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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Table cell contents spilling over.

. When viewing the following table in the mobile version of the site, some text from the first column spills over into the adjacent cell of the second column.

Team	Constructor	Chassis	Power unit	Tyre	No.	Drivers
Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari	SF15-T	Ferrari	P	5 7	Sebastian Vettel Kimi Räikkönen
Sahara Force India F1 Team	Force India-Mercedes	VJM08	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	11 27	Sergio Pérez Nico Hülkenberg
Lotus F1 Team	Lotus-Mercedes	E23 Hybrid	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	8 13	Romain Grosjean Pastor Maldonado
Manor Marussia F1 Team	Marussia-Ferrari	TBA	Ferrari 059/3	P	TBA TBA	Will Stevens TBA
McLaren Honda	McLaren-Honda	MP4-30	Honda RA615H Hybrid	P	14 22	Fernando Alonso Jenson Button
Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team	Mercedes	F1 W06 Hybrid	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	6 44	Nico Rosberg Lewis Hamilton
Infiniti Red Bull Racing	Red Bull-Renault	RB11	Renault Energy F1-2015	P	3 26	Daniel Ricciardo Daniil Kvyat
Sauber F1 Team	Sauber-Ferrari	C34	Ferrari	P	9 12	Marcus Ericsson Felipe Nasr
Scuderia Toro Rosso	Toro Rosso-Renault	STR10	Renault Energy F1-2015	P	33 55	Max Verstappen Carlos Sainz Jr.
Williams Martini Racing	Williams-Mercedes	FW37	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	19 77	Felipe Massa Valtteri Bottas
Source:

Anyone got an idea what's causing this and/or how to solve this. Tvx1 22:24, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't have a mobile device and it looks right for me in both desktop and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)&mobileaction=toggle_view_mobile. The table has a coding error in {{nowrap|{{nowrap|Mercedes PU106B Hybrid}} which should only have one {{nowrap}}. Does it help to remove that:

Team	Constructor	Chassis	Power unit	Tyre	No.	Drivers
Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari	SF15-T	Ferrari	P	5 7	Sebastian Vettel Kimi Räikkönen
Sahara Force India F1 Team	Force India-Mercedes	VJM08	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	11 27	Sergio Pérez Nico Hülkenberg
Lotus F1 Team	Lotus-Mercedes	E23 Hybrid	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	8 13	Romain Grosjean Pastor Maldonado
Manor Marussia F1 Team	Marussia-Ferrari	TBA	Ferrari 059/3	P	TBA TBA	Will Stevens TBA
McLaren Honda	McLaren-Honda	MP4-30	Honda RA615H Hybrid	P	14 22	Fernando Alonso Jenson Button
Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team	Mercedes	F1 W06 Hybrid	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	6 44	Nico Rosberg Lewis Hamilton
Infiniti Red Bull Racing	Red Bull-Renault	RB11	Renault Energy F1-2015	P	3 26	Daniel Ricciardo Daniil Kvyat
Sauber F1 Team	Sauber-Ferrari	C34	Ferrari	P	9 12	Marcus Ericsson Felipe Nasr
Scuderia Toro Rosso	Toro Rosso-Renault	STR10	Renault Energy F1-2015	P	33 55	Max Verstappen Carlos Sainz Jr.
Williams Martini Racing	Williams-Mercedes	FW37	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	19 77	Felipe Massa Valtteri Bottas
Source:

Does it help to remove all nowrap (may be controversial in an article), or for simplicity replace them by {{identity}} as here:

Team	Constructor	Chassis	Power unit	Tyre	No.	Drivers
Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari	SF15-T	Ferrari	P	5 7	Sebastian Vettel Kimi Räikkönen
Sahara Force India F1 Team	Force India-Mercedes	VJM08	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	11 27	Sergio Pérez Nico Hülkenberg
Lotus F1 Team	Lotus-Mercedes	E23 Hybrid	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	8 13	Romain Grosjean Pastor Maldonado
Manor Marussia F1 Team	Marussia-Ferrari	TBA	Ferrari 059/3	P	TBA TBA	Will Stevens TBA
McLaren Honda	McLaren-Honda	MP4-30	Honda RA615H Hybrid	P	14 22	Fernando Alonso Jenson Button
Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team	Mercedes	F1 W06 Hybrid	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	6 44	Nico Rosberg Lewis Hamilton
Infiniti Red Bull Racing	Red Bull-Renault	RB11	Renault Energy F1-2015	P	3 26	Daniel Ricciardo Daniil Kvyat
Sauber F1 Team	Sauber-Ferrari	C34	Ferrari	P	9 12	Marcus Ericsson Felipe Nasr
Scuderia Toro Rosso	Toro Rosso-Renault	STR10	Renault Energy F1-2015	P	33 55	Max Verstappen Carlos Sainz Jr.
Williams Martini Racing	Williams-Mercedes	FW37	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	19 77	Felipe Massa Valtteri Bottas
Source:

PrimeHunter (talk) 04:56, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning that coding error. That didn't cause the problem however. Actually it did not do any harm at all. If you click on the link to the mobile view and then reduce the width of your browser screen to the minimum you will see the text from the first column spilling over. Using the identity template doesn't solve it. Tvx1 05:38, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I already tried the minimum width on mobile and it works for me. I get a horizontal scroll bar and no overlap. I will stop guessing. It's too hard when I don't have the problem. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:51, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Since I'm not able to explain the issue with text, I have made a screenshot:

As you can see, content from the first column is spilling over into the second. Tvx1 21:20, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't spill over for me. Based on the amount of spillover in your screenshot, maybe your browser doesn't reserve space for the flag icon when the column width is calculated. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:05, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Multiple user have reported this to me though, regardless of which browser they use. Tvx1 06:54, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I think you're spot on there. Either the flag icon isn't taken into account, either it's just counted as a 1px character. Is there a way to solve this? Tvx1 19:07, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Does it change anything if the size of the image is increased, or removed altogether? Googol30 (talk) 04:06, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, cells without flagicons don't spill over into other, no matter how wide they are. But we want to have them in that table. Tvx1 10:13, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

And does making the icons larger make the problem worse? What I'm trying to determine is how the browser is interpreting what it's given and why it isn't making the cells large enough. If the browser isn't making sufficient space for all of the elements the cell contains, should we worry about that, since it's then the fault of the browser, or find a workaround and try to fix the problem on our end, even if the mobile browser isn't working as expected? I didn't seem to catch what your mobile browser even is. If I could replicate the problem on my end, I could attempt to fix it, but the desktop version of Chrome I'm running handles element widths as expected. Let me add a table with the changes I'm thinking of for illustration:

Team	Constructor	Chassis	Power unit	Tyre	No.	Drivers
Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari	SF15-T	Ferrari	P	5 7	Sebastian Vettel Kimi Räikkönen
Sahara Force India F1 Team	Force India-Mercedes	VJM08	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	11 27	Sergio Pérez Nico Hülkenberg
Lotus F1 Team	Lotus-Mercedes	E23 Hybrid	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	8 13	Romain Grosjean Pastor Maldonado
Manor Marussia F1 Team	Marussia-Ferrari	TBA	Ferrari 059/3	P	TBA TBA	Will Stevens TBA
McLaren Honda	McLaren-Honda	MP4-30	Honda RA615H Hybrid	P	14 22	Fernando Alonso Jenson Button
Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team	Mercedes	F1 W06 Hybrid	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	6 44	Nico Rosberg Lewis Hamilton
Infiniti Red Bull Racing	Red Bull-Renault	RB11	Renault Energy F1-2015	P	3 26	Daniel Ricciardo Daniil Kvyat
Sauber F1 Team	Sauber-Ferrari	C34	Ferrari	P	9 12	Marcus Ericsson Felipe Nasr
Scuderia Toro Rosso	Toro Rosso-Renault	STR10	Renault Energy F1-2015	P	33 55	Max Verstappen Carlos Sainz Jr.
Williams Martini Racing	Williams-Mercedes	FW37	Mercedes PU106B Hybrid	P	19 77	Felipe Massa Valtteri Bottas
Source:

Of course, this is an extreme size change, but it's to troubleshoot things here. Does this make the problem worse, fix it, or make no difference whatsoever? Googol30 (talk) 23:42, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Googol30, that makes the problem much worse. Here is a screenshot:

In case I hadn't made it clear yet, this is an issue that only occurs on the mobile version of the site. The only mobile browser I have thus far identified not to be affected by this issue is Firefox. All other mobile browser have this problem. I mostly use mobile Safari, but as said other mobile browsers are affected as well. Tvx1 00:37, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

References
References

Edit counters that works ?

Can anyone tell me if there are any global edit counters who works. Most of them seams to be out of order.--85.166.159.202 (talk) 04:10, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

This tool should be what you're looking for (and it seems to be working all right for me). ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 04:13, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Is there really some other global edit counters? --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 19:19, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

There used to be loads, but they were all on Toolserver, which died last June. AFAIK the XTools one (linked at the bottom of your contribs as "Edit counter") is the only other one which got ported to ToolLabs. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:45, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I was talking about the global ones. I know there was (is?) plenty of edit counters for edits made in local Wikipedia (like this one and this one). --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 20:14, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

The XTools one is global. Here are your counts for Croatian Wikipedia; Estonian Wikipedia; Latvian Wikipedia; Russian Wikipedia; Meta; Wikidata. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:06, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Well don't look at stats.grok.se, it's been broken since 3 April and no-one has fixed it. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 22:21, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

We had different opinion what is global. I though that global means one page, where is every Wikipedia, but you - one tool, which can be used for every project. Ok, nevermind :) --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 06:27, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

• Edgars2007, as a maintainer for xTools, I need to ask what you mean by all stats on one page. Do you mean have one really long page which lists all wikis (there are 720 last I checked) or do you want a combined total on one page as if it was a separate wiki? The later could probably be done, if there was enough of a demand for it. I'll note that it would be an extensive amount of processing to do it, so there would have to be a discussion between myself and the other maintainers to see what level of community request we would need to attempt to undertake that task. Give me a couple weeks (let's say by May 1st) and I'll create WP:XTOOLS to describe the existing tools and then you can start a discussion on the talk page for that page and we can take it from there. Thanks for your suggestion. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 12:39, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Technical 13, you misunderstood me. I am satisfied with xTools. Everything is fine. But I had some ideas about it last summer, if you're interested in them I could tell them to you (if i've not forgotten them). Actually, I would be more interested in this one :) --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 10:49, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

• No worries. Does the script on that page not do the job you want at all or is it just the pretty interface you drew up that allows you to manage multiple redirects to the page you are on that is missing? I probably can find time to make it so clicking the link will allow you to add a redirect to the page one at a time if it is not working but the latter will take more time than I have currently (not to say in a few months I can't do it). — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 22:15, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I use any of these three: Meta Wiki, Tool Labs (Quentinv), Tool Labs (GUC) that work pretty well, and the first one never goes down (it can't). EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 22:26, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Sandbox link

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T95669

At the top of the page, inbetween my talk page and preferences. It's appeared in the last 20 minutes or so. Anyway to get rid of it? Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 18:39, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Place li#pt-sandbox { display: none; } in your CSS. (Already mentioned later but added here with simple instruction for convenience) PrimeHunter (talk) 00:57, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Just today a link to my userspace sandbox has appeared in my personal bar. I remember this used to be an optional gadget, which I long ago disabled. Why has this reappeared, and how can I get rid of it? BethNaught (talk) 18:43, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

What's wrong with it? It encourages new users to use their sandbox's instead of testing in the mainspace. EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 18:47, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't need a link to it. That's what's wrong with it, smart arse. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 18:53, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

One, that doesn't answer the question and two: I rarely use my sandbox, I draft articles at ~/Article title and it's a red link for me because my user sandbox is ~/Sandbox with a capital. Now the personal bar takes up half my screen and it's just annoying. To repeat, where did it come from and how can I send it back there? BethNaught (talk) 18:51, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

(ec) I just noticed this as well. here is the edit that has caused this, but a glance at the Phabricator link doesn't make it clear how to re-disable the sandbox link - Matma Rex, can you shed some light on this? ​—DoRD (talk)​ 18:53, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

And, most of those of us who have been here a while don't want or need the link. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 18:54, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

It's good for newbies, but there should definitely be an easy way to disable that link. --Leyo 18:57, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Not an "easy way" exactly, but adding:

#pt-sandbox {
	display: none;
}

to your CSS file will hide it. If using the vector skin the appropriate file is Special:MyPage/vector.css. Dragons flight (talk) 19:03, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

(ec) It's not "easy" in the gadget sense, but I've been told that you can add li#pt-sandbox { display: none; } to your common.css page to disable it. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 19:05, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to both, this has worked for me. BethNaught (talk) 19:07, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

By easy way, I was referring to Preferences or so. --Leyo 19:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

This really should be a preference/gadget or otherwise be turn-off-able. 98% of users having to do CSS-workarounds isn't quite the solution. Jared Preston (talk) 19:19, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

This did not work for me, either in the skin CSS (MonoBook) or in the common.css file. And other ideas? BMK (talk) 19:45, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Just replace the old gadget by a new CSS-only gadget which will hide the link provided by the extension. This should be enough to make it easy to enable/disable it again... Helder 20:00, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Could you do that? --Leyo 20:42, 9 April 2015 (UTC

The only thing needed (once there is consensus for this) is to create e.g. MediaWiki:Gadget-HideSandbox.css with the CSS above, and add this page to a new line on MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition, similar to the "HideFundraisingNotice" gadget. Then a description should be added to MediaWiki:Gadget-HideSandbox. This would make the option to appear at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. Helder 02:12, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

It also needs an administrator to approve the gadget at Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals, which seems to be a bit of an issue. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:35, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Sad to see the lack of substance in the comments of the two admins one admin who opposed its addition. Killiondude (talk) 22:32, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

It was only opposed by one admin and supported by another. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:42, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry. You are right. I was reading it incorrectly. Killiondude (talk) 23:10, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

• The code does not work for my MonoBook skin. Does anyone have a workaround? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 21:01, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

  monobook.css, not monobook.js! --Leyo 21:05, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

• Try putting li#pt-sandbox {display: none;} in your monobook.css or common.css file. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:24, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mandarax: Thanks, that worked in the monobook.css. BMK (talk) 03:26, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. That worked for me. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 07:27, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Filed a ticket phab:T95669 and submitted a patch. Glaisher (talk) 11:14, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe the link could be done at least blue, as all other links at the top? Regardless does the sandbox exists or not. Will remind, that link was blue in the gadget version. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 13:54, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

• Thank you for this information. I had to change my skin to MonoBook (not necessarily happy with it, but whatever. I do already use it on Simple Wikipedia). Had to create my CSS page and add above code. Although it gave me dire warnings of several varieties, I managed to rid myself of the sandbox link. Nothing has exploded...I so do not need a mandatory link to my cat litter box. I am adult and brave and create all my text right in the edit window. Wow. Thank you again for this conversation. ツ Fylbecatulous talk 14:01, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

@Fylbecatulous: I can't say I'm an expert, but I don't think you were forced to change to Monobook. Doesn't this code

#pt-sandbox {
	display: none;
}

added to Special:MyPage/common.css work in Vector? --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 14:07, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Edgars2007, thank you. I was using the Modern skin. Appearance-wise it was best for visibility on my PC monitor (something to do with less glare with the background colours and font. I had LASIK in the past and I am really glare sensitve, even with the LCD). I sometimes stare at Wikipedia for hours, as my time card usage shows 12-16h faithfully. <smile>. thanks. I will hope for a permanent disengagement by the powers-that-be but we all know how that usually goes... Fylbecatulous talk 14:58, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Forgot there are more styles without Vector and Monobook :) Well, if you want continue using Modern, then copy this to your Special:MyPage/common.css. That should work (I tested). --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 15:14, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Excellent. thanks for the links, as well. That works and you can go ahead and patrol my new css page. I shall keep my Modern skin. Fylbecatulous talk 15:28, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

With monobook there is a #p-personal li { display: inline; } rule that takes precedence over (props Orlodrim), so you have to add an !important clause:

#pt-sandbox {
    display: none !important;
}

Od1n (talk) 21:20, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

S

I'm fine with having a link to a personal sandbox, but it should be an uppercase S. User:Jc37/sandbox is where the link points to. It should be pointing to User:Jc37/Sandbox. - jc37 21:40, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

The gadget (which, if I recall, was enabled by default) linked to /sandbox, so linking to /Sandbox would probably result in unexpected redlinks. wctaiwan (talk) 22:08, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Then fix the gadget? - jc37 22:13, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

That wouldn't help. The (potentially large number of) people who have already created a sandbox using the gadget would have their sandboxes at /sandbox. As a drop-in replacement, this change shouldn't be breaking the sandbox link for those people. wctaiwan (talk) 22:22, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

And the sandbox gadget has already been removed anyway [1] since its function was redundant to the new mw:Extension:SandboxLink. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:37, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

So because some coder didn't give a thought to capitalising the initial "S" in sandbox, it can't be changed because the few who were using the gadget might have a redlink, as opposed to the millions of accounts on Wikipedia which now have this link at the top of the page? I presume there are lots of bots that know how to move a page. This shouldn't be a difficult fix.

Of course, the better solution would be for the wikisoftware to not have the letter after a slash to be case sensitive, like the initial letters. For example, User:jc37 and User:Jc37 manage to go to the same place. So why can't /S and /s go to the same place? - jc37 23:23, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't know how lowercase sandbox was chosen in the gadget but all the skin subpages like /vector.js are also lowercase. mw:Extension:SandboxLink allows each wiki to choose a subpagename at MediaWiki:Sandboxlink-subpage-name. "sandbox" is the default for English. The subpage feature is disabled in some namespaces (notably main) and I think it would cause too much confusion if /s was converted to /S in namespaces where subpages are enabled but not in other namespaces. Should it for example be possible for an article to have /s in the name but not for its talk page? PrimeHunter (talk) 00:09, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

"the few who were using the gadget" Just like this new extension, the gadget was enabled for everyone by default. You probably just turned it off and forgot about it. There are approximately 192,400 lowercase sandbox pages, compared to 23,600 uppercase ones.[2] Not saying the original decision was the right call, but it's how it is. wctaiwan (talk) 00:55, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I would like the following template on my user page

{{User:Cyberpower678/Status}}

Not the "Are you my friend" part. This shows whether Cyberpower678 is online, but not me. I often forget to update my status since it has to be done manually. I would like something to show I might be online but forgot.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:23, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I cannot help you concerning this matter, but should you like to see the last activity of other users at one glance, you might be interested in this script. The documentation is in German, but the script works here (in English), too. Transclusion using

importScriptURI("//de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Schnark/js/letzteredit.js" + "&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript");

--Leyo 20:41, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

That's not exactly what he's looking for. He's looking for a way to show his inactivity to everyone else without having to update his page.—^cyberpower_Chat:Online 21:40, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I am fully aware of this. --Leyo 22:04, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

C678 explained on his/her talk page the templates involved are too complicated to explain. For me, that's probably true. Thanks for trying.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:24, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

• They're often too complicated for CP too... I've spent a bit of time poking around at them trying to make them HTML5 compliant. If you want to try to set it all up, pay attention to what he has set up and what transcludes what else (there are a couple trick ones in there). You'll learn some template lessons and don't worry about if you get stuck, just ask for help with whatever you are stuck on my talk page or CPs. ;) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 22:08, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Some sort of presentation bug

On the mobile version of Wikipedia, user profiles are all wierd all of a sudden. Here is mine as an example. I am using a phone and no app. It is hard to explain but I'm guessing it's some technical stuff. It looks like the page hasn't loaded properly, but it has. No other pages have this issue. I'm not sure whether the desktop version experiences this issue. —DangerousJXD (talk) 03:46, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Which parts exactly are "weird"? Which browser do you use? It's hard to know whether someone else sees the same problem without knowing how to reproduce and what the problem is. :) --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:27, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Special:UserProfile/DangerousJXD is not the same page as User:DangerousJXD. I don't see any problem with the user profile page. Nthep (talk) 09:43, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

The browser is Chrome. You "reproduce" it by just going to any user's user profile page and you'll see it. It is hard to explain. There used to be shading, the users last uploaded picture used to be displayed, a picture from the last article the user edited used to be displayed, some of the writing used to be bold, the writing is thinner than it was, writing is all 'smooshed' together, and the writing was in a box sort of thing. That's the best I can explain it. Any change it was just changed on purpose and that is now how it is supposed to be? I am assuming it is not on the desktop version. Just to clarify, it is only on user profile pages (not user pages) and I am using a phone. It isn't a big issue, just a little one. —DangerousJXD (talk) 10:31, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

On a related matter, I see that Special:UserProfile/Redrose64 shows that I have 140 uploads. That's far too high (should be about 13) unless Commons is included. This is probably the case, since c:Special:UserProfile/Redrose64 gives the same figure - as do m:Special:UserProfile/Redrose64, cy:Special:UserProfile/Redrose64 and several others. But that is more confusing, since I have only uploaded to English Wikipedia and Commons, so I would expect Special:UserProfile/Redrose64 (on English Wikipedia) to show a different figure - either 13 or 153. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:20, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I haven't seen this feature before but at other wikis it sounds more like you say it used to be. Compare for example https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Benutzerprofil/Magnus_Manske?uselang=en and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:UserProfile/Magnus_Manske?uselang=en. At de I see boxes (big boxes with a brief line) and bold text. At en I don't. I like the en version better. I don't see images anywhere. They should be gone after phab:T90801. The edit count line has different wording because de displays MediaWiki:mobile-frontend-profile-footer-ancient while en displays MediaWiki:mobile-frontend-profile-footer-years. I don't know why. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:46, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

This is how they used to look here (as pointed out above), why don't they still look like that? That is exactly what I was talking about, it used to look like that but now it doesn't. --DangerousJXD (talk) 22:01, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks guys for letting us know about this. This is now fixed. Jdlrobson (talk) 00:00, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Public thanks

A completely separate issue with UserProfile: I thought thanks were only supposed to be visible to others if they go looking for them at Special:Log/thanks. But Special:UserProfile/DangerousJXD displays MediaWiki:Mobile-frontend-profile-last-thank which says "Last thanked by [username]." This does not seem consistent with Wikipedia:Notifications/Thanks#What the feature is not. PamD posted to Wikipedia talk:Notifications/Thanks#Thanks and mobile view but was just told to discuss it with the mobile team. Based on phab:T58818 they deliberately want thanks to be more public. They also displayed which page the thanks was about but removed that part two months later. Based on what has has been told, most users probably don't expect a thanks they give to be displayed on the recipient's mobile user profile (Special:UserProfile/DangerousJXD is also visible at desktop but not linked from the desktop interface as far as I know). I propose we blank MediaWiki:Mobile-frontend-profile-last-thank. I'm not sure how mobile works but I guess this will remove the thanks message at the English Wikipedia for unregistered users and users with the default en language. However, it might leave a blank line, or even a blank box if en starts displaying boxes again at UserProfile. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:34, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

How to disable mobile interface?

Hi. Is there any way to stop en.wikipedia.org redirecting to en.m.wikipedia.org when accessed on my Android phablet? I'm using Firefox on a 1280x800 screen, and I find the desktop interface much better; in particular the mobile Watchlist page has loads of bugs. I can of course "request desktop site" after the page starts loading, but that's a load of hassle. Thanks for any help. Rwxrwxrwx (talk) 11:58, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

@Rwxrwxrwx: Click the "Desktop" link at the bottom. It should set a cookie that prevents the mobile redirect. Zhaofeng Li [talk ♦ contribs] 12:41, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I keep switching back and forth because the mobile watchlist stinks but the mobile editor is pleasant. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:05, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

@Zhaofeng Li: - That seems to work, thanks! Why didn't I notice it? Rwxrwxrwx (talk) 16:23, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Can we have an option in preferences to disable mobile interface altogether? It's damn annoying to the point I hope it has never been created. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 16:29, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm with you - the mobile interface sucks. Moreover I've made the mistake of downloading the app, so it always tries to open stuff in the app which doesn't have the "Desktop" link. The mobile version lets you edit, but it doesn't notify you of talk page notifications, you don't get other notifications, you can't see talk pages, user pages, or WP pages... Blah. @Zhaofeng Li:, when I click "Desktop" it does go to the desktop version, but I don't think it sets a cookie because the next time I visit it opens in mobile again. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 14:46, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

@ONUnicorn: It does for me, it seems (Chrome on Android 5.1). I've never checked my cookies, but it is described on wmf:Privacy_policy/FAQ#Can_you_give_me_some_examples_of_types_of_cookies_and_how_you_use_local_storage.3F Zhaofeng Li [talk ♦ contribs] 02:41, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Protection change details should always appear in edit summary (or somewhere else)

Due to vandalism, some of the Reference Desks are currently semi-protected. Note these successive changes on the same desk: [3] [4]

When the first change was made, there was an automatic comment in the edit summary giving the details of the chosen protection (type and duration). When the second change was made, the person's own summary of the reason was almost 250 characters long and the result was that the automatic comment was truncated to nothing.

I appreciate the intent of making a long edit summary, but I think that when the protection level is changed, the most important thing is to record the details. Either they should be given precedence in the edit summary (perhaps by giving the user a way to shorten his/her part) or they should show up some other way. Is there even a way to find out the duration of the change when it isn't in the edit summary?

--65.94.49.82 (talk) 14:06, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

See the protection log. Graham87 14:24, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. And the other bit of the answer is that to see that, on the page's history page I click on "View logs for this page". --65.94.49.82 (talk) 23:36, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Broken template

I reported this via the bug reporting scheme, only to be told that Phabricator deals with MediaWiki bugs but not bugs in the Wikipedia template machinery. They pointed me here. The "cite EWD" template worked a month ago but right now produces bad output and a broken URL. The article about the template shows it, as well as articles that use it. Paul Koning (talk) 16:01, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Fixed by [5]. That template has 100000+ uses and should probably be protected. Thanks for the report. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:11, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

167176 transclusions to be precise. I gave it an indef template-prot. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:38, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Performance

Anyone else getting bad performance today? This page took 80.3 seconds to load, with the majority of time taken up by api.php calls. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:34, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Articles load fairly quickly, but the top and side bars take forever. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:43, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

The bits server is being slow intermittently. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:31, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Any idea what is causing the slowness and when it'll be fixed? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:46, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Nope. I'm just an observer, but know from five years experience that if a page takes more than five seconds to load, and the status shows "Waiting for bits.wikimedia.org" while the spinny thing is revolving, and what I am eventually displayed is a page lacking some or all of its styling, the problem is at bits. --Redrose64 (talk) 05:49, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

This might not be the case as the slow requests are directed towards en.wikipedia.org and not bits.wikipedia.org. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:42, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Mobile Web Block Warning

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T96257

A screenshot of the notice received I received attempting to edit. Note the message at the bottom.

So I discovered today that if a blocked user attempts to edit on the mobile version of En.Wiki, they will be allowed to edit the code and put in an edit summary, before they are notified that they are blocked, and any work they have put in is lost. Not only that, the block notice in not clickable and it gives no reason why you are blocked and no method of appealing. If mobile editor is to become more popular as we are being told, this needs sorting out. EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 21:13, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

This should be filed in Phabricator, (with full user story background). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:47, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi there, thank you so much for noting this! I'm currently poking around in here looking for stuff - this isn't what I was looking for but I'm glad I did. EoRdE6, I'll notify the mobile team. -Rdicerb (WMF) (talk) 00:20, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

EoRdE6: This would be very welcome as a task in the bug tracker indeed. Could you file it against the "Mobile-Web" project? Thanks in advance! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:02, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

• @EoRdE6: I would highly recommend you explain how you acquired this screenshot. I know that you are a net positive to the Wikipedia project, but without clarification, someone could make false sockpuppetry accusations against you. Steel1943 (talk) 14:53, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

• Steel1943 Oops, should have clarified that yeah. The IP address I edit from is blocked until 15:25, 9 September 2020. Not from me I assure you, its a shared IP. EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 14:58, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Pushing for bug to be fixed

This continues to be an annoying problem which shows no sign of ever being fixed. Is there any way to bump up the priority and get someone to look at it? 86.152.163.58 (talk) 13:42, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

• Sure, fill out the form on Special:Login/signup and then visit Phab:T70324 and add some details or use cases to the ticket. Tickets that get the most usable input from the most people tend to get resolved the quickest. :) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 13:59, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Weird redirects left by double redirect fixing bots

See also: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 14#Bot should fix double-redirects

There seem to be occasional problems with the several bots which fix double redirects, often resulting from vandalism but occasionally resulting from move wars and even more rarely from good-faith bold page moves. For example, see the recent RfD discussions on these confusing redirects:

• Gangsta Bitch Barbie → Null set: a band article which was redirected to a new name, then determined not to be notable and redirected again to a different subject, creating a double redirect which was fixed by AvicBot.
• Creatures of the Id → Insanity: a redirect to a comic book article which was moved because it was missing a disambiguator, with a new redirect put in place of the original target, leaving behind the odd double redirect (now deleted) which was fixed by Xqbot.
• Ennialation → My Little Pony: was a redirect from a misspelling of Annihilation which at some point was vandalized to redirect to My Little Pony. Before the vandalism was repaired, Xqbot detected the double redirect and helpfully repaired it for us.

In each of these cases, of course it's not the bot's behaviour that is the problem, yet a problem is created and nobody is aware of it until someone happens to stumble across the weird redirect. I don't think this is a big enough problem to suggest that the bots should not automatically fix double redirects, but I would like to suggest that when doing so, the bot flags its action somehow. My thought is it could populate a list in the format of the one above, which could be watched, and the entries checked and cleared by interested editors, to weed out the occasional improper fix. Thoughts? Ivanvector (talk) 19:27, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Question about 'Child' Template:Navbox - smaller font

Greetings, Recently I noticed that font is smaller on a child Navbox compared to a regular (parent) Navbox. IMO it is harder to read because of the size reduction. Can the software be changed to keep Child Navbox font size the same? Example at Template:Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 20:08, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

I added |{{{1|}}} to each of the four child navboxes [6] to permit the existing |child in the four calls in {{Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati}} to be passed on. Does that look good? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:04, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks PrimeHunter (talk). It looks fine, much better! Being somewhat new to Wikipedia, this is magic. Now I can backtrack to update a few more child navboxes with this same issue. And I learned something newtoday! . Thanks so much! JoeHebda (talk) 21:56, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Sending thanks to IPs

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T63022

So, when I look at the edit history of a page, there's something that says "(undo | thank)" next to the edit summary, and if you click the thank button, the editor gets a message that they have been thanked for the edit. However, that button is missing from IP edits. Is there a reason for this? Sometimes someone editing under an IP has quite obviously done a lot of work that has drastically improved a page (or several). I would like to be able to thank them the same way I do named editors.

I realize that many IPs are not static, but many others are. Moreover, if you thank them within a few minutes of the edit, chances are they're still using the same IP and will see it. It just doesn't make sense not to have that as an option for them. So, why is it like that? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 03:21, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

"Thanking" someone sends them an "Echo" notification. However notifications are only available to logged in users, and as such IPs can't get thanks. Similarly, IPs won't get a notification if their edits are undone or reverted, since that requires Echo as well. Stickee (talk) 06:06, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Another thing is that unless you know that an IP address is static, or that the edit that you wish to send thanks for is very recent, you might be thanking somebody who had nothing to do with it. For example, I made one of these edits, but none of the others, so I am certain that more than one different person has edited from that IP address. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:06, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

IMO not really a problem, another user of the same IP could interpret it. I'd like to send thanks to bots and IPs. When I used IPs for about six years I sometimes got a {{welcome}} on the IP talk page, no harm done. –Be..anyone (talk) 23:22, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

So with the echo notification; isn't that the same as the notification you get when you get a new talk page message? If they aren't able to get echo notifications how do they know when they have a talk page message, and if the answer is that they don't, then why do we bother warning IP vandals on their talk page, or leaving talk page messages for IPs at all? I know IPs sometimes see and respond to messages on their talk page, but if they aren't getting notifications, then how? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 13:21, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Echo notifications for registered users and "You have new messages" for IP's is not the same feature. IP's still get "You have new messages". PrimeHunter (talk) 13:38, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Also known as the Orange Bar of Death/Doom. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:32, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Move option has gone missing (All pages)

Hi there, I recently tried to move the page Project 15B to a new name Vishakapatanam-class destroyer, only to find out that my move option has gone missing! I don't have the slightest clue what might have happened! Later a kind user from RCchat helped me by moving the page himself and suggested that my .js might have caused the problem. But I'm not sure which .js is the culprit or what should I do even if I find one... This issue persists on all the pages I visit! Here is what it looks like. this link. Can someone throw some lighten here... Thanks in advance! --†ããrøn95^® 12:16, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Is it on the "More" tab? Do you get a move form or error message at Special:MovePage/Project 15B? Do you get a Move tab or a move option on the More tab if you disable "Add Page and User dropdown menus to the toolbar" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:32, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi @PrimeHunter:, thanks for your quick reply..! The more tab previously had 'auto ed' and 'Google Trans'.. but after disabling "Add Page and User dropdown menus to the toolbar", the move option magically came into the more tab!! But can't I enable "Add Page and User dropdown menus to the toolbar" with move option?? there are no errors, just the move option missing! Regards--†ããrøn95^® 12:48, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I enabled that gadget and found the move option under the Page menu. Maybe another gadget or script you have installed is removing it. Try disabling other gadgets until it comes back. Reach Out to the Truth 13:11, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

It's also on the "Page" menu for me when "Add Page and User dropdown menus to the toolbar" is enabled, also in my autoconfirmed non-admin account. I don't know why it's missing for you. What is your browser? Do you have it in MonoBook? I have it in both MonoBook and the default Vector (other details vary, they don't use the same script). Do you get a normal move form and not an error message at Special:MovePage/Project 15B? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:31, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi @Reach Out to the Truth:, check this link to find out what I see in Pages option. I've also tried disabling all the gadgets from preferences.. Yet, no use! It still won't appear in Pages dropdown...! Thanks for your reply! Hello @PrimeHunter:, I am using Chrome. No, I use Vector! I tried MonoBook, it's still not there. Yes, I do get a normal move form in Special:MovePage/Project 15B and not an error message. The only problem is, I don't have a move option in pages.. Regards --†ããrøn95^® 13:41, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

It works for me in Chrome. Try to clear your entire cache. I see you got the rollbacker right yesterday. Do you think Move disappeared after that? If it's possible then may I temporarily remove rollbacker from you? It shouldn't make a difference but rollbacker and move are both rights and the page script MediaWiki:Gadget-dropdown-menus-vector.js tests for the move right so it's conceivable that another right messes something up somewhere. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:05, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi @PrimeHunter:, I too suspect that the rollback right might have caused the problem.If the 'temporary revoking' won't do any harm to my future benefits , you may do so... Regards --†ããrøn95^® 15:10, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

OK, I have removed rollbacker.[7] PrimeHunter (talk) 15:18, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Bwallah!! Move Page is Back in pages drop down!!! @PrimeHunter: --†ããrøn95^® 15:33, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Great! Pinging MusikAnimal who maintains the script. I have given you rollbacker back. Please say whether the move link on the page tab has disappeared again. You can still move a page by for example entering Special:MovePage/pagename in the search box, or disable the gadget during the move. But let's hope MusikAnimal can make it work. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:52, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Gone again (Move page again missing) !! . But thanks for all of your help! --†ããrøn95^® 16:00, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm unable to reproduce this. I used MusikPuppet which is has only rollback, then went to Project 15B (w/o redirect) and I see the Move link. The script works by checking permissions. The "move" permission should be present for any registered user, regardless of any additional rights. However there is some caching of the user rights, so we don't have to make extra AJAX calls (user permissions don't change often). Maybe that's the issue... @Jaaron95: What browser are you using? I'm going to have you check your rights by making the API call through your browser's JavaScript console. — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:10, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi @MusikAnimal:, I am using chrome... let's make the call... --†ããrøn95^® 16:14, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jaaron95: If you are using Windows hit Control+⇧ Shift+J (⌘ Command+⌥ Option+J on Mac), then type the following and hit Enter: mw.user.getRights().then(function(data){prompt("",data)}) then copy the selected text to your clipboard (Control+C) and paste it here. — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:22, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: rollback,createaccount,read,edit,createtalk,writeapi,editmyusercss,editmyuserjs,viewmywatchlist,editmywatchlist,viewmyprivateinfo,editmyprivateinfo,editmyoptions,centralauth-merge,abusefilter-view,abusefilter-log,abusefilter-log-detail,vipsscaler-test,ep-bereviewer,flow-hide,collectionsaveasuserpage,reupload-own,move-rootuserpages,move-categorypages,createpage,minoredit,purge,sendemail,ep-enroll,flow-lock,mwoauthmanagemygrants,patrol,reupload,upload,move,collectionsaveascommunitypage,autoconfirmed,editsemiprotected,movestable,autoreview,transcode-reset,skipcaptcha,flow-edit-post,mwoauthproposeconsumer,mwoauthupdateownconsumer This one.. Right?--†95^® 16:30, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeap that's what I was looking for. You have the same exact permissions as my test account MusikPuppet, so I don't think that's the culprit. Let's try clearing the MoreMenu cache, if for some reason it got stuck at a time where you somehow did not have the move permissions, which again, should always be there for registered users. Back in the JavaScript console, type this and hit Enter: $.jStorage.deleteKey('mmCacheDate'); $.jStorage.deleteKey('mmUserRights') Refresh the page and let me know if you see the Move link. — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:37, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Jaaron95 is autoconfirmed so this shouldn't be an issue but just for the record, only autoconfirmed (and confirmed) users have the move right, as shown by Special:ListGroupRights. I have an alternate account which is not autoconfirmed. As expected, the account has no move link anywhere whether the gadget is enabled or not, and Special:MovePage/Project 15B displays "Permission error You do not have permission to move this page". PrimeHunter (talk) 16:42, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Ah yes, it is restricted to (auto)confirmed users. The script doesn't care about most user groups though, instead favouring checking permissions because they are consistent across wikis. The cache only last for a week, so unless Jaaron95 wasn't confirmed a week ago the move permission should be there. — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:51, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: hurrah!! You got that right geek!! Move option is back and is spic and span! Thank you for your time! MusikAnimal and you too PrimeHunter!! --†95^® 16:55, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Glad to hear it! Though I'm still baffled how this happened. Welp, if anything, thank you for finding the bug! :) I will investigate further. — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:02, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

tracking category sporadic

Resolved

Can someone help me with what I'm overlooking here? It's a tracking category: if the info box has a field 'glotto' without a corresponding 'glotto(ref)name', then it should add the page to the category so we can review it. (Many early pages with Glottolog codes don't specify the name, which throws of the ref if the language is renamed in the info box.) The cat contained hundreds of articles last week, and I cleared them up, but I just came across another (Bolyu language) that didn't generate the cat. (Doing a test revert of the Glottolog name now, and it's not doing anything.) — kwami (talk) 20:18, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

If you change a template such that the pages transcluding that template are recategorised, you need to wait for them to work their way through the job queue before the categories concerned are both populated correctly and shown at the bottom of the affected pages. This can take from minutes to weeks. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:52, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I was checking for that. When you save, the article itself should update, even if the category isn't populated. — kwami (talk) 22:25, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

It still takes time, and it often occurs that the cats at the bottom of the article are displayed correctly when the category pages that they link to are not. A WP:NULLEDIT on every article that transcludes the template will synchronise, but this is not feasible when there are 8122 transclusions. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:33, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Before the glotto code is this line: {{#if:{{{iso3|}}}|<!--okay-->|{{#if:{{{lc1|}}}|<!--ok-->|{{#if:{{{linglist|}}}|{{#ifeq:{{{isoexception|}}}|dialect|[[Category:Dialects with Linguist List code]]|[[Category:Languages without ISO 639-3 code but with Linguist List code]]}}}}

It has four nested #if or #ifeq so if it's supposed to be a closed line then it needs eight }}}}}}}} at the end and not only four. The following glotto code is currently part of the unclosed #if's. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:10, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I should have inserted the code further done. Fixed! — kwami (talk) 22:21, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Reference/Citation bot

Resolved

Hi all, I was wondering how I can activate (I did in my preferences) citation bot for this new article: Corporate Election Services, not very technical minded here, the way I read it I'm supposed to hit the Citation button (but it takes me to a blank white page with an error--completely white page no Wikipedia icon or toolbars at all?!) I went the route listed in the instructions of <ref>{{web cite| website URL}}</ref> but now I get problems on the reflist. Please help! Thanks! ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 22:54, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I tried to fix it, but another contributor was faster. Check out {{cite web}} for its syntax, notably url=...|author=...|date=...|title=...|publisher=...|accessdate=... and put the reference after punctuation (period or comma). –Be..anyone (talk) 23:12, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

(sorry for the ec, Be..anyone). @Marketdiamond: the references are cleaned up - I used the citation bot link in the toolbox in the left sidebar, not the one in edit mode though. However there are still a lot of citation details missing (titles, dates, authors, ...); the citation bot can't fetch all types of information from all URLs for technical reasons (see bot documentation for details). You'll have to add the remaining information manually (or you could test Visual Editor's new citation functions). GermanJoe (talk) 23:56, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Much thanks to you both! I will check out the Visual Editor as well! ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 00:39, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

How do you get rid of the @#$%^&*! banner?

There's a Wikimedia banner that goes "Help the Funds Dissemination Committee"...

and no matter how many times I click on the x to close it, it keeps coming back!

I'd like never to see it again.

Please help. The Transhumanist 06:47, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: That would be Preferences→Browsing→•Suppress display of fundraiser banners and/or •Suppress display of all Central Notices. Should work :) EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 07:08, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Under gadgets - why I didn't find it. Your tip worked great. Thanks! BTW, I don't mind reading a notice once, but they should provide a way for it to stay away after you close it. The Transhumanist 07:49, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that making the banners go away requires keeping cookies, but I'm not sure. Are you clearing cookies frequently? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia and ISPs

Occasionally I have seen persistent Wikipedia vandals warned along the lines of "We will report you to your ISP and they will block your Internet access". It surprises me greatly that any ISP would block someone's Internet access merely on the basis of a complaint from Wikipedia. Has there ever been a case of this happening, or any realistic prospect of it ever happening, or are such warnings just empty threats? (I am asking out of curiosity, but I would like to make it clear that I have never vandalised Wikipedia myself, nor do I have any intention of ever doing so.) 86.188.80.40 (talk) 13:59, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:BEANS this will probably not be answered —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:48, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia would never ask an ISP to block. We have our own internal protocols to to deal with this sort of thing.--Aspro (talk) 19:35, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

ISP's have been contacted. See Wikipedia:Abuse response. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:46, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Do you know with what outcome? 86.150.71.4 (talk) 19:22, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Obsolete <big>...</big> in the Edit toolbar

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T40487

From User talk:Technical 13

So I notice you are big into implementing HTML 5 compliancy (a good thing), and I wondered if you could explain why the wikitext edit box still provides users to option to use <big>...</big> if it is now deprecated (Wikipedia:HTML5#big). Shouldn't it be replaced with {{Big}} or <span style>...</span >, or is there a reason that I should know why it hasn't. Thanks in advance! EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 05:48, 17 April 2015 (UTC) I'm not sure which "wikitext edit box" you are referring to. I may have it turned off or hidden somehow by my use of WP:wikEd. If it is an interface thing, I can't personally change it but I know that Edokter, Redrose64 or any one of the other administrators who have worked on similar interface pages (MediaWiki:Edittools) would be happy to remove it or update it to something appropriate. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 13:12, 17 April 2015 (UTC) To be exact, the <big>...</big> element is marked as obsolete in HTML5, which is stronger than deprecated. It's not in Edittools - which these days is loaded from MediaWiki:Gadget-charinsert-core.js (and is still discussed at MediaWiki talk:Edittools). --Redrose64 (talk) 13:21, 17 April 2015 (UTC) @Redrose64: I was referring to Help:Edit toolbar under the advanced tab. I thought this was turned on for everyone, but maybe it is just a default on for newer users? Directly above the edit window for me, under the advanced tab. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 13:36, 17 April 2015 (UTC) I think that it's part of the MediaWiki software, and so I don't think that it's locally configurable; you could ask at WP:VPT. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2015 (UTC) mw:Extension:WikiEditor to be exact, and yes, it is customizable (in JavaScript). I agree 'big (A+)' is somewhat 'anachronistic', and probably should be replaced. This is best raised in Phabricator. For now, while obsoloete, it is still in use on meany pages and is therefor still whiltelisted. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:12, 17 April 2015 (UTC) Ugh... Okay. Yeah, I'll see what I can do to fix that. Thanks for the information of where it is Edokter. I'll see if I can't work up a patch for the extension tomorrow or Sunday. This should be a really easy on to do. Would you suggest it should be updated to <span style="font-size: larger;">...</span> as that is the css the most closely resembles the effect of <big>...</big> (yes, I realize how it is rendered is browser specific, but so is the big tag itself). — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 16:21, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

To confirm, is this locally configurable or should this instead be put in Phabricator? EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 14:40, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

See above; it should be raised in Phab to find a suitable replacement (probably using a span). Local versions may be customized to call {{big}} instead. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:21, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

It is already tracked since 2012, but it is considered low priority. Helder 19:20, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Map alignment in infobox

Recently Template:Infobox subdivision type has been added to the lead of States of Germany. The infobox uses Template:German Federal States as map/image and shows a strange display glitch: the map is not centered, but left-aligned on my display (Windows XP, FF, vector skin). That problem seems to be somewhat system-dependant: on another editor's display the map was centered correctly. The map template German Federal States is quite old and may need improving of its parameter handling. The template is used in several Germany-related articles, any improvements or advice for possible improvements appreciated. GermanJoe (talk) 16:28, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Oddly I can't reproduce this (FF10+IE9+QupZillla+Chrome monobook, FF10+Chrome useskin=vector). I tested (preview) to put the map template in {{center|{{German Federal States}}}}, and nothing happened, it still worked for me. –Be..anyone (talk) 23:07, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for checking, @Be..anyone:. Knowing the problem is on my side then, I checked a few more possible reasons and found the culprit: I have NoSquint for FireFox installed (add-on to modify zoom levels when needed). Disabling this and switching back to "Firefox default zoom functions" fixed the mis-alignment. Do you use any zoom tool by chance for FireFox under Windows or just the FF default functions? GermanJoe (talk) 23:32, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

No special tricks, it's a vintage 2013 portable FF10 ESR for a virtual Windows 2000, only "noscript" still offers updates. Chrome+IE on Windows 7 might use some "smart scroll" Setpoint software for a Logitech wheel mouse, but that's not about zoom. –Be..anyone (talk) 23:43, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

No problem, I'll look around for a better add-on or get used to the Firefox default functions ;). Thanks again for your help. GermanJoe (talk) 23:56, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Why does "Template:Current Florida statewide political officials" list non Floridians?

This template: Template:Current Florida statewide political officials

For the links to the template, the wiki system lists a variety of politicians that are not from the US state of Florida, and also the Florida template is not obviously on the individuals' wikipedia article page, even via a redirect. See here:
(links to the Florida statewide political officials template)
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHere&target=Template%3ACurrent+Florida+statewide+political+officials&namespace=0

Can anyone state what is going on, and how to correct the improper links to non-Florida people?
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 21:39, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Some of these pages link to that template indirectly via another template. For example, {{Current Minnesota statewide political officials}} includes a link to the equivalent Florida template, which is why MN officials like Governor Mark Dayton show up in your list. You can exclude those by using the "Hide links" button, which will then only show transclusions (articles that have the FL template). Mamyles (talk) 21:40, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

• OK, I'm desiring to de-link these superfluous links. Makes no sense to have them, from my view. I am looking at the Minnesota template, I cannot find a link. Can you educate me, Mamyles ?
  Yellowdesk (talk) 21:56, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

All 50 state templates transclude {{Current statewide political officials footer}} at the bottom for navigation to the other states. I don't see a good reason to change that. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:09, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:NAVBOX is probably a good reason. --Izno (talk) 04:45, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Many navboxes have links to related navboxes at the top or bottom. 50 links may sound like a lot but the official two-letter state abbreviations means it doesn't use a lot of space. {{Current statewide political officials footer}} is four years old and only used for this purpose so it shouldn't be removed from 50 templates without discusion. There is no point in removing it from one or two and keeping it in the rest so a removal would be equivalent to deletion and should be discussed at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:54, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

One (but only one) item in a list is failing to sort properly

I'm stumped as to why. See here: 1. Hit count twice and watch Incubator rise to the top. The rest come up in order. What could cause this? The numbers of left-padded with zeroes with padleft if that helps. ResMar 00:44, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Note that the Wikimedia Labs item also fails to sort properly (is x2, but lists in the middle of x0). After looking for awhile I'm still not able to decipher what exactly {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Index item}} does, but I'm guessing that's a good thing to look deeper into. Mamyles (talk) 01:49, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not going through all the templates and modules to work out how the sortkey is generated but maybe the following can help you. You can use Special:ExpandTemplates to see the generated code. The Incubator sortkey is 03823. I notice Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Index item says x3823 on the template page. Swedish Wikipedia also sorts incorrectly. It has sortkey 00003. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:49, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Just checking, but should the Incubator parameters have a defined "search_string" too? That parameter is missing in the incubator definition, and the sort value calculation uses this value in the sub-template for counting. GermanJoe (talk) 02:08, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Excellent observation - that fixed the Incubator entry's sorting. Wikimedia Labs or Swedish Wikipedia still has a problem though. Mamyles (talk) 02:20, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the remaining minor glitches: Sorting and display use different search tags (sorting depends on the "search_string" parameter, display counts the "tag" parameter). Maybe those minor differences (lowercase <-> uppercase, 2 words <-> 1 word) in some Wiki names lead to different count results. GermanJoe (talk) 02:30, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Beat me to it. The template Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Index item was using tag instead of search string, for some reason, resulting in the wrong number being displayed for a number of wikis. Think I've fixed it in this revision. Mamyles (talk) 02:32, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mamyles, GermanJoe, and PrimeHunter: Thanks for the assist, after copy-pasting this stuff for an hour I was a little bug-eyed. ResMar 03:22, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Location of picture in SN 1987A

In SN 1987A, there is a left-aligned picture in the SN 1987A#Progenitor. However, it doesn't display until the reference section, and it's displaying somehow behind the text of the references. What gives? This problem happens in monobook and vector. The picture displays a bit differently depending on your zoom level, but it always displays after all the other (right-aligned) images. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:23, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

An image on one side of the page will not display any higher than the top of the previous image on the other side of the page. Instead of having three images directly after the infobox, try spacing them out throughout the article, or at least after the left-floated image. - Evad37 [talk] 01:57, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Fixed with {{Stack}}.[8] PrimeHunter (talk) 02:00, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Image alt text: can be with the image

Resolved

-- wrong forum. -DePiep (talk) 18:21, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

As far as I understand the WP:ALT TEXT topic: there could be a default alt-text (per language) for each image. In any article, an editor can overwrite that default all right. (personally, I find it tiresome to having to re-read the alt-text essence again and again to get it, and then having to re-enter my same(?) handcrafted text for an image). -DePiep (talk) 19:25, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Where does it say (or imply) that "there could be a default alt-text (per language) for each image"? ―Mandruss ☎ 19:41, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Not "it" says so, it is "me" saying (suggesting) so.

For example (using the file from said WP:ALT TEXT). File:Jacques-Louis David 017.jpg, can have the alt-text "The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries" at commons, for lang=en, by default. In an article at enwiki about "Napoleon's career", an editor could overwrite this default by using good old |alt=Painting of Napoleon the day after he became Emperor (in 1804). -DePiep (talk) 20:25, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

@DePiep: Oh, you're making a proposal for a change. For that, you might get more response at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). ―Mandruss ☎ 09:09, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Get it, will go to the right forum (coined it! ;-) ). -DePiep (talk) 18:21, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Template doc: why that intimidating useless bar?

About {{High-use}}: can someone please turn this into a sidebar box, by default, instead of a being an affonting intimidating useless intro? Really, not a single editor comes to {{Convert}} to change the template. So why warn them, this intimidating way? They come to the documentation page to use the template. -DePiep (talk) 21:38, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Good point. Helder 02:31, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I have an idea. Ignore it. It shouldn't affect you then. It's just a simple reminder to those who do edit templates to use the sandbox and carefully preview. The notice also follows the standard page notice setup. 90% of people reading a Wikipedia article come to read it, not edit it, but they are still displayed the big notices at the top of articles too. EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 02:38, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

EoRdE6, yes I can ignore it, now tell that to the visiting editors ('readers'). And to be honest, your reply reads like an ignore the question. Never met that before. -DePiep (talk) 18:25, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Template space arent for readers - its for editors - and the message is a warning not to edit it without consensus on the talk page (for template editors/admins) and an explanation why the rest of us cant edit the high risk 800 transclusion template. Christian75 (talk) 18:39, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Most editors do not edit templates. Maybe we could convert it into an edit notice? Alakzi (talk) 18:43, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

re Chris75: visitor of a template home page, like this, are 99% article editors who want to apply the template, not to edit it. No need to scare them off with a big bad irreleant bar. Already, the Lua and Translate notices have sided nicely already in my demo link. -DePiep (talk) 18:57, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Merging / reorganizing tiny Talk archives?

I was looking at the talk page for Talk:4G, and it's really strange. There's monthly archives, with maybe one post in them, and no discussions of anything. After poking around a bit I see that when archiving was first implemented, the person that did it, set a 180 hr archiving period (7.5 days) and monthly archiving.

It doesn't get enough activity to need that heavy-handed archiving rate, and I think this high speed arciving is probably killing off discussion by archiving issues so fast. I've changed the bot archiving speed to 90 days now to slow it down, though the archiving should also probably be yearly.

Is it possible to merge the tiny 2012/13/14/15 monthly Talk archives into year archives?

I also noticed the "2012/January" archive actually has nothing from January, it's all 2011 and earlier from before archiving started. I tried moving it to a new name to reflect that (Talk:4G/Archives/2011_and_earlier) but it's still shown in the Talk archive list as 2012/January. I'm stopping here. I don't know how the Talk archive list box works, I don't want to bork it trying to reorganize for the better.

-- DMahalko (talk) 21:44, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

@DMahalko: I've merged the monthly archives into Talk:4G/Archive 2, instructed ClueBot III to archive the talk page by number rather than by date, and made it so that there need to be more than five threads on the page for the bot to archive it. I've also removed ClueBot III's archive box and advertisement, as it's not necessary. Graham87 14:11, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Oversight question

Since one can download all revisions, all pages of Wikipedia, is it possible to compare versions of that download to see what has been changed by oversight? If it is possible, is anybody doing that? More specifically, if I ask for some pretty old identifying information to be oversighted from my real account, am I actually bringing more attention to it? Njfma5piii3gymb (talk) 00:40, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I seem to recall some instances. Initial treatment with admin deletion (delete/restore or revdel) can make things less interesting in this respect. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 02:08, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

It's perfectly possible, assuming the oversighted information is old enough that a database download would contain it. To make things wworse, it would presumably be possible to write a program to compare the dump with the extant Wikipedia data, and find these revisions that way. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:27, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Error deleting file

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T96498

I am attempting to delete File:'Appetite For Construction' Album Cover.jpg. When I try, I get, "Error deleting file: Could not delete file "mwstore://local-swift-eqiad/local-public/archive/e/ef/20150401060250!'Appetite_For_Construction'_Album_Cover.jpg"." Any ideas? --B (talk) 04:56, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Looks to me like a bug. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:34, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

After moving it to an other name, I had no trouble deleting it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:35, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Created a bug report - phab:T96498. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:19, 19 April 2015 (UTC)