges were more common to preserve history. If you must delete an old redirect with history, you should request one of those so history is retained. Wug·a·po·des​ 00:49, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

True, but if the only thing remaining in the edit history of the redirect is that it is the previous name of the article, I don't think that alone needs to be preserved. If the redirect is deleted, then there is nothing to attribute. bd2412 T 00:53, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

If we needed to find out all the past names of a page, there ought to be a way. Possibly very tedious. EdJohnston (talk) 02:27, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Page moves are recorded in the page's edit history, although the text has changed over the years. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:24, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Prior to the roll out of MediaWiki 1.5 in June 2005, they were not recorded in the history of the page moved. – Uanfala (talk) 12:52, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

And in the earliest days of Wikipedia, there was no page move. You had to create a new page with cut-and-paste. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:02, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Chrome - userscript problem

I have a long-standing íssue with my script on Windows Chrome.  (Admin only) script User:Beetstra/Gadget-Spam-blacklist-Handler.js fails in line 730: 'text.value += '\n' + append;' to update the actual text in the edit box, not adding the required content in 'append'. When looking at the value of text.value in debug mode, it is actually there (it is also in document.editform.wpTextbox1.value; text = document.editform.wpTextbox1), but it is not displayed in the edit box. The update of the summary field (document.editform.wpSummary.value) does get updated (I see it in the summary box), the correct material is collected, and the script does continue as expected (but when saving, the content is not changed). The problem is not there on Internet Explorer 11, the problem is not there in Chrome on my iPad. Someone has any clues? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:04, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Disable syntax highlighting - apparently highlighting "disables" use of this textbox (it's greyed in code Inspector [F12 FF]). If you switch that off, it will be "enabled" again. MarMi wiki (talk) 13:01, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

MarMi wiki thanks!. Funny, so .. is there then another box that is 'enabled'? (and funny that only Chrome understands that). Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:03, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

MarMi wiki, did you mean User:Remember_the_dot/Syntax_highlighter? That one is turned off for me. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:10, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

I meant the default highlighter (CodeMirror) (the pencil icon, ~7th button from the left on the toolbar).

Under FF with enabled highlighting the script will not work either (I checked it with the above code snippets in Console). When in highlight mode, the text is stored in multiple div/span tags - each line (until enter) is in its own div. MarMi wiki (talk) 13:39, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@MarMi wiki: yay, that worked. Rather annoying (I find it rather handy), but well, at least I can get the script to work. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:47, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Beetstra: You could also try to disable highlighting in the script (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Twt8s67hwtmaa7jo):

//code to check if highlighting is enabled
$( '#wpTextbox1' ).data( 'wikiEditor-context' ).modules.toolbar.$toolbar.find( '#mw-editbutton-codemirror > a' )[0].click()
//change value
$( '#wpTextbox1' ).data( 'wikiEditor-context' ).modules.toolbar.$toolbar.find( '#mw-editbutton-codemirror > a' )[0].click()

MarMi wiki (talk) 15:07, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

MarMi wiki, not very elegant, but I could give it a try (though I am afraid it will turn it on when it is already turned off ..). Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:11, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

@Beetstra: The api to modify the textarea is jQuery.textSelection. It exists specifically to avoid this issue of keeping multiple editors of the textarea in sync with eachother. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:50, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

And it's even described on Wikipedia:User_scripts/Guide#Text_manipulation and Wikipedia:User_scripts/Techniques#Automatic_edits. I think it should be mentioned also on the WikiEditor and CodeMirror extensions pages (for example with a link: "visit here if you want to develop a JS script").

So for this case it would be:

var text = $textbox.textSelection( 'getContents')
$textbox.textSelection( 'setContents', text+'\n test')
// Above will scroll the text to the top (at least it does that when syntax highlighting is on),
// if you want to scroll back, you need to remember caret position:

// Put this line before 'setContents'
var pos = $textbox.textSelection( 'getCaretPosition')
// Put this line after 'setContents'
$textbox.textSelection( 'setSelection', pos)

--MarMi wiki (talk) 15:43, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

TheDJ, this script was ported, I did not write it from scratch, so I never saw that. I will try to incorporate this. Thanks! Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:26, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks all, this seems to be resolved. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:05, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-46

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

• MediaWiki2LaTeX can put different pages from a Wikimedia wiki into a PDF. It can now make a PDF with around 5000 pages. Previously this was 800 pages.

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Wikimedia will take part in Google Code-in. This is for young students who want to help with open source software. You can read more. Experienced technical Wikimedians can mentor students.

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

22:02, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Development environment for this wiki (take 2)

If I make a (Vagrant or Docker or VirtualBox) development for this wiki, would you be interested in including

• 1. all gadgets or only some (if so then which)
• 2. all extensions or only some (if so then which)
• 3. all content or only some (if so then what part)
• 4. all settings or only some (if so then which ones)

Also what extensions, or improvements to existing extensions, would you like to see developed if someone volunteers to do it. Is there a wish list.

Thanks, --Gryllida (talk) 05:10, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

There's plenty of wishes at meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Results (and from previous years) - Evad37 [talk] 10:45, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

All extensions and settings should be there. Since gadgets can be installed trivially by editing pages on-wiki, there would not be much point in adding them. Regarding the content -- it wouldn't be possible to include 50 million pages, right? A sample, of say 100 pages from each namespace would be okay. SD0001 (talk) 11:41, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Read only maintenance window planned for ENWP at 14th Nov 06:00 AM UTC

This is a reminder. See https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2019-October/092653.html for more information.

Due to daylight saving time, the time window has been changed from 05:00 UTC to 06:00 UTC.

Trizek (WMF) (talk) 09:43, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

JS to change contribs link

A user posted a question at the teahouse about how to set the contribs list to filter out edits to his user page. I didn't see a way to set the default options for the Special:Contribs page or any params to that Special page other than the username. So, I gave them an alternate link with a "long-form" URL with the params set up to filter out User namespace contribs. I'd like to be able to modify that Contribs link at the top of the page to use this URL instead of the plain Special:Contribs. This seems to work, but I'd appreciate knowing if there's an easier/better way (I'm a developer, but a total novice in this environment). The code I added to my common.js is:

$(document).ready(function() {
	var s = document.getElementById("pt-mycontris").firstChild.href;
	document.getElementById("pt-mycontris").firstChild.href =
		"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?target="
		+ s.substr(s.lastIndexOf('/') + 1)
		+ "&namespace=2&wpfilters%5B%5D=nsInvert&title=Special%3AContributions";
});

(I actually already had a ready() function and added to it.) Thanks. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 11:03, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

$('#pt-mycontris a')[0].href += '?namespace=2&wpfilters%5B%5D=nsInvert'; inside the ready() does the same thing. SD0001 (talk) 11:34, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks! Do other Special pages work the same way (allowing tacking the raw URL parms on the end of one of the supported parms)? Is it documented somewhere what's available? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 12:12, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Most special pages have one primary parameter, which for contributions is the username, so links of the form /wiki/Special:Contributions/username?...other...params... are the same as /w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&...other...params . Similarly for WhatLinksHere, the primary parameter is the page name, and for PrefixIndex the prefix. SD0001 (talk) 15:04, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Watchlist diff placement

Previously on my watchlist (and Special:RecentChanges, and possibly elsewhere I haven't noticed yet), the (diff|hist) link was previously immediately after the bullet point, to the left of the page and user information. It's now as of yesterday moved to the right of the page title. Is there a way I can move it back? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:07, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

I still see the (diff | hist) immediately after the bullet, both on watchlist and on RC. SD0001 (talk) 08:18, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Did you accidentally turn on "group results by page"? Possibly unexpectedly by merely following a link? Anomie⚔ 12:25, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Apparently yes, thanks. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:45, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

subst:

Hello!

{{subst:PAGENAME}} makes the actual page name appear in the source edit instead of {{PAGENAME}}. How do I do the same for the page name minus the last letter, which is, as far as I know, written {{#invoke:string|sub|s={{PAGENAME}}|i=1|j=-2}}? Is it possible to subst: a module invoke?Jonteemil (talk) 03:13, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Modules can be substituted in the same way as templates. {{subst:#invoke:string|sub|s={{subst:PAGENAME}}|i=1|j=-2}} should work * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:20, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

@Pppery: It worked, thanks!Jonteemil (talk) 03:35, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Prosesize as gadget

Hello, I've rewritten User:Dr pda/prosesize.js to be more modern and maintainable at User:Galobtter/scripts/prosesize.js. Most of the changes are internal, with the main user-facing changes are to remove the arbitrary disabling of the script on certain skins (e.g timeless) when the script works just fine on all desktop skins and a fixing of a bug in the calculation of reference text size. As prosesize is a very widely used user script (>2000 uses [3]), it seems an ideal candidate to become a gadget. If this becomes a gadget, I also propose replacing the content of User:Dr pda/prosesize.js to be mw.loader.load( ['ext.gadget.prosesize'] ), i.e to load the gadget directly so the old code no longer needs to be maintained. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:31, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

If this becomes a gadget, I'd instead suggest changing User:Dr pda/prosesize.js to: if ( mw.user.options.get('gadget-prosesize') === null ) new mw.Api().saveOption('gadget-prosesize', '1'); instead, so that the gadget gets enabled directly rather than get loaded via the user js page; and Special:GadgetUsage would also show an accurate number of usages. SD0001 (talk) 08:07, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:00, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

There is a typo at <small><i>(See <a href="//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Prosesize">here</a> for details.)<i></small>; should be a closing </i> there. Also, color me salty about mw.notify( 'Prosesize does not work with the Visual Editor.' );, but can't do anything about that on my part. --Izno (talk) 23:23, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed. Word count should at least be workable with VE (html size cannot be due to the differing html used by VE and the regular editor); it is my intention to get prosesize working with VE eventually but the last time I tried to deal with anything VE it went badly so I'll need to find the time to do it properly. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:52, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Highlighting in the new script seems busted. Also, there's a (somehow blue) link to Wikipedia:Prosesize, which is obviously wrong/missing something. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:35, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Headbomb, oops, the code for loading the css was broken. I haven't created the page yet, but Wikipedia:Prosesize would be the page describing the gadget. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:47, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@Galobtter: working now, thanks. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:50, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Quick bump for more comments before this gets archived. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:22, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Too often I get this "Edit conflict: Talk - Someone else has changed this page since you started editing it, resulting in an edit conflict."

Whenever I help out editing an article or talk page, I nearly always get this notification "Edit conflict: Talk - Someone else has changed this page since you started editing it, resulting in an edit conflict." I've learned to live with it and work around it:

1. copy/pasting my text and then hit the blue "Publish changes" button a second time; sometimes it then publishes my text;
2. if it doesn't, I have my text in the copy/paste memory of my computer and can again paste my text and then hit the blue "Publish changes" button a 3rd time and then mostly my changes are finally in the article or talk page.

Anybody know's what's going on? Is it because I have too many observations and reversed edits by moderators? I really study the reasons in case my additions are not accepted, at times I don't agree and I find the - how are these wikipedians called - I think "arbiters" - extremely blunt - especially when I've put 10 minutes to an hour of editing and documenting an article or clearly stated I wanted to start an article and need to park it somewhere to continue it later because my kids of wife walks in and need my attention. Anyway - thy. --SvenAERTS (talk) 08:27, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

It often happens to me when I've spent time making a single substantial edit while other editors are making many small edits. So, where possible, the solution is to reduce the size of your edits: work by making many small edits rather than a few longer ones, then you're less likely to be interrupted in this way. Where this isn't possible, you just have to get round it as you say you do. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:16, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

What's happening is described at Help:Edit conflict. If you're planning on making a long edit, make a small edit first to add the {{inuse}} tag to the top of the page. Don't forget to remove it afterwards, though. Yunshui ^雲_水 10:30, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

@SvenAERTS: This edit suggests that you clicked Publish changes twice, perhaps inadvertently - I have a mouse that sometimes double-clicks when I intended a single click, because of contact bounce. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:21, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@Redrose64: @Peter coxhead: @Yunshui: thx all. By the way, what is the name of the coding language with these double accolades and piping - is that java or php or python? ThySvenAERTS (talk) 09:44, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Technically it's a markup language rather than a programming/coding language - it's called Wikitext. Yunshui ^雲_水 09:47, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Constant edit conflicts

So it seems, every time I make an edit, even if the last edit was months ago, that when I click "Submit", I get the edit conflict screen. I've disabled any of the functions in Beta and Preferences that might have caused it, and I still get it. Anyone know why? And for that matter, it seems the wiki software will immediately revert the edit in my name so I'll in in the history "PrussianOwl +380", and in the next line "PrussianOwl -380". I asked this at the Help Desk and they said to try asking here. Thanks, PrussianOwl (talk) 02:39, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Email this user

Is it possible to have "email this user" enabled on some projects but not on others? For example, to have it enabled here on en-wiki but off on Meta? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 11:03, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

If you want to remove the link from your own interface when you view a userspace page then you can add this to the local Special:MyPage/common.css:

#t-emailuser {display: none;}

If you want to disallow others to mail you then disable "Allow other users to email me" at the local Special:Preferences. This will remove the link for them. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:36, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, it's the latter I was looking for. DuncanHill (talk) 11:40, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Even better, it allows me to block specific users, which is probably better for my purposes at the moment. Thanks again, DuncanHill (talk) 11:42, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Unbulleted lists in infoboxes

At Money (That's What I Want) the infobox's "Label" field is formatted as a horizontal list, exactly as though it used {{hlist}}, except that on mobile it's missing any demarcation at all between items. But it actually uses {{unbulleted list}}, which is supposed to format as a vertical unbulleted list. Compare the same infobox's "writer" field, which uses {{hlist}}. I have never seen this behaviour before and I am surprised to find a vertical list template formatting horizontally. It makes no difference if I replace it with {{plainlist}}. Is this an intentional change? It's certainly not wanted and neither is it documented anywhere I can see. Hairy Dude (talk) 00:20, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Well it appears this particular infobox template ({{Infobox song}}) imposes the plainlist class. Perhaps that's what causes this strange behaviour? Hairy Dude (talk) 00:30, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Some wikipedia articles lack all standard formatting

I've noticed recently that a number of WP articles -- for example, My Grandfather's Clock -- appear without any of the standardized formatting when accessed. Is this a deliberate deprecation of these articles, or are some wiki scripts not working? Clevelander96 (talk) 00:53, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean by standardized formatting? --Izno (talk) 02:04, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

It looks normal to me. Try to bypass your cache, e.g. Ctrl+F5 in many Windows browsers. F5 alone does less and probably isn't enough for you. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:05, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

This sounds like Clevelander96 is experiencing an intermittent problem whereby their browser is unable to apply all of the intended styling to a Wikipedia page. Common effects include: content of top bar and sidebar appears as plain bulleted lists below the page content; all text is in browser's default serif font; images and other boxes appear inline instead of being floated to one side. There are a number of reasons that this happens, including: missing or corrupt style sheets; missing or corrupt JavaScript. The root causes may be: problems with the servers; problems with the browser itself; problems anywhere in between. The usual fixes are: (i) WP:BYPASS; (ii) wait a bit; (iii) WP:BYPASS again. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:16, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm having the same trouble as Clevelander96, and have had this problem before. At that time it was recommended that I bypass and purge, both of which I did to no avail; the problem though resolved itself about a week later. Is there any third thought as to what might remedy this? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 23:04, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the problem is persistent -- still happening now with numerous articles. It's like taking a trip back in time back to the earliest days of WP. I've just noticed, though, that the problem occurs only in Safari on my Mac, not with Chrome! Clevelander96 (talk) 14:52, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Yep, same here. I still haven't figured out why. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 19:21, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

How can I make a template return a table?

I must've tried all possible permutations, and also searched all around WP, to no avail. What am I doing wrong here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guarapiranga (talk • contribs) 01:25, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

 Sorted Thanks, PrimeHunter. Guarapiranga (talk) 02:09, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) {{crlf}} just makes the html code <br/>. I made actual newlines so table code starts on a new line.[4] Some templates get around such MediaWiki requirements by outputting tables with html syntax: Help:Table#Other table syntax. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:10, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Watchlist in the advanced mode

when I open the watchlist using the advanced mode in my phone, it takes 30-45 seconds for the filters box to appear. If I clicked on anything in the watchlist at that time I end up clicking on something else because when the filters box appear the whole list go down few centimetres. It's really annoying and I sometimes accidentally click on rollback.--SharabSalam (talk) 16:29, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

SharabSalam, either get a faster phone, or use the hide option in the topright of the filters and dont use them, or disable the entire feature in your preferences. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:41, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Since the watchlist got changed in the advanced mode (approximately 3 weeks ago) I stopped using the advanced mode but Wikipedia keeps asking me to try the advanced mode until one time I accidentally clicked on something and it changed to the advanced mode. I like the advanced mode but the watchlist has become so annoying. Anyway, I am just going to stop using the advanced mode I am already pissed off, I reverted someone comment in the talk page and then self-reverted and he sent me a warning.--SharabSalam (talk) 16:50, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Searching Contribution history

Is there a way to show user contributions based on a keyword search of the edit summary? Would like to find all edits by User:GreenC bot that contain an edit summary of Add {{Cleanup bare URLs}} like this edit. Particularly interested in the size of the edit - GreenC bot had a rare bug and hunting for a large increase in article size, with these edits, going back to May. -- GreenC 22:26, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Not through the Wikipedia interface. quarry:query/40110. Looks like you're after Special:Diff/915911382, Special:Diff/915552147, Special:Diff/911767914, and Special:Diff/909834784. —Cryptic 22:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

For the more general case, there's the edit summary search tool, linked from users' contribution pages. I don't think it works in this specific case though. Graham87 06:59, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

In the old days, like until three weeks ago, you would go to the user's contribs page and append ?limit=5000 to the URL, then use your browser's "Find" feature (often Ctrl+F). Since they busted it right down to 500 max, it now takes ten times as long to do the same thing. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:08, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

See phab:T234450 and feel free to comment there. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:40, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Referencing queries

Firstly a specific problem. I have a very untidy External links reference * Paintings by William Oliver Williams at Art UK. On 30 October OxonAlex tidied a similar reference up by removing 2 spaces (it was something about getting everything on the same line). Could you indicate what he did?

Another query is that the scanning of books is becoming more common so that you get a reference that is a combination of a web and book source. You initially will use the web template but may also need to give details of the book (such as page numbers) that would be obtained using the book template in combination with the web site details. An example (probably done inadequately by me) is,

Editors have kindly helped me out eg. improving this 'Oliver, William. "Royal Academy entries". Exhibitors at the RA' to this

However, I can't rely on this help and need to do things for myself. Is there a standard procedure recommended? I presume there is not a template for these 'combination' sources? BFP1 (talk) 16:46, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

References

In future, please don't place your "references" inside ref tags on talk pages. Just link to them. Bearcat (talk) 16:50, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

You can use {{cite thesis}} for a thesis and {{cite book}} for a book. Examples are given there; you can copy and adapt them for your use. The documentation is long, but it explains how to use each parameter. {{cite web}} is generally for sources that are available only on the web. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:17, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Jonesey95. BFP1 (talk) 12:09, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Categories on archived talk page

Talk:Albert Cashier/Archive 2 is inappropriately appearing in 12 articlespace categories that it's not supposed to be in. I'm able to determine that it relates to the "Implementing the RFC/Comparisons" section, which contains several instances of direct transclusion of the article side by side with a proposed rewrite — but unfortunately, I don't know how to fix it without breaking the entire section in the process, and the page can't just stay in articlespace categories. Can somebody figure out how to get the page out of the categories? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 16:49, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

It seems a poor idea to transclude whole articles on talk pages and the drafts are deleted so the comparisons don't work but I have used {{Suppress categories}} instead of removing the transclusions.[5] PrimeHunter (talk) 17:10, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Pageview Statistics for Bible

I posted this concern at the Help Desk, and was advised to come here.

I have been looking at page viewing statistics for some articles, and I would like to know if someone with knowledge could review the statistics for Bible. On 5 March 2019, it was 4326. Starting on 6 March 2019, I see 55,573 pageviews. By the way, that was Ash Wednesday. On 15 April 2019, I see 284,992 pageviews. That wasn't Easter, by the way. Easter was 21 April 2019, and was 256,054 pageviews. The pageview metrics drop off in May 2019, but then fluctuate between thousands of pageviews and hundreds of thousands of pageviews. How confident can we be that there really is a weirdly fluctuating demand for viewing of the Bible article? Comments?

User:Maproom said that they did not find the values after 5 March to be plausible.

I posted: Thank you, User:Maproom. Is there a trouble ticketing system, such as Phabricator, for reporting the issue? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:27, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

I could make some sort of philosophical joke about a use-mention distinction or the difference between the symbol and the thing symbolized, except that on a given day, the number of readers who read the Bible is not in the hundreds of thousands, but the hundreds of millions.

In the year 2018, the daily viewing metrics are: 3800 average daily pageviews , and I find them consistent with other commonly read articles.

In the year 2017, we see an average of 4177 daily pageviews, and I believe that.

I pinged a few other editors, and got a response from User:BrownHairedGirl.

Another editor at Help Desk commented: Comparison with other pages showing the view counter wasn't just broken or had changed. Don't see any major news coverage relating to the Bible spanning March/April 2019.

User:BrownHairedGirl wrote: Looks to me like there is something v weird going on with the 2019 figures.

I suggest raising this at WP:VPT, where there seems to be lots of knowledgeable technie people who in my experience respond quickly and helpfully to a well-constructed query on even obscure issues

I don't find the numbers beginning on 5 March 2019 to be plausible. They are anywhere from one to two orders of magnitude higher than previously, and higher than what I see for other reasonably well-viewed articles. Is there a trouble ticketing system that editors can use? Comments? Assistance? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:04, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: poke --Izno (talk) 20:46, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

See toolforge:pageviews/faq/#anomaly. Comparing desktop and mobile-web, it's likely there was some sort of automated false traffic from March to May 2019. I'm not sure about the recent spike in mobile-web pageviews. If something really bizarre is going on you can always file a task on Phabricator, but I think the comparisons here offer the confirmation we need. The private data is also purged after 90 days so I don't think we could give any concrete explanations of the March-May spike. When in doubt, I usually refer to the mobile-app figures, which don't experience the same kind of anomalies and hence can help confirm if fluctuations in traffic are authentic. The parent task to improve bot detection is tracked at phab:T138207. Hope this helps, — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:49, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

self-sufficient unlinked DAB page entries

Just now, editing Tashi delek#Origin and meaning, I noticed that the link on the word "Tashi" is orange, i.e., a link to a DAB page. Tashi redirects to Tashi (disambiguation), but the meaning intended here is that of the word "tashi" itself, which is defined on the first line of the page:

Tashi (Tibetan: བཀྲ་ཤིས་, Wylie: bkra-shis, ZYPY: zhaxi, Lhasa dialect: [ʈáɕiʔ]), also spelled trashi, is a Tibetan word meaning "good fortune" or "auspiciousness". Tashi or trashi may refer to:

[TOC]

I added {{anchor|word}} to the beginning of the line and changed the link in Tashi delek to [[Tashi#word|Tashi]], but it didn't help; see the diff.

Is there any solution for this problem? The link should not be flagged in orange as a DAB link, because it links specifically to the one entry on the page that does not lead to another page but contains the relevant content. Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 19:17, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Maybe link the word to Wiktionary instead, since all you want is a definition. (Although it looks like someone will need to create that page at Wiktionary first.) – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:30, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@Thnidu: It's only orange because you enabled a script, probably "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. Normal readers don't see the color. If the disambiguation page is intentionally linked then the link should go via the redirect Tashi (disambiguation) per WP:INTDAB. This will also remove the orange. But the intention of the link here is not what disambiguation pages are for. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:00, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Thanks. – Is it common for a DAB page "Xxxx (disambiguation)" to begin with a line that does not include a link to an article, but which instead contains what could be

• the (brief) content of an article Xxxx, or
• the description of xxxx in an article on a broader topic – say, if xxxx doesn't warrant a page of its own but is relevant within the broader topic?

Also, ISTM that your mention of "normal readers" is irrelevant. Am I so unusual in wanting to see whether a link I'm adding redirects to a DAB page, so I can fix it if necessary before saving the edit? --Thnidu (talk) 14:53, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

What would cause the enwp UI to disappear?

Exemplar

For reasons beyond my understanding, random pages are rendering for me without the enwp UI, even when other pages are fine. Does anybody have an idea as to what's happening? I'm using Safari 13.0.3 on macOS 10.15.1 on a MacBookAir6,1. Thanks! (I had a similar problem that I asked about here, but it eventually resolved itself.) — Fourthords | =Λ= | 21:49, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@Fourthords: see my reply at #Some wikipedia articles lack all standard formatting. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:44, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll reply up there. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 23:01, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Popular user scripts

Is there a page/query to see a count of how many users have each of the user scripts installed? Cheers. Guarapiranga (talk) 00:45, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, User:Facenapalm/Most imported scripts, but it hasn't been updated since 21 March 2018. I've been slowly working on a new version that reads dumps (to avoid all the API calls), but I don't know when it'll be done. Enterprisey (talk!) 01:39, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I just went ahead and gave that page a much-needed update. It looked easy enough. About 1800 API calls for searches - but they are all quite inexpensive since we just want the total number of search hits, and not the search results themselves. SD0001 (talk) 17:30, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you. Should that info be incorporated into WP:USL, somehow? Cheers. Guarapiranga (talk) 20:49, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks SD0001. Would you mind putting a brief outline of how that list is created at WT:User scripts/Most imported scripts? Perhaps just one example of the API call for my curiosity. Johnuniq (talk) 22:12, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I added a brief note on the page. See the 2nd & 3rd paragraphs of the comment atop User:SD0001/MostImportedScriptsUpdater.js for more details. SD0001 (talk) 09:52, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

I've now had a look at the top 25 scripts, and they are mostly all either obsolete, deprecated, superseded by gadgets or simply no longer working. Perhaps a flag would help editors identify what scripts not to install or to uninstall. Guarapiranga (talk) 22:50, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

It's likely that a significant portion of editors using those scripts are no longer active, and I bet plenty were simply left as-is in the monobook -> vector transition. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:57, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

This task seems well suited to a bot, so I've requested one at WP:BOTREQ#Most imported user scripts table - Evad37 [talk] 13:49, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Is there a way the bot could differentiate active from inactive users, Evad37? (I suppose differentiating admins from editors would be trivial.)

Also, if the bot could also spit out the change in number of imports, so that we could rank by trending scripts, that'd be a bonus! Guarapiranga (talk) 01:46, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Page delete link missing

The menu option "delete page" is no longer showing under the Page menu for me, but I was able to use the Mass delete special page to do the deletion. I exited and re-logged in to Wikipedia, and purged the page, to no avail. I am using Firefox 70.0.1 (64-bit) and windows 7. I haven't changed any scripts recently, not updated the browser that I know of, and this was working yesterday, or perhaps the day before. (Checking my log, my last actual deletion was 22:45, 14 November 2019, longer ago than usual .) Any advice? DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 09:20, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

It works for me in Firefox, Vector, Windows 7. Is it under the "More" menu? That's the default position. "MoreMenu" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets moves it to the "Page" menu. Did you purge with Ctrl+F5, F5 or only Wikipedia's purge feature? Try Ctrl+F5 if you haven't. What is your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? As a workaround, you probably have it under "More" with safemode=1. If the link is still missing then action=delete can be added manually to the url (only works for admins). PrimeHunter (talk) 12:29, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, PrimeHunter. I did try Ctrl-F5, to no avail. I have tried opening pages from several different namespaces, and the Delete Page option (which had been under the page menu for me for years) is not visible under any menu for any of them. I am using the MoreMenu gadget. I am also using the following appearance gadgets: Add edit link for lead section; add clock fopr personal toolbar; Add purge option to the top of page; Replace "new section" tab text with "+"; Change UTC-based times and dates to Local; Show radio buttom to switch between views (maps); and Strikew out usernames that hav been blocked. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 17:00, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Oh I am using the Vector skin, PrimeHunter. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 17:02, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Your link using safemod does add the Delete menu under More. Must "safemode=1" be added manually to the URL, or can it be don in some automatic way? DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 17:06, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

If you're getting the delete link when safemode=1 is there in the URL, that means there is some script you've installed in common.js or vector.js that's likely causing the problem. Try sequentially removing the teahouse-related scripts to see if any of them are causing the issue. SD0001 (talk) 17:37, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Oh, PrimeHunter, I am also using my common.js to add a "Tools" menu, and to import WP:Reflinks, your [[my subpages, Writ Keeper's Teahouse utility, Writ Keeper's Teahouse talkback script, Writ Keeper's Teahouse talkbackLink script, and Earwig's copyvio tool script. Some of those affect menus, some do not, none were changed by me recently . DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 17:34, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Some user script, gadget or combination must be causing it. I don't know what. User:PrimeHunter/Safe mode.js adds a link to reload a page with safemode=1 in the url. Safemode disables all gadgets and user scripts until you click a link. This means the safemode script is "selfdestructing": It also disables itself when you click the safemode link. That's OK. The only feature is to add the safemode link and you don't need the link when you have already clicked it. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:23, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

@DESiegel: There was a bug with MoreMenu that sometimes caused this, but it was fixed quite a while ago. If it is the same problem, it should have fixed itself by now because MoreMenu refreshes user rights data after 24 hours. Can you confirm if the "delete" link is now visible? If all else fails, you could try completely clearing your cache.

Incidentally, there is a new version of MoreMenu that I'm going to be rolling out soon that hopefully will have no such issues, while also adding many new features. If you are interested in helping test it, let me know. Best, — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:04, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal, PrimeHunter, SD0001, and Writ Keeper: Thanks for all your help. Removing the script Writ Keeper's Teahouse utility fixed the problem. I note that that scrip adds items to the page menu, and tries to create that menu if it doesn't exist. Apparently it soemone interacted badly with the addition of the delete page item on that menu, but I have no idea how, or whAnyway, the problem seems to be fixed for me. at changed to make this start happening only a few days ago. I may look ito creating a local variant of that script, perhaps using the More menu, but not today. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 03:15, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

How to start a new archive with OCA

I wished to begin a new user talk page archive here because the original one was becoming quite lengthy. I begun it by manually entering the section when I returned to the site after a three month break. However, when I used the OneClickArchiver script to add another thread [6], it instead placed the thread in the first archive [7] instead of the new one. How do I get OCA to begin placing threads in the new archive? funplussmart (talk) 17:37, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Add {{archive basics}} to the page with an appropriate counter value. SD0001 (talk) 19:49, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Didn't know such a template existed. I thought the function was in the script or other templates. funplussmart (talk) 20:08, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Reference highlighting gone?

If I go on a page like Actinium-225, and click on ^[1], when I'm taking to the reference section, the corresponding reference should be highlighted. But this is somehow no longer happening. What gives? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:35, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

It works for me on Chrome. – Ammarpad (talk) 06:56, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

It works again now. Wonder why it didn't earlier. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:17, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Detecting whether page is a disambiguation page

Is there a means (in regular wiki-code templates or Lua modules) to detect whether a page (in particular, the subject page of a talk page) is a DAB page? I notice that a JS-based "gadget" available in Preferences to can do this (it handily turn DAB links orange for easy detection and cleanup), but I've not found a "templatey" way to do this yet. We don't seem to have a DAB equivalent of Module:Redirect's isRedirect, unless I just don't know where it is yet.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:27, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I've created Module:Disambiguation, which should be able to do what you want - Evad37 [talk] 10:00, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

@Evad37: Speed demon! You've obviously had even more coffee than I. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:27, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, coffee helps... but it's also easy if already have most of the pieces you need in another module you've worked on - Evad37 [talk] 10:31, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Yar. I expected that such a module would be easy, but I can't Lua my way out of a paper bag, so I thought it best to just ask if there was already a tool for this before trying to make one or asking someone else to do so. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:59, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Someone should finish fixing phab:T71441 so searching the page wikitext for a template isn't needed... Anomie⚔ 12:35, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

I wonder if he did that on purpose

Jimmy Wales has started a new thing, WikiTribune Social, or more commonly WT:Social. Creating the later as a redirect is a little special, since our software knows that anything that starts with wt: is outside mainspace. I created WT:Social (actually Wikipedia talk:Social) anyway. If you search for it you arrive at the right article.

However, the suggestions shown by the searchbox for WT:Social all look unrelated to this topic (of course). The top one leads you right, but there is no reason a reader should assume that. So my question is, is there something better to be done, or is this as good as it gets? Ideally, the top suggestion should be WT:Social. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:01, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Edits disappearing into thin air?

I positively remember making a few edits earlier today (around 02:00 UTC) which seem to have disappeared into thin air. It's possible that I messed things up (e.g. didn't actually click submit, closed the wrong tab, etc.), but asking just in case. Has anybody experienced something similar? --Paul_012 (talk) 14:53, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

@Paul 012: Perhaps you were logged out? If you remember the article you edited, check the article's history page to see if there was an edit by an IP. Also, were you maybe thinking of your edits to Commons? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 05:33, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

AlanM1, no and no. I know exactly what edits I was making; they're not in the page history. If there's been no wider anomaly, the error was probably on my part. Maybe the server threw an error which I closed without noticing. --Paul_012 (talk) 12:23, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

@Paul 012: When I have a long edit session, when I attempt to save, it fails with a page that is not terribly obvious (maybe it should have more red in it or something) and I have to save again to use the new session key. I may have noticed that occurring unusually quickly once in the last few days. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 22:46, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-47

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

Problems

• You will be able to read but not to edit some wikis for up to 30 minutes on 26 November at 06:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. It will probably last much shorter than 30 minutes. This will also affect the centralauth database. This could for example affect changing passwords, logging in to new wikis, changing emails or global renames. [8]

Changes later this week

• You can soon vote on proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 20 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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20:16, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Unable to access Wikipedia from Google Chrome

As of 13 November, I can not access Wikipedia from Google Chrome. I get an error message that reads

www.wikipedia.org normally uses encryption to protect your information. When Google Chrome tried to connect to www.wikipedia.org this time, the website sent back unusual and incorrect credentials. This may happen when an attacker is trying to pretend to be www.wikipedia.org, or a Wi-Fi sign-in screen has interrupted the connection. Your information is still secure because Google Chrome stopped the connection before any data was exchanged. You cannot visit www.wikipedia.org right now because the website uses HSTS. Network errors and attacks are usually temporary, so this page will probably work later.

If there is anything I can do on my side that will address this issue, please let me know. I am using Microsoft Edge right now, but I really would prefer to use Chrome. --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 02:02, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Category size

Is it possible to run off the size of a category over time? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:13, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: If you're lucky, you may find snapshots of the category page at the Wayback Machine. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:11, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

You might also download database dumps of the categorylinks table and process the data to get the number of pages in the category at the time of each dump. Anomie⚔ 13:08, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Mass Retarget script not working anymore for me

Hi, I have been using User:Andy M. Wang/massretarget and User:Andy M. Wang/pageswap over the past year. Recently (like a month or so) the MassRetarget script has stopped working. User:Andy M. Wang has not edited in the past one year. Is someone maintaining these scripts ? what options (other apps?) do I have ?

Here is what I intend to do.

• There are several double redirects that link to Special:WhatLinksHere/Prayagraj(Allahabad)#, created as a result of undiscussed (and now reverted) page move. I would like all of these double redirect to Allahabad.
• The massretarget could have done this in few clicks, but for some reasons it is failing to make an edit even though the UI is proceeding as expected.

Any help here will be appreciated. --DBigXrayᗙ 10:23, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Should be fixed now ~ Amory (u • t • c) 11:06, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Amorymeltzer, thanks for the kind reply. Yes, I have verified that the script is working for me now. As I was able to complete the work of fixing the double redirects related to Allahabad. Marking it as resolved. --DBigXrayᗙ 16:28, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Resolved

Outdated Security Browser Message

This happens most of the time in older browsers. It had started happening on Saturday and again on Monday. It's not the browser age it is very likely to be done in error especially on a Generation I device. Wikitech has an article about that mentioning that it interferes with the process. This error has to be fixed.

Regards,

69.126.37.241 (talk) 20:43, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi 69... can you share some more steps for this if you feel comfortable:

1. What browser/OS are you using?
2. What is your user-agent string?
3. What is the page you are going to when you get the warning?
4. What does the message say?

Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 20:58, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Hello IP. I'm sorry to hear that you're having issues accessing Wikipedia. What is the name and version of the browser and operating system you are using?

We currently recommend that you use one of the following browsers to access Wikipedia: The current or previous major version of Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or Edge, Internet Explorer version 11 or later, Safari version 5.1 or later, iOS version 6.1 or later, or Android version 4.1 or later. Internet Explorer versions before IE8 are bit supported, as continuing to support them would make all visitors to Wikipedia less secure. Browsers not on this list may continue to work, but may only be able to use a limited set of features. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 21:09, 19 November 2019 (UTC)