Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)
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Contents
- 1 Support ends for the 2006 wikitext editor
- 2 Template comparison tool
- 3 Issue with my Special:Contributions page?
- 4 can't remove username from login page
- 5 WP:SPI "Date filed" showing an error for some investigations?
- 6 Script issues
- 7 iarchive
- 8 Earwig's Copyvio Detector
- 9 Multiple Short Description
- 10 & n d a s h ; rendering problem
- 11 Where are the Mapframe parameters?
- 12 Main Page responsive design
- 13 Blacklisted IP talk pages
- 14 Populated category redirect
- 15 Tech News: 2018-46
- 16 Regular expression to add flag icons and country links to country list
- 17 Problem with Parsoid gadget
- 18 revision deletion limitations?
- 19 Searching my contributions with a filter on a previous namespace?
- 20 Two different people moved the same page???
- 21 One computer can't load Wikipedia while another can
- 22 Job opening for product manager
- 23 Template:Infobox album creating garbage
- 24 Users contributions are showing up on the article history but not on Contributions
- 25 Preventing redlinks auto launch into edit source mode
- 26 Problems using the VE interface
- 27 DYKUpdateBOT malfunctioning
- 28 Community Wishlist Survey – Vote NOW
- 29 Animated gif files
- 30 Open-source
- 31 Temp password expired
Support ends for the 2006 wikitext editor[edit]
The 2006 wikitext editor will be officially removed next week, on the normal deployment train (i.e., Thursday, 25 October 2018 for the English Wikipedia). This has been discussed since at least 2011, was planned for at least three different months in 2017, and is finally happening.
If you are using this toolbar (and almost none of you are), then you will be given no toolbar at all (the 2003 wikitext editor). This default was chosen so that your editing windows will open even faster, and to avoid cluttering the window with the larger toolbars (a particularly important consideration for Wikisource's PagePreviews). Of course, if you decide that you would prefer the 2010 or 2017 wikitext editors (or a gadget like WikEd), then you are free to change your preferences at any time.
Although it is not a very popular script overall, I know that some editors strongly prefer this particular tool for specific reasons, such as regularly using the <sub> or <sup> buttons. If you are one of its fans, then you might want to know that some long-time editors are talking about re-implementing its best features as a volunteer-supported user script. I believe that any announcements about that project will be made at mw:Contributors/Projects/Removal of the 2006 wikitext editor. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:36, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
- And if you're thinking "Yeah, she said that three times last year..." – No, really, the fourth time's the charm! This time, they really do think it's not going to completely break the wikis.
;-)Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:40, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
- Best of luck, I'll be sorry to see it go! In case you're interested in some anecdata, it was the codeeditor that really did it for me. I like the shortness and simplicity of the old one, but the linting is just too useful for js/css. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:03, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
- How does one know which toolbar one is using? DuncanHill (talk) 21:37, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
- See Help:Edit toolbar. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:06, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
- I'm with DuncanHill, i'm afraid; completely non-techclever, i simply found a Preference which says "Show edit toolbar" and i've had it active for years, i think. Is that the toolbar that's going? How do i choose another one? The only other Preference i've seen talks about an enhanced toolbar, which rather frightens me.... Happy days (or possibly not, if i don't understand toolbars), LindsayHello 15:41, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
- The editing preferences are unusually confusing, even by Wikipedia standards. Some of the pref items silently override the others, and it's especially difficult to explain to new editors. I've proposed improvements at phab:T202921, but unless that wins the m:Community Wishlist (starts in a few weeks), I don't think it will happen any time soon.
- Lindsay, if you're a non-technical person, then you might want to consider trying the visual editor again. It is really vastly better than it was back in the day. If you don't have separate "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs already, then look for a little pencil icon (not the highlighter marker pen) and switch to it. It works mostly like a normal word processing document, and is really the only sensible way to do some things, like adding or removing a column from a large wikitext table.
- If you prefer wikitext, then I think you would likely be happy with the light blue "enhanced" toolbar. It has been the default for all users since approximately 2010, and it gets used thousands and thousands of times each day with very few complaints.
- Finally, if you don't actually use the buttons in the little toolbar (which is not unusual for experienced editors), then your easiest option is probably doing nothing. In that case, the toolbar, which you're already not using, will just go away all by itself. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:22, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
- How does one know which toolbar one is using? DuncanHill (talk) 21:37, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
- P.S. I fully and wholly expect a lot of editors to turn up here on the day in question, who as always likely missed all the announcements, because they just don't follow fora like these. Please keep in mind, that according to the data, last year 1500 en.wp editors making a single edit in a 1 month period had the toolbar enabled. Note this doesn't equal USED the toolbar, many people simply have it enabled because they always have. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:59, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
- Of course they will. It's just impossible to keep up with everything. That's why I appreciate it so much when people ping me for interesting discussions. This will also be announced in m:Tech/News on Monday, as well as the Editing newsletter, which will go out next week (Tuesday?).
- Schedule update: There's been a slight delay. But it's finally up on the Beta Cluster. It doesn't seem to have broken anything obvious, so it should reach this wiki next WP:THURSDAY.
- Tech folks here might want to take a look at what Arkanosis has been doing about a replacement script, especially that edit about a gadget for Monobook users. (Hmm, I wonder whether the copies of gadgets are up to date on the Beta Cluster? If they're not, that might explain why last week's watchlist problem wasn't visible until it hit production.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:37, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
- We have a script! See mw:Contributors/Projects/Removal of the 2006 wikitext editor#Alternatives for most of the details.
- Also, based upon the conversation at w:fr:Discussion utilisateur:Arkanosis#Page, we probably have some scripts/gadgets that will break. I think that this search will find the gadgets. Calling all interface admins... Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Reminder: It's almost WP:THURSDAY, and this change is riding the deployment train. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:03, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
So, and this is me showing my techability again, did this happen or not happen? I'm sure it's past the date Whatamidoing (WMF) mentioned in the opening statement, and it's also after the next Thursday too, but i still have the same toolbar when i edit which i understood was going away. Am i misunderstanding, even less clever than i thought, or did something change the plans? Happy days, LindsayHello 16:13, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
- It looks like https://tools.wmflabs.org/versions/ says that yesterday's deployment (the big weekly update of everything) had a problem on the Wikipedias and was rolled back after 10 minutes. My best guess is that phab:T208549 is the reason they reverted it. This change (and all of the others in the weekly update) has been made to all of the non-Wikipedias already, and it will happen here as soon as they re-deploy, which looks like it will be after 18:00 UTC Monday. So you are correct, and it appears that you have a brief reprieve. ;-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:11, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
Update: It happened.
The German Wikipedia appears to have had a problem in a local gadget, and they may not be the only ones. If you encounter complaints, I recommend that your first question be this: Are you talking about the 2006 wikitext editor (picture), or about mw:CharInsert (picture)? Only the blue-gray toolbar at the top of the editing box is supposed to be removed. Access to special characters is meant to remain in place. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:20, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Please let me know if that toolbar gets reconstituted as a user script. I can probably figure out how to do no-wiki tags manually, but the string for hidden comments defeats me, and neither seems to have been included in the "enhanced" toolbar. Numbers using a tool are not a good indication of its usefulness; editors do many different kinds of tasks, using different hardware, and with different technical backgrounds. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
- I use monobook with the green on black gadget. The "advanced" toolbar is almost unreadable - white icons on a very pale blue background. It also takes ages to load. Is there an alternative that actually works? Or is this another of those "improvements" that just makes things worse and we are told to be grateful for? DuncanHill (talk) 23:50, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
- As noted in the comment on 29 October that begins with the words "We have a script!", there is already a replacement user script available. You can follow the directions at mw:Contributors/Projects/Removal of the 2006 wikitext editor#Alternatives to install it in common.js (or your global.js at Meta, if you edit multiple wikis and want it on all projects). It's also possible for any interface admin to turn it into a local gadget. Then you'd only have to open Special:Preferences and tick the box. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:09, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- The instructions there are almost incomprehensible, and I lack the language skills to translate the French. DuncanHill (talk) 00:13, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF), I actually did look there after posting, and I can read the French. I would have considered asking for help installing something, which would be a first; the warning about damaging my computer by downloading a script has always stopped me, but I really can't do without hidden comments. Nowiki I think I can learn to do manually, and my current laptop allows me to type tildes to sign. But ... guess which button is missing both from the screenshot of the bar and from the script? So the WMF has now forced me to make a wallet card with the code for a hidden comment on it, to carry at all times. Way to go, simply for the sake of making changes. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:37, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Have you looked in the CharInsert/EditTools for the codes you want? It's in between the bottom of the editing window and the top of the Edit summary box. Set the menu to "Wiki markup" if it isn't there already. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:53, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- This may be the moment to point out I use Monobook. In any event, I doubt such a thing is hidden among chart codes, and I have the alt chars (Latin) chart open all the time in that location for the things where I can't immediately remember the Microsoft ctrl+ code. (My head is actually surprisingly full of codes to get nonstandard things to display, which is why I deeply resent something unique to this site that requires a string of unmemorizable symbols being removed from clickability.) Yngvadottir (talk) 01:08, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- It's in the same place in MonoBook. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Whatamidoing_(WMF)/sandbox?action=submit&useskin=monobook If your Latin alt chars area begins with a drop down menu that says "Latin", then click that menu and switch it to "Wiki markup". Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:45, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- This may be the moment to point out I use Monobook. In any event, I doubt such a thing is hidden among chart codes, and I have the alt chars (Latin) chart open all the time in that location for the things where I can't immediately remember the Microsoft ctrl+ code. (My head is actually surprisingly full of codes to get nonstandard things to display, which is why I deeply resent something unique to this site that requires a string of unmemorizable symbols being removed from clickability.) Yngvadottir (talk) 01:08, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Whatamidoing (WMF) Where do I go to make a request for those instructions to be re-written in a way that makes sense , and 2) get the French stuff translated too? It tells me to import things to local media wiki whatever the hell that is, and lots of other stuff that might make sense to you but is meaningless to me. Is there perhaps some kind of "technical" desk where people could get help? DuncanHill (talk) 01:37, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- I think the answer to that question depends upon whether you're the only person at this wiki that wants this. If you're not, then it's possible that someone else (i.e., someone with more technical skill than me ;-) would sort it out, and then you could just copy what they did. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- WP:ITSNOTTHURSDAYYET. --Izno (talk) 04:12, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- 1. ^ this and 2. I asked Amory about this a couple of days ago and she seemed to think that perhaps TheDJ had begun importing it. I also use Monobook and would like to continue doing so. Killiondude (talk) 04:59, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Killiondude, I have no intention of bringing that thing back. I'm maintaining more than enough old junk and it's also why I didn't protest the removal from MediaWiki core. If someone prepares all the necessary work, as an iadmin I will of course review and deploy peoples contribution. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:45, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- 1. ^ this and 2. I asked Amory about this a couple of days ago and she seemed to think that perhaps TheDJ had begun importing it. I also use Monobook and would like to continue doing so. Killiondude (talk) 04:59, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- WP:ITSNOTTHURSDAYYET. --Izno (talk) 04:12, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- I think the answer to that question depends upon whether you're the only person at this wiki that wants this. If you're not, then it's possible that someone else (i.e., someone with more technical skill than me ;-) would sort it out, and then you could just copy what they did. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Have you looked in the CharInsert/EditTools for the codes you want? It's in between the bottom of the editing window and the top of the Edit summary box. Set the menu to "Wiki markup" if it isn't there already. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:53, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- As noted in the comment on 29 October that begins with the words "We have a script!", there is already a replacement user script available. You can follow the directions at mw:Contributors/Projects/Removal of the 2006 wikitext editor#Alternatives to install it in common.js (or your global.js at Meta, if you edit multiple wikis and want it on all projects). It's also possible for any interface admin to turn it into a local gadget. Then you'd only have to open Special:Preferences and tick the box. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:09, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Whatamidoing, DuncanHill is certainly not "the only person at this wiki who wants this", as you're well aware from when you asked a year ago; as you're also well aware, the reason the only people who were using this are people who joined pre-2010 isn't that the 2010 editor is superior, but that the devs forced the slow editor on all new signups and buried the option to change it in preferences so most editors were never even aware that a toolbar existed that didn't take forever to load, and consequently either disabled the new toolbar altogether or put up with waiting for it to load each time. Can you—or someone at the WMF—please explain in a way that doesn't involve my needing to learn French what steps I need to take to re-enable it? ‑ Iridescent 19:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- DuncanHill, sounds like you have a problem with the green on black gadget. You should ask it's maintainer to improve it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:46, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- This should improve the green on black gadget to where it works well enough with WE2010. Seems someone started that work in the past and didn't completely finish it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:05, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- TheDJ I don't see any difference - the icons are still almost invisible, white on a pale blue background. I don't have any problems with the green on black gadget until somebody else goes and breaks something else! DuncanHill (talk) 14:29, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Now it's changed and I can see the icons. It really is a lot less useful than the old toolbar, especially in the way it hides the cite templates (and then hides parts of them even once you've opened them). DuncanHill (talk) 15:15, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- And now it's changed back and the icons are invisible again. DuncanHill (talk) 16:30, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Now it's changed and I can see the icons. It really is a lot less useful than the old toolbar, especially in the way it hides the cite templates (and then hides parts of them even once you've opened them). DuncanHill (talk) 15:15, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- TheDJ I don't see any difference - the icons are still almost invisible, white on a pale blue background. I don't have any problems with the green on black gadget until somebody else goes and breaks something else! DuncanHill (talk) 14:29, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- This should improve the green on black gadget to where it works well enough with WE2010. Seems someone started that work in the past and didn't completely finish it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:05, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- DuncanHill, sounds like you have a problem with the green on black gadget. You should ask it's maintainer to improve it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:46, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Hi all (noting Iridescent and DuncanHill); I've taken the liberty of importing the script that WAID mentioned above into the English Wikipedia and translating it. It's in my userspace right now (I'd need to request interface admin to move it to Mediawiki). Y'all can install it by adding the line:
mw.loader.load("/w/index.php?title=User:Writ_Keeper/Scripts/legacyToolbar.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript");to your common.js page. Let me know if there are any issues or concerns, or if I've done something horribly wrong. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:15, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Excellent, and thank you. (I suppose there's no way to bring back the "cite" button as well, which IIRC was a separate script? One of my main peeves with the 2010 editor, aside from the slowness to load and the space it took up, was that the citation tools were so much worse than those of the 2006 version.) ‑ Iridescent 20:23, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- No worries! If we can dig up the separate script, I can probably convert it over pretty easily. Otherwise, you'll have to describe how the button worked, and I can recreate it. (I always do refs manually, which is probably pretty timewasting.) Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:26, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Was the cite button part of Wikipedia:RefToolbar. I too appreciate your work on making the script work, and echo Iridiscent's desire for trhe cite button. DuncanHill (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- It looks like it was part of Wikipedia:RefToolbar, but because it auto-detected which toolbar you were using—and the WMF removing "edit toolbar" from preferences has now made us all appear to have toolbars disabled altogether—it's unable to figure out where to display the "cite" button. Seriously, sometimes I wish the WMF would tell us which of their many management consultants told them that "run fast and break things" was the best way to operate, so I can track them down and every Thursday disrupt them trying to go about their work. ‑ Iridescent 20:39, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Writ Keeper: Thank you! Does your version include the hidden comment button, or is there any way to add that? Yngvadottir (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Hidden comment should be fairly easy to add. I'll look at both of those. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:31, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Yngvadottir: You should be good to go for hidden comment. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:58, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you thank you thank you! That appears to have worked. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:04, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Writ Keeper: There was a "create redirect" button too, which was very useful. DuncanHill (talk) 21:21, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
-
- Indeed, the "redirect" button was (and is, until now) the one I use most often. Makes it very quick and easy to set up new redirects. Here's the old toolbar, that I really liked:

- It looks like I might have to spend some time playing around with all the various editor options (apart from VE, which I loathe). Haven't bothered to do this so far, since I use an external editor for most of my editing. A big "thank you" to Writ Keeper for his work on this. --NSH001 (talk) 11:44, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- Implemented the redirect button. Still working on the cite button; it's mostly working, but it's a complicated script and there are some apparently old bugs that need ironing out. @Iri: I've disconnected the URL/DOI/etc. lookup buttons; they connect to an offsite script that I don't know about and can't vouch for. Let me know if that was an important feature for y'all. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:55, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- Lookup wasn't something I ever used—I found that because it imported the formatting quirks of the source website (curly quotes, allcaps, etc) it took more time to check its output than it did to input the citation manually field-by-field. I know that trainers use the URL/DOI lookup in training courses for new editors as a "see, citing sources aren't as scary as the raw reference markup makes it look" exercise, but I would imagine they're likely using vanilla default settings so as not to confuse people who've just created the account, so this toolbar won't appear. Paging Redrose64, NeilN, SpinningSpark, LindsayH, Keith D and Diego Moya as the people (other than me) who said they were still using it last time the WMF claimed nobody was still using this, who may be able to give a better idea of whether people consider this functionality important. ‑ Iridescent 17:08, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks, Writ Keeper. I've always been fond of that citation tool, especially for Google books. I like it better than WP:ProveIt, but I've had to make do with since. —howcheng {chat} 17:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Iridescent: I turned off that toolbar when it got too slow to load. Virtually all of its functionality is available in the "⧼MediaWiki:Gadget-charinsert⧽" gadget, which is enabled by default - it amazes me just how many people claim that they can't do something, and all the while it's in that gadget, usually when "Wiki markup" is selected. A few buttons, like the "cite" one, are absent, but I never used that. The interminable whining at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 208#Doesn't MOS:DASH contradict WP:ACCESS? is a similar case of people not knowing that they can use the same gadget to make dashes. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- The charinsert box is better than nothing, but it adds an additional layer of complexity with no obvious benefit; as with the 2010 toolbar, the functions are there, but you need to switch to the right page to access them. Yes, it's only one extra click (or two extra clicks if you switch back out of "wiki markup" afterwards), but over time the difference between one click and two adds up. The charinsert tool is particularly user-unfriendly when using a mobile device to edit, which we're always being told is the future, as the buttons are so small and fiddly (and using the 2010 toolbar on a mobile device is also horrible—unless you're in a 4G spot, you can literally watch the buttons load one at a time). ‑ Iridescent 23:50, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- It's no extra clicks if you leave it set to "Wiki markup", which is what I do - I occasionally need the things in Cyrillic or Greek, after which I switch it back to Wiki markup. This set includes all of those in the "Insert" set, which is where it starts if you've never used it, have switched devices, or have zapped your cookies. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:20, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
- The charinsert box is better than nothing, but it adds an additional layer of complexity with no obvious benefit; as with the 2010 toolbar, the functions are there, but you need to switch to the right page to access them. Yes, it's only one extra click (or two extra clicks if you switch back out of "wiki markup" afterwards), but over time the difference between one click and two adds up. The charinsert tool is particularly user-unfriendly when using a mobile device to edit, which we're always being told is the future, as the buttons are so small and fiddly (and using the 2010 toolbar on a mobile device is also horrible—unless you're in a 4G spot, you can literally watch the buttons load one at a time). ‑ Iridescent 23:50, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Iridescent: I turned off that toolbar when it got too slow to load. Virtually all of its functionality is available in the "⧼MediaWiki:Gadget-charinsert⧽" gadget, which is enabled by default - it amazes me just how many people claim that they can't do something, and all the while it's in that gadget, usually when "Wiki markup" is selected. A few buttons, like the "cite" one, are absent, but I never used that. The interminable whining at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 208#Doesn't MOS:DASH contradict WP:ACCESS? is a similar case of people not knowing that they can use the same gadget to make dashes. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- Implemented the redirect button. Still working on the cite button; it's mostly working, but it's a complicated script and there are some apparently old bugs that need ironing out. @Iri: I've disconnected the URL/DOI/etc. lookup buttons; they connect to an offsite script that I don't know about and can't vouch for. Let me know if that was an important feature for y'all. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:55, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- Hey, all, the RefToolbar is ready for trial. Owing to its complexity, it's a separate script from the toolbar itself; you can install it by adding
mw.loader.load("/w/index.php?title=User:Writ_Keeper/Scripts/legacyRefToolbar.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript");to your common.js page on a new line, similar to the installation for the rest of the toolbar. Let me know how it works, and if there's anything else missing from it or the toolbar. Thanks! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:12, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- On some very limited testing, it looks to be working fine. Many, many thanks. ‑ Iridescent 19:17, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you, looking good. Please can you take over from the Foundation? DuncanHill (talk) 19:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you so much Writ Keeper. I'm another editor who was still using it and I am eternally grateful :) Pawnkingthree (talk) 20:16, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Writ Keeper: I've created my common.js page and copied and pasted that code into it. I am using monobook on Chrome and I have the 2010 tab turned off. However it doesn't appear to be showing up for me? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 16:26, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- @The C of E: legacyRefToolbar adds a cite button to legacyToolbar which must already be loaded (maybe this should happen automatically). Load both with the below code. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:43, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Writ Keeper: I've created my common.js page and copied and pasted that code into it. I am using monobook on Chrome and I have the 2010 tab turned off. However it doesn't appear to be showing up for me? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 16:26, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- On some very limited testing, it looks to be working fine. Many, many thanks. ‑ Iridescent 19:17, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
mw.loader.load("/w/index.php?title=User:Writ_Keeper/Scripts/legacyToolbar.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript");
mw.loader.load("/w/index.php?title=User:Writ_Keeper/Scripts/legacyRefToolbar.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript");
MonoBook editing toolbar removed[edit]
I haven't had the toolbar visible since last night (the older version, of course), has it been removed from service? I have checked all my browsers and it's gone (no changes to any of my gadgets, enables or beta components). Nate • (chatter) 16:38, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Mrschimpf: If you mean this toolbar:

- ...then it has indeed been removed. See the #Support_ends_for_the_2006_wikitext_editor section above; I'm currently working to re-implement it as a user script for those that prefer it. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 17:25, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you, Writ Keeper, I liked that toolbar much better! If you are able to set that up, can you make some kind of announcement here, maybe start a new section heading so we will see it in the history - maybe something along the lines of "Rejoice, you can have your old toolbar back!" 0;-D And include simple instructions (preferably not in French) on how to implement it, for us tech-ignorant folks? --MelanieN (talk) 00:15, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks; sorry I missed it above (I just knew it as 'the older toolbar' and nothing else, so I didn't think of looking up there). I look forward to having it back in some form. Nate • (chatter) 17:39, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- ARGH. So, some time back my software on my tablet updated and changed ...something... so that when I try to add bolding the “old fashioned way” it doesn’t work. Example: ‘’’Bold should be here’’’ but apparently whatever software change went on broke that. So, whatever, I adjusted and started using the toolbar instead. And now it’s gone and I am apparently unable to use bolding or italics. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:47, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Beeblebrox: You are using curly apostrophes (and indeed curly quotes too). Besides being advised against in text (see MOS:CURLY), they won't produce the desired markup either. You must use straight apostrophes - like this - for them to work. This is basic Wiki markup, see WP:CHEATSHEET. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:57, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
- ARGH. So, some time back my software on my tablet updated and changed ...something... so that when I try to add bolding the “old fashioned way” it doesn’t work. Example: ‘’’Bold should be here’’’ but apparently whatever software change went on broke that. So, whatever, I adjusted and started using the toolbar instead. And now it’s gone and I am apparently unable to use bolding or italics. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:47, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- The thing is, when I type them in they look like y always did, but when I save my edit they turn curly and I have no idea why. I’m pressing the same key I always did. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:28, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- I found the issue at some point my settings were changed to include smart punctuation which I have now turned off. Yay. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:42, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- The thing is, when I type them in they look like y always did, but when I save my edit they turn curly and I have no idea why. I’m pressing the same key I always did. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:28, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Missing edit shortcuts[edit]
I've noticed that over the last couple of days I appear to be missing the edit shortcuts (the line of icons above the edit box for lack of a better description) from the edit space in my Chrome browser. I haven't deactivated anything so I was wondering if there is a technical problem in the wiki syntax. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 22:36, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, see #Support ends for the 2006 wikitext editor above. Killiondude (talk) 22:58, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
Add the 2006 editing toolbar as a community-supported gadget[edit]
Hi all, as I've discussed above, I've re-implemented the 2006 toolbar as a user script, and modified the refToolbar script to work with it again. I haven't uncovered any unfixed bugs in my testing, and none of the other editors using it have reported any problems, either. So, I'm proposing to do two things: first, I would add the toolbar itself as a new gadget, and second, I would merge my changes into the existing MediaWiki:RefToolbarLegacy.js, which is currently non-functional after removal of the 2006 toolbar proper and is called by the existing refToolbar gadget entry. This would have the effect of both centralizing the source code for the community-supported 2006 toolbar and making it much easier for users to install it; they would be able to install by simply checking the boxes in their preferences, rather than mucking about in their common.js.
It's important to note that this script/gadget is incompatible with the 2010 toolbar that's currently accessible through the editing tab of preferences; if that option is checked, the 2010 toolbar will overwrite the 2006 toolbar. I would make a note of this in the gadget description.
Here are the changes I've made to the code itself:
- User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/legacyToolbar.js: diff. The changes here are basically just adding the buttons themselves to the toolbar framework, as well as adding a hook that can be used by other scripts to add their own buttons (the refToolbar uses this hook).
- User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/legacyRefToolbar.js: diff. Some more substantial changes; minor refactoring, removing the connection and associated UI to an external site that was causing errors with the new CSP, changing to use the mw.toolbar API, including the mw hook.
As mentioned, these scripts are currently usable through importation into one's common.js in the usual way. Any code review, comments, concerns, or suggestions are welcome. As an intadmin, I'm willing and able to take lead for maintaining this script whether it's in the gadget space or my userspace. Thanks! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:14, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Adding pings for feedback: Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:27, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- I'm not competent to judge if the coding is stable, but certainly on using this I've not seen any bugs, issues with functionality or anything that behaves differently than the old toolbar did (other than that some of the text-formatting buttons are missing). ‑ Iridescent 18:36, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Almost all over my head of course, including the merits or even feasibility of integrating it into the Mediawiki Official Options (TM) as you propose. No issues, except that I had no idea what most of the buttons on the old extended toolbar did, so the fact that others miss them is further illustration that we work in many different ways and the WMF really has no idea what-all we do; and therefore I'd of course like to have all those mysterious buttons restored for those who did use them. However what really matters is to say once more: thank you thank you thank you. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:41, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you, Writ Keeper, for your work on this. I shall use either the script or the gadget, whichever is most easily available, as the old edit bar was just right. You certainly are a whizz-bang clever guy, aren't you ~ especially that cool trick of pinging without showing our names! Happy days, LindsayHello 18:38, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- I can testify that this works well and restores the look and functionality of the traditional toolbar. I was particularly glad to get the "cite" button back, since I found the citation function of the WMF's new toolbar to be very clumsy. Thank you, Writ Keeper. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:39, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- P.S. Maybe somebody should tell the WMF about beta testing, so they could get some feedback from actual users? Here's a useful introduction to the concept: Beta testing. (Sorry for the sarcasm, but why is it that their "improvements" are so often unpopular with actual editors? And then our heroic volunteer programmers have to step in and improve or work-around the "improvement".) -- MelanieN (talk) 19:08, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Your contributions say that you haven't been using "the WMF's new toolbar". You've probably been using the eight-year-old one, which (at this wiki, but not at most of them) has a local citation gadget bolted on to it. "The WMF's 2010 toolbar" has the very simplest citation "tool" imaginable: an empty box into which you can type whatever wikitext you want. This animated gif shows the citation feature in the WMF's new toolbar.
- I'll see your link and raise you a link to End-of-life (product).
This particular change was not done for the sake of being popular. It was done for the sake of having a responsible sunsetting process, rather than passively waiting until the product suddenly and permanently failed someday. - As for beta testing, the site is http://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/, and people are welcome to do beta testing whenever they want. Early Wednesday is usually the best time to get started, as you'll have a week to find problems before the changes would go live. That's also a good place to test gadgets or CSS changes; just ask for the relevant user rights. The French editors used it to develop the replacement script before the change happened, so their transition from "toolbar in MediaWiki core" to "toolbar in the local gadgets list" went almost unnoticed by most users. I don't understand why the other large wikis didn't do the same.
- Yngvadottir, I'd really like to see the editing prefs section redesigned. We've had this system of secret overrides for at least eight years, and it needs to stop. You should be able to pick your choice, and not have it overridden by some other tickbox. But this local gadget won't end up in that list of "official" supported editors, because it's a local gadget, and it needs to be maintained locally. The same rules apply to this as have always applied to WikEd. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:40, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- P.S. Maybe somebody should tell the WMF about beta testing, so they could get some feedback from actual users? Here's a useful introduction to the concept: Beta testing. (Sorry for the sarcasm, but why is it that their "improvements" are so often unpopular with actual editors? And then our heroic volunteer programmers have to step in and improve or work-around the "improvement".) -- MelanieN (talk) 19:08, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- The only thing I'm missing is the URL lookup for Google Books in the cite button. Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 19:12, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Howcheng: unfortunately, that functionality is part of what I removed due to CSP violations as I mentioned above. Basically, that function was linking to an application that was hosted offsite (specifically, at
http://reftag.appspot.com/), which performed the actual data retrieval. I don't have write access to that tool, so I can't maintain it or vouch for its security or accuracy. Moreover, using an external program automatically like this is inherently unsafe; even before the WMF disables our ability to do so (which they probably will eventually), it's not really a good idea, so that functionality is unfortunately unlikely to return. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:26, 16 November 2018 (UTC)- Yes, they probably will disable that kind of access at some point.
- I wonder whether the mw:citoid service could be used instead. It was built to be portable that way. User:Salix alba, you had a script doing that a while ago; what do you think of the feasibility? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:43, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Ooh, that looks really promising! I'll start looking into it. Thanks! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:04, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- WP:ProveIt is able to do HTTP queries. It would be worth checking to see how they do it too. —howcheng {chat} 20:27, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Yes its relatively easy to work with mw:citoid you can see my script at Citoid. I've had to change the script a couple of times as the API has changed. --Salix alba (talk): 21:39, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- WP:ProveIt is able to do HTTP queries. It would be worth checking to see how they do it too. —howcheng {chat} 20:27, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Ooh, that looks really promising! I'll start looking into it. Thanks! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:04, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Writ Keeper: On the subject of CSP & external loads - The rough plan (which isn't finalized yet) is that we will disallow loading external scripts, but will still allow fetching external non-script data provider the user opts-in (via a special page or something. This is a bit TBD at the moment. Ticket is phab:T208188). BWolff (WMF) (talk) 15:50, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Howcheng: unfortunately, that functionality is part of what I removed due to CSP violations as I mentioned above. Basically, that function was linking to an application that was hosted offsite (specifically, at
- The only thing I'm missing is the URL lookup for Google Books in the cite button. Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 19:12, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Separate buttons for single and double bracket links in the editing toolbar[edit]
My current editing toolbar has a single button for links. It is slow to create links this way. The 2 buttons were much faster.
Is there any editing toolbar that has both buttons? --Timeshifter (talk) 11:07, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Timeshifter can you explain why this is slow ? I do paste, hit enter and I'm done ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:59, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- I use the wikitext editor. For internal links I select the internal link text, hit the link button, and then hit enter or "insert link". That is 2 steps. In the past it was 1 step. No "insert link" popup box.
- For external links. I have to cut the text or the URL from the wikitext editing window, then click the link button, and paste it into the insert link box, and then hunt around for the other part, and then paste it into the insert link box, and then hit enter or "insert link". It's a nightmare compared to before.
- It was much easier until very recently with the old toolbar that had separate buttons for single and double bracket links. I could set up right in the wikitext editing window.
- I don't use the visual editor since I usually only do quick little edits that are much faster in the wikitext editor versus waiting for the visual editor to load. Which can be a long time in even articles of average length.
- The wikitext editor opens a section almost instantly. And until very recently adding an external link was almost instant too. Single click. No "insert link" popup box.
- --Timeshifter (talk) 12:18, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Timeshifter, well you can also just type the brackets. Even faster and you don't need to move your hand to your mouse. And they are of course right beneath the edit area in the Wikitext section of the char inserter as well. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:20, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- For an [[internal link]] that's 6 clicks versus 1 click. You have to place the cursor on each end. Gotta do that with a mouse if the link is buried in a paragraph. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:28, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- 6 ? No... ah. Don't click the [ characters. Choose the drop-down "Wiki markup" and use the [[]] inserter. One click (well two the first time you switch the menu). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:37, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- I am not seeing a drop-down "Wiki markup" in my wikitext editing toolbar. I only see the link button icon consisting of intertwined chain links. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:54, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- I uploaded a screenshot of the wikitext editing toolbar I am seeing now. I could not find anything that was exactly what I was seeing in this category:
- commons:Category:MediaWiki edit toolbar screenshots
- I think this below is close to the wikitext editing toolbar I was using until recently:
- --Timeshifter (talk) 13:30, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Timeshifter: No, I mean this
(italian version, but it looks similar), which is positioned directly underneath the textarea and is a gadget enabled by default for all users. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:51, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Let me try it here and [here]. OK, thanks a lot. That will work. Would be nice though to have those 2 buttons at the top too, instead of the popup "insert link" box from the top toolbar button which is for newbs, but only slows down experienced editors. I often have to scroll to get to the toolbar. Having my favorite buttons at both the top and bottom would speed things up and allow me and others to make more edits. That adds up. Maybe there could be a way to have custom toolbars. Where I could pick and choose buttons. Kind of like how one can customize Firefox with button placement in various locations of one's choice. I just had to scroll to find the signature button I prefer. The one that puts 2 dashes in front. :) --Timeshifter (talk) 14:28, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Timeshifter: No, I mean this
- I am not seeing a drop-down "Wiki markup" in my wikitext editing toolbar. I only see the link button icon consisting of intertwined chain links. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:54, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- 6 ? No... ah. Don't click the [ characters. Choose the drop-down "Wiki markup" and use the [[]] inserter. One click (well two the first time you switch the menu). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:37, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- For an [[internal link]] that's 6 clicks versus 1 click. You have to place the cursor on each end. Gotta do that with a mouse if the link is buried in a paragraph. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:28, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Timeshifter, well you can also just type the brackets. Even faster and you don't need to move your hand to your mouse. And they are of course right beneath the edit area in the Wikitext section of the char inserter as well. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:20, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
(unindent). @TheDJ: No joy! After a day of use, I find this to be no help. I am usually editing at the top of the textarea in the editing window. But the single-bracket link is at the bottom of the textarea window. So I have select at the top, scroll to the bottom, be careful not to click wrongly in the interim, and then click the [] icon at the bottom. Then scroll back up to do more work. And often the wiki markup dropdown is back to being closed. So many steps, clicks, and scrolls involved just to add a couple brackets.
I am baffled as to how this could get past the MediaWiki developers. I mean it is absolutely basic to wiki editing by wiki editors across many different type of wikis. Experienced editors often use the wikitext editor. And I believe we were promised long ago that the wikitext editor would never be phased out without approval by users. Single-brackets are used all the time in wikis outside Wikimedia. Because external links are often more common than internal links.
I believe there used to be a way in preferences to turn off these popup "aids" such as the insert link popup box.
There is an easy fix. Just add an option in preferences to add those 2 wiki markup buttons to the toolbar: [] and [[]] --Timeshifter (talk) 02:20, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- Well then you should file a ticket in phabricator. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:18, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- OK. See T209487 --Timeshifter (talk) 13:33, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
(unindent). Part of the problem is I no longer see a way to permanently adjust the size of the wikitext editing box. So that I don't have to scroll as much, or at all, to get to the bracket buttons. Dragging the corner adjusts the height of the editing window, but it is not remembered. It seems that wikitext editing is being limited bit by bit. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:26, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Timeshifter: The size of the wikitext editing box can permanently be made larger by setting the CSS declarations for width and height (the removal of the user preference for this was a long long time ago). --Izno (talk) 17:39, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Timeshifter: This was covered at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 153#Edit box size and, to a lesser extent, at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 169#Hard to scroll down in lower right corner of edit window. In brief: you can use this CSS rule to set a smaller edit box size. It goes in Special:MyPage/common.css. You may need to play with the dimensions, some browsers measure an "em" according to the font size outside the edit box, so a height of
textarea#wpTextbox1 { height: 15em; width: 60em; }
15emwill not necessarily give 15 rows within the edit box. In my browser (Opera 36), those dimensions give 12 rows of 94 characters, YMMV. Omit thewidth:declaration if you want to stick with the default width. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:48, 15 November 2018 (UTC)- Can you make a gadget for this? --Timeshifter (talk) 06:12, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Timeshifter: I can't make gadgets any more. That ability was taken away from myself (and virtually all other admins) a few weeks ago, when they set up the new interface-admin right. Anyway, even if I could, I don't think that it would be a good idea. First, it's very simple - just one CSS rule, no JavaScript; second, the values that you might wish to set will probably be different from the values that others would prefer. Just copy that rule to your clipboard, go to Special:MyPage/common.css, paste it in and save. Then edit the same page and judge whether the size of the edit box is appropriate for your needs, and adjust the values accordingly. You need to save after each adjustment, since no "preview" feature is possible. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:03, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Can you make a gadget for this? --Timeshifter (talk) 06:12, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
(unindent). A simple solution would be to permanently put the 2 one-click link buttons at the very end of the wikitext editing toolbar. This way both logged-in and anonymous users have the fastest wikitext functionality .
Right now on English Wikipedia those 2 one-click link buttons are buried in the menu at the bottom of the page. On the Commons they are buried in a different menu in another location. The 2 one-click link buttons are the first 2 on the left on the top line:
This solution is the right thing to do if the goal is to increase the number of total edits on Wikipedia, rather than stay flat or decrease. Every little bit of time saving, simplicity, and clarity helps. See active editors over time:
--Timeshifter (talk) 06:12, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- The actual right thing to do is for the parser to simply not care if you use a single or double bracket point to enter a link and do the smart thing regardless. It's fairly trivial for regular expressions to detect content that begins with (http|https|ftp|sftp|gopher) or any other tcp protocol and than assume that its an external link and treat it accordingly. The fact that internal links and external links are handled differently in wikitext is frankly stupid.--Jorm (talk) 06:22, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Wouldn't it slow down previews and saves in the wikitext editor? If the software had to analyze each link before saving it? For example on country lists with several hundred links in a table section. The beauty of the wikitext editor is that editing, previews, and saves are very fast. Especially compared to the Visual Editor. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- heh. No. It would not slow anything down in the slightest degree. At all. Every chunk of text is already parsed to that degree of difficulty or worse. --Jorm (talk) 07:11, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- n fact (and don't quote me on this) it might make things faster simply because I expect that it handles the detection between [[ and [ as separate regular expressions: "if it is not [foo bar] then parse against [[foo bar]]"; the right "I don't care how many brackets there are" regular expression may be faster as it could be run as a single regex request. --Jorm (talk) 07:15, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Wouldn't it slow down previews and saves in the wikitext editor? If the software had to analyze each link before saving it? For example on country lists with several hundred links in a table section. The beauty of the wikitext editor is that editing, previews, and saves are very fast. Especially compared to the Visual Editor. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
(unindent). My idea of adding 2 single-click link buttons (single and double brackets) is in contrast to re-enabling the old toolbars. The addition of the 2 link buttons could even be made a default gadget so that people can remove them if they don't like them. But I think most people that try them will keep them.
Many wikitext editors on Wikipedia may not know about them since they were part of the old toolbars that were removed long ago from Wikipedia, and only found later via preference settings and gadgets.
Whereas outside Wikipedia, the old toolbars are the current toolbars in use for wikitext source editing. For example; when source editing on Wikia. From my reading on the Wikia forums most experienced editors on Wikia use source editing much of the time.
Shoutwiki does not have the Visual Editor at all. See the old toolbar in use. Click the edit button on this sandbox page for a wiki on Shoutwiki: http://cannabis.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Sandbox
Wikipedia editors are missing out on how fast link creation is with the 2 single-click link buttons (single and double brackets) in the wikitext editor.
The first 4 buttons in the old toolbars are the ones people use all the time:
- Bold. Italics. Internal link [[double brackets]]. External link [single brackets].
There could be a short quick launch toolbar of around 5 or 6 single-click (no popup aids) commands. It could even be customizable so that people could pick and choose. This way there will be less people desiring the old toolbars. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:39, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Template comparison tool[edit]
As discussed some time ago (HT User:Plastikspork), we could do with a tool to facilitate the comparison of related templates to decide whether or not to merge them.
The tool would do the following, for two (or more?) templates:
- determine the list of parameters in each (perhaps from raw code; perhaps from TemplateData; perhaps from {{Parameter names example}})
- sort them
- remove those that are the same in both cases
- produce a list of the differing parameters
Can someone make a tool to do this, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:49, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Pigsonthewing: This might be a good candidate for the meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2019, if you can get a proposal in in the next couple of days. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)- You could use the TemplateData GUI editor to produce a list of (most) parameters from the code. From there, I think that a quick round of
grep -xvfwould produce the list of unmatched options, for manual review. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:23, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
- You could use the TemplateData GUI editor to produce a list of (most) parameters from the code. From there, I think that a quick round of
-
- Here is a module hack that, for the purposes of proof-of-concept compares
{{cite book/old}}against{{cite journal/old}}(these are the pre-Lua cs1 templates). The output is merely the rawmw.dumpObject()return value and can be prettified to suit:{{#invoke:Sandbox/trappist the monk/template compare|compare|Template:Cite book/old|Template:Cite journal/old}}
- Here is a module hack that, for the purposes of proof-of-concept compares
["Embargo"] = "Cite journal/old", ["department"] = "Cite journal/old", ["issue"] = "Cite journal/old", ["journal"] = "Cite journal/old", ["magazine"] = "Cite journal/old", ["newspaper"] = "Cite journal/old", ["number"] = "Cite journal/old", ["periodical"] = "Cite journal/old", ["section"] = "Cite book/old", ["sectionurl"] = "Cite book/old", ["trans_chapter"] = "Cite book/old", ["work"] = "Cite journal/old",}
- —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:15, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
- Pigsonthewing, I adapted some javascript that I wrote for "User:Frietjes/addcheckforunknownparameters.js" to create "User:Frietjes/templatecompare.js". once installed, you go to "Special:TemplateCompare" and put in the list of templates to compare. if you see a "Did not finish processing" alert, then let me know, and I will adjust the regular expressions to try to get complete processing for that particular template. I tested it on
{{cite book/old}}against{{cite journal/old}}and it looks like it's working there. Frietjes (talk) 21:04, 9 November 2018 (UTC)- Frietjes, a first column for the parameters is missing which is offsetting the columns by one. --Gonnym (talk) 08:21, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Frietjes: Thank you. More often than not, I'm not seeing the list-of-parameters table. It does appear intermittently. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:31, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Pigsonthewing:, it could be taking some time to process the templates. I put the pop-up alerts in there to show the progress through the script. if you have particular examples you want me to help debug, let me know. Frietjes (talk) 13:33, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Frietjes: I've just tried {{Infobox event}} vs. {{Infobox civilian attack}} and after five minutes nothing had rendered. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:10, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Pigsonthewing:, you are correct. it was failing on the expandtemplates for some reason, which is only used to show a preview of the wikitext. I switched this to something else, it is working for me now. Frietjes (talk) 20:28, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- now documented at User:Frietjes/templatecompare. Frietjes (talk) 00:15, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Frietjes: That's working well now, and is very useful. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:30, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Frietjes: I've just tried {{Infobox event}} vs. {{Infobox civilian attack}} and after five minutes nothing had rendered. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:10, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Pigsonthewing:, it could be taking some time to process the templates. I put the pop-up alerts in there to show the progress through the script. if you have particular examples you want me to help debug, let me know. Frietjes (talk) 13:33, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Pigsonthewing, I adapted some javascript that I wrote for "User:Frietjes/addcheckforunknownparameters.js" to create "User:Frietjes/templatecompare.js". once installed, you go to "Special:TemplateCompare" and put in the list of templates to compare. if you see a "Did not finish processing" alert, then let me know, and I will adjust the regular expressions to try to get complete processing for that particular template. I tested it on
- —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:15, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
Issue with my Special:Contributions page?[edit]
For some reason, my Special:Contributions page looked like this earlier: (Imgur link). It was the case whether I was logged in, logged out, using Chrome or using Edge. The problem appears to have since been resolved, but still. What happened here? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 20:46, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- It also happened to me for all tested contributions pages, logged in or out in two browsers. It was right after the English Wikipedia got mw:MediaWiki 1.33/wmf.3 today 20:28.[1] It lasted a few minutes. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:02, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- WP:ITSTHURSDAY. --Izno (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Narutolovehinata5: It did that for me just once; a WP:BYPASS fixed it immediately. BTW, please don't upload screenshots to imgur - the page takes a long time to load, my antivirus software complains, and my PC slows to a crawl necessitating a reboot. Better methods are available. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:39, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
- This is apparently still happening when the page is transcluded (see my sandbox). I have a ticket open because it recently started breaking MathML rendering (see phab:T209446). — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 01:34, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
can't remove username from login page[edit]
When i press shift+del in chrome on windows after highlighting the username, chrome only removes the password, and the username is offered the next time one clicks on "log in". --Espoo (talk) 17:58, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Espoo: try clearing your cache, forms, and WMF cookies. — xaosflux Talk 22:43, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks. It would be important to provide a button after logging out that automates that for users, most of whom don't know they have to do that or how to do that. --Espoo (talk) 07:17, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
- Those are controls about options in your browser which we don't control. One tip that might be good for your use case, use "private browsing" sessions, Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla browsers support these and won't remember anything from that session. — xaosflux Talk 17:06, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
- ...assuming that you don't mind logging in repeatedly. I accidentally had a wiki page in "private browsing" mode a few week ago, and it took me a while to figure out why it kept demanding that I log in over and over and over. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:31, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
- Those are controls about options in your browser which we don't control. One tip that might be good for your use case, use "private browsing" sessions, Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla browsers support these and won't remember anything from that session. — xaosflux Talk 17:06, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks. It would be important to provide a button after logging out that automates that for users, most of whom don't know they have to do that or how to do that. --Espoo (talk) 07:17, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
WP:SPI "Date filed" showing an error for some investigations?[edit]
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JoshuSasori was filed in July, not October 11; I checked a few others and most of them seemed to be accurate, but Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Boyhoodjams shows as having been filed on October 13 despite the multiple entries apparently having been filed between August 29 and September 4. I'm fairly certain I know why (both pages were subject to a particular kind of disruptive vandalism), but I was wondering if there was any way to remedy it? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:07, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
- Regarding your second example, the date was changed in this edit after a vandal moved the casepage. That means when a page is moved, the bots probably assumes it's a new filing. May be it should stop. So you can ask Amalthea the botop of the bot that updates Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cases/Overview for that, though it looks he has not edited for a while. –Ammarpad (talk) 10:39, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Hijiri88: 'Date filed' is actually 'date the page was added to Category:Open SPI cases', because this is cheap and easy to figure out. There's currently no way to change that I'm afraid. Amalthea 08:54, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Script issues[edit]
Following a query (on my talk page), I tried the usual troubleshooting actions, but cannot understand why my Engvar script doesn't work in isolation and in the context of another user's monobook script (meaning the button doesn't dislay in the side bar when supposedly installed). I did find however, that all my scripts become callable from within my monoboook files. My workaround is to advise importing my monobook.js file by pasting the instruction:
importScript("User:Ohconfucius/monobook.js"); while removing importScript("User:Ohconfucius/script/EngvarB.js");
The consequence, however, is that it creates a very busy the sidebar above all for the users who have no utility for my other scripts, but at least it seems like an acceptable work-around for me. What could be the problem? -- Ohc ¡digame! 09:35, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
- This sounds like your Engvar script has some dependencies that are resolved by the presence of one or more of the other scripts in your monobook.js - try removing scripts one at a time from monobook.js until EngvarB.js fails. Then examine the last one removed, to see what it does that Engvar might depend upon. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:53, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks, @Redrose64: I tried loading a few scripts on my vector page. It seems that there is no dependency on my formatgeneral script. However, it seems to need either my foreigndates script or my MOSNUM script for example. How can I now identify what element in these scripts that ENGVAR requires and then to make the appropriae addition? -- Ohc ¡digame! 16:53, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- These being User:Ohconfucius/test/MOSNUM dates code.js and User:Ohconfucius/script/foreigndates.js. You probably need to add one of these three lines to User:Ohconfucius/script/EngvarB.js. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:23, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
mw.loader.load('//tools-static.wmflabs.org/meta/scripts/pathoschild.templatescript.js'); importScript("User:Ohconfucius/script/MOSNUM_utils.js"); importScriptURI('//meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Pathoschild/Scripts/Regex_menu_framework.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');
- These being User:Ohconfucius/test/MOSNUM dates code.js and User:Ohconfucius/script/foreigndates.js. You probably need to add one of these three lines
- Thanks, @Redrose64: I tried loading a few scripts on my vector page. It seems that there is no dependency on my formatgeneral script. However, it seems to need either my foreigndates script or my MOSNUM script for example. How can I now identify what element in these scripts that ENGVAR requires and then to make the appropriae addition? -- Ohc ¡digame! 16:53, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
iarchive[edit]
What is this and how does it work? I've never seen iarchive: before (the macro? not the site). Thanks -- GreenC 00:20, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- Technically that magic is due to meta:Interwiki map and the entry for IArchive appears to have been added in November 2013 following a discussion here. Johnuniq (talk) 00:33, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- Interesting, thanks. I had no idea interwiki maps extended beyond the wikis. One more complication for bot writers :) -- GreenC 00:46, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- If you have a bot that's dealing with interwiki links, you should probably be getting the list from action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=interwikimap rather than having to know about meta:Interwiki map. Anomie⚔ 15:37, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- And Special:Interwiki shows in human-friendly form what MediaWiki currently uses. meta:Interwiki map is where the interwiki prefixes are created and edited but there can be a long delay before changes are imported into MediaWiki. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- If you have a bot that's dealing with interwiki links, you should probably be getting the list from action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=interwikimap rather than having to know about meta:Interwiki map. Anomie⚔ 15:37, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- Interesting, thanks. I had no idea interwiki maps extended beyond the wikis. One more complication for bot writers :) -- GreenC 00:46, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Earwig's Copyvio Detector[edit]
I am trying to use Earwig's Copyvio Detector to search a document in draft space for copyright violations, using the search engine. After it connects to wmflabs, it says that no sources were checked, and the probability of a copyright violation is 0%. Well, it should be 0% if there was no searching. What causes it not to search anything, and what do I do to correct this, to get it to search? Robert McClenon (talk) 07:09, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- Robert McClenon, I'm getting the same issue. IIRC, it happens because too many people have already ran it within the last day. Home Lander (talk) 21:45, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- This probably happened because there was discussion about copyright violations on drafts, and the reviewers were checking the drafts. The screen refers to a cache. Maybe the cache becomes full, and the tool doesn't handle that well. Does User:Earwig still maintain the tool? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:12, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
- That user hasn't, butThe Earwig would be a better person to ask. :-) Graham87 07:25, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks. Robert McClenon, I looked, and there doesn't seem to be any systemic problem with the tool right now. In general, you'll see that if every phrase from the article the tool attempted to search for in Google returned no results, and it has nothing else to go off of. The tool picks phrases at random throughout the article, so it could have gotten unlucky, or maybe the draft is truly unique, or maybe Google had some kind of problem. In my experience, if we've reached the daily request quota, you'd see a different error, but that may have changed. There shouldn't be any issues related to caches becoming full. If you give me the name of the draft, I can look more closely, but I can't be much more specific without further details. — Earwig talk 03:05, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- User:The Earwig - Try Draft:How to be a strong personality. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:09, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Robert McClenon, indeed, every sentence in that article is unique (at least as far as Google is aware). No sources were checked because no potential sources were found. (If you look at the top right, where it says "generated in X seconds using 8 queries", that tells us eight separate searches were made, and none of them turned up any hits.) — Earwig talk 02:23, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- User:The Earwig - Try Draft:How to be a strong personality. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:09, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks. Robert McClenon, I looked, and there doesn't seem to be any systemic problem with the tool right now. In general, you'll see that if every phrase from the article the tool attempted to search for in Google returned no results, and it has nothing else to go off of. The tool picks phrases at random throughout the article, so it could have gotten unlucky, or maybe the draft is truly unique, or maybe Google had some kind of problem. In my experience, if we've reached the daily request quota, you'd see a different error, but that may have changed. There shouldn't be any issues related to caches becoming full. If you give me the name of the draft, I can look more closely, but I can't be much more specific without further details. — Earwig talk 03:05, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- That user hasn't, butThe Earwig would be a better person to ask. :-) Graham87 07:25, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
- This probably happened because there was discussion about copyright violations on drafts, and the reviewers were checking the drafts. The screen refers to a cache. Maybe the cache becomes full, and the tool doesn't handle that well. Does User:Earwig still maintain the tool? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:12, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Multiple Short Description[edit]
In many of the pages, I was able to see that there are multiple short descriptions occurring for a single article. Both of them are same. For example, consider the page Kondotty. I know there are two short descriptions, one from wikidata and other from wikipedia. But I guess the short description from wikidata was overridden with the one from wikipedia as requested by English wikipedia.Adithyak1997 (talk) 10:54, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- Yes. Kondotty uses {{Infobox settlement}} which automatically creates a Wikipedia:Short description. It can be overridden with
short_description, the last parameter at Template:Infobox settlement#Other information. "Page information" in the left pane shows both the local and Wikidata description.[2] See also {{Short description}}. 12:22, 11 November 2018 (UTC)PrimeHunter (talk)- @PrimeHunter:So in such a case, shouldn't there be a condition set to display only one of them? I mean, in cases where there are two short descriptions, shouldn't there be a criteria to display only one of them?Adithyak1997 (talk) 14:25, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- Only if you display the descriptions by CSS are multiple descriptions shown. One description is actually used. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- None of them are actually displayed by default in the desktop version of Wikipedia. User:Adithyak1997/common.css and User:Adithyak1997/common.js both have code to display short descriptions. The bottom of Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets has "Show page description beneath the page title". It is disabled by default. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:09, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- Only if you display the descriptions by CSS are multiple descriptions shown. One description is actually used. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter:So in such a case, shouldn't there be a condition set to display only one of them? I mean, in cases where there are two short descriptions, shouldn't there be a criteria to display only one of them?Adithyak1997 (talk) 14:25, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
& n d a s h ; rendering problem[edit]
Suddenly I'm seeing &ndash, (with a comma, followed by a blank space) where formerly I saw an actual en-dash. Is it just me or my laptop, or has this suddenly stopped working? There are probably over a million occurrences of this within Wikipedia. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:39, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- Michael Hardy, See this discussion. Ping Trappist the monk because updating the live modules to fix the issue seems quite overdue. Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:51, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Where are the Mapframe parameters?[edit]
Several pages that use a Template:Infobox building show a map; eg. Instituto Técnico Militar and Bacardi Building (Havana)...but where are the mapframe parameters for adjusting or changing the map? It is not embedded. If I copy the whole page to my sandbox, the map disappears. If I print the page, it shows: <mapframe zoom"10' frameless="1"...etc, etc </mapframe> under the image of the infobox...help! ovA_165443 (talk) 21:05, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Osvaldo valdes 165443: Template:Infobox building#Mapframe maps shows optional mapframe parameters to adjust the map in the infobox. The coordinates in your examples are taken from the Wikidata item for the article. Click "Wikidata item" under "Tools" in the left pane of the article. I don't think Template:Infobox building can replace the whole mapframe map. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:34, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Main Page responsive design[edit]
A proposal to add responsive design to the main page was briefly implemented, then reverted after problems for certain browsers and gadgets showed up. Before trying to run it live again, it would be beneficial to do some testing with some different browsers and such. Anyone want to take a look at User:Yair rand/MPSandbox and report whether you see any issues? --Yair rand (talk) 21:38, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Looks good here, Windows 10 Home with Google Chrome. Home Lander (talk) 21:43, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Also looks good on Debian Testing with Firefox Nightly. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 03:53, 13 November 2018 (UTC)- Looks fine to me on several older iOS devices. I'd also highly advise to not rollback on every single bug that is being found when this only effects minute amounts of users. That leads to months long cycles that aren't very productive and actually hurt testing. Rollout and fix where issues are reported. The burden upon people working on this to have tested it against BB10s is unreasonable, there is no problem with such a small user groups NOT being able to use a single page for a couple of days, while others work to fix the problems. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:02, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Blacklisted IP talk pages[edit]
I recall sometime back discussing on here about an IP talk page that could not be created because it was blacklisted. User talk:2600:1700:8680:E900:8C6F:CAC6:D0E0:A9EB just exhibited the same behavior; the message intended to be left there was left at the user page instead, and a sysop had to move the page to the correct location. I recall this issue having something to do with a rule on the title blacklist; can IP talk pages be exempted from whatever it is? Home Lander (talk) 21:42, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 167#IP talk page blacklisted? was about a blacklist entry for moves at MediaWiki:Titleblacklist:
.*\p{Lu}(\P{L}*\p{Lu}){9}.* <casesensitive | moveonly> # Disallows moves with more than nine consecutive capital letters
- I don't see anything preventing a normal creation of User talk:2600:1700:8680:E900:8C6F:CAC6:D0E0:A9EB. I guess User:2600:1700:8680:E900:8C6F:CAC6:D0E0:A9EB was created by mistake instead of the talk page and then non-admins couldn't make a page move to the talk page. Moves to any page in the userspace of an IPv6 address with more than nine letters will match the rule but moves to IP userspace should be rare. Requests can be posted to MediaWiki talk:Titleblacklist. I see you already made a declined request about the old case at MediaWiki talk:Titleblacklist#IP talk pages blocked from moves. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:16, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Populated category redirect[edit]
Category:Non-talk pages requesting an edit to a protected page now redirects to Category:Non-talk pages with an edit request template but is populated by Module:Protected edit request/active/sandbox and Module:Protected edit request/sandbox, both of which have some syntax problems that means edits can't be made to them until they're fixed. Can anyone with the tech knowledge sort them out? Timrollpickering 11:55, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Tech News: 2018-46[edit]
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
- Some old mobile browsers can use the watchlist again. This has not worked for a while. These browsers are called grade C browsers. This helps for example Windows Phone 8.1 with Internet Explorer and Lumia 535 with Windows 10. [3]
Problems
- You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. Users who use this view saw the edit conflict resolution page when they wanted to see a preview. This has been fixed. [4][5][6]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 November. It will be on all wikis from 15 November (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- You can use the content translation tool to translate articles. The developers are working on a new version. One of the changes will be a maintenance category. Articles where users add a lot of text from machine translation without changing it will be in that category. This is so the community can review it. The users will also have been warned before they publish the article that it has a lot of unchanged text from machine translations. [7]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Regular expression to add flag icons and country links to country list[edit]
Please see these table updates:
Can anyone give me the regular expressions to quickly link all the country names, and to add the same flag icon wikitext that currently exist on the article pages:
I have Notepad++ and NoteTab Light installed. Both text editors allow use of regular expressions, etc.. Their syntax is not the same though.
This is the wikitext I need to add:
- {{flagcountry|Country name}}
It adds the flag icon and makes the country name into a link.
Basically I need the regular expression to wrap all the text in the first cell of each line with the flagcountry template.
I will add the instructions to here:
--Timeshifter (talk) 11:59, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Timeshifter: I don't know your text editor syntax but our default source editor has regular expressions on "Advanced" followed by the search and replace icon on the right. There it works to search for
(\|-.*\n\|\s*)([^\|\n]*)and replace with$1{{flagcountry|$2}}. Select "Treat search string as a regular expression" before clicking "Replace all". PrimeHunter (talk) 17:04, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter: Wow, this is going to help a lot of people making tables, and especially in updating tables. Thanks!!! See an example, along with some how-to info:
- User:Timeshifter/Sandbox81
- --Timeshifter (talk) 02:05, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
Problem with Parsoid gadget[edit]
Are there any users who use the gadget Parsoid which is used for Linter purpose? If yes, please check [this] link for my problem statement.Adithyak1997 (talk) 15:55, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
revision deletion limitations?[edit]
Are there limitations on the number of versions that can be revision deleted in one action? I'm trying to respond to the RD one request at Mohamed Naguib, which involves more than 250 versions. I tried twice, and each time the browser tab crashed. I'm happy to do it in chunks, but thought I'd check here first in case there's something I need to know.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:58, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Sphilbrick: you should not have issue with under 1000 (but also see phab:T207530 for slow enwiki deletions going on). — xaosflux Talk 16:05, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- I find attempting anything over 200 in one go and the operation usually fails, so I just go in chunks. Nthep (talk) 16:13, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Nthep, Thanks for the report. Needing to do more than 200 is rare enough that it is hardly worth investigating. I'll just remember to do chunks of <200. S Philbrick(Talk) 16:17, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Xaosflux, FTR, I tried a third time, it crashed.
- Then I tried in chunks, one of about 100, one of 150, and one more for the rest, and that worked.
- I'll treat this as a one-off, but if it happens again, I'll file a report. S Philbrick(Talk) 16:15, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- I find attempting anything over 200 in one go and the operation usually fails, so I just go in chunks. Nthep (talk) 16:13, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Searching my contributions with a filter on a previous namespace?[edit]
I'm trying to find, in my contributions list, an edit I made to a draft. I don't remember the title of the draft, or specifically what I put in the comment field, but I'll recognize it when I see it. The edit was made sometime in the past few days.
If I filter on Draft namespace, I don't see it. I think the problem is that the draft was accepted and now lives in mainspace, so the filter on draft space no longer works. Is there some way to filter on, "It was in draft space when I made the edit"? -- RoySmith (talk) 19:10, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- If you can't find it in your contributions, perhaps you would see it by reviewing the moving log; Ctrl+F "page draft:" and skim through those. It may be possible to find the edit you made using a database query at WP:Quarry. --Izno (talk) 20:52, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- Does this list help? Drafts were introduced in 2013-ish, so your accepted draft must be one of the first 17 listed. — MusikAnimal talk 22:39, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- If you used WP:AFCH then you can make a browser search (Ctrl+F in many browsers) on "AFCH" in your mainspace contributions. C3orf67 is the only hit in the last five days. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:23, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
Two different people moved the same page???[edit]
I recently moved a page from a user sandbox to draft space. My User contributions shows the move:
(change visibility) 19:10, 14 November 2018 diffhist (0) m Draft:Highschoolers to Run Under Four Minutes in the Mile (RoySmith moved page User:Herg-derg-editor/sandbox to Draft:Highschoolers to Run Under Four Minutes in the Mile: Preferred location for AfC submissions) (current) [rollback: 1 edit]
But, if I look at the draft history, it claims that User:Legacypac is the one who did the move, one minute earlier:
(cur | prev) 19:09, 14 November 2018 Legacypac (talk | contribs | block) m . . (2,895 bytes) (0) . . (Legacypac moved page User:Herg-derg-editor/sandbox to Draft:Highschoolers to Run the Four Minute Mile: Preferred location for AfC submissions) (undo | thank)
Legacypac's contributions shows a confusing double-entry for this:
(change visibility) 19:09, 14 November 2018 diffhist (0) m Draft:Highschoolers to Run the Four Minute Mile (Legacypac moved page User:Herg-derg-editor/sandbox to Draft:Highschoolers to Run the Four Minute Mile: Preferred location for AfC submissions) (change visibility) 19:09, 14 November 2018 diffhist (+78) N Draft:Highschoolers to Run Under Four Minutes in the Mile (Legacypac moved page User:Herg-derg-editor/sandbox to Draft:Highschoolers to Run the Four Minute Mile: Preferred location for AfC submissions) (Tag: New redirect)
Huh? Some kind of race condition in the logging? -- RoySmith (talk) 00:43, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- You moved the redirect left behind by his move. See Draft:Highschoolers to Run Under Four Minutes in the Mile. Nihlus 00:50, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
One computer can't load Wikipedia while another can[edit]
Hello, I've got two Windows computers, and yet one's able to access Wikipedia while the other's not. One's in Windows 7 with IE 11.0.9600.19155 and the other's in Windows 10 with IE 11.345.17134.0. I'm logged into the latter, and using my normal Monobook, while the other isn't logged in at all. This computer (obviously) can access the site, while the other is consistently returning a 404 error for Wikipedia. At the same time, the problem appears to be restricted to en:wp — using Windows 7, I can access other random sites fine (I run a Google search, find a website I've never seen before, and it loads fine), and I'm able to navigate to de:wp, fr:wp, Commons, and every other WMF wiki that I've tried. Any ideas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nyttend (talk • contribs) 17:54, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Have you tried using different browsers on the Win 7 machine?Nigel Ish (talk) 17:58, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Sometimes when the system clock is off by enough it prevents https from working correctly. And try clearing cookies and browser cache. -- GreenC 18:38, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Can't load it in Firefox 60.2.2esr or Chrome 70.0.3538.102; I get results identical to IE. I virtually never use Chrome or Firefox (except for loading sites that don't work in IE), so I doubt that there's anything problematic in the cookies or the cache. I've cleared both in Firefox and gotten the same results; I'm not immediately clear how to clear them in Chrome, so I've not (yet) done that. The computer I'm using has a system time of 15:40 on 2018-11-15, and the other one has a time of 3:40 PM on 11/15/2018 — can't see how this would be a problem in my specific situation. Nyttend (talk) 20:39, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- And now, somehow, I'm able to access en:wp on Windows 7. Nothing's different, as far as I can tell, while before I wouldn't have even had the chance to log in. Nyttend backup (talk) 20:54, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- In Chrome (at least on Mac; I'm assuming the same on Windows), you can open the Developer Tools window (Command-Option-I), select the network tab, and then reload your page. It'll show you the details of every network access your browser makes. Sometimes you can discover interesting things, like javascript files failing to load. You can also look in the javascript console for error messages. Even if you don't know how to interpret these messages yourself, you can copy-paste them and other people may be able make use of them. My hunch is that some javascript file fetch is timing out, but that's just a hunch. The network trace would help verify or disprove that. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:57, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- And now, somehow, I'm able to access en:wp on Windows 7. Nothing's different, as far as I can tell, while before I wouldn't have even had the chance to log in. Nyttend backup (talk) 20:54, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- Can't load it in Firefox 60.2.2esr or Chrome 70.0.3538.102; I get results identical to IE. I virtually never use Chrome or Firefox (except for loading sites that don't work in IE), so I doubt that there's anything problematic in the cookies or the cache. I've cleared both in Firefox and gotten the same results; I'm not immediately clear how to clear them in Chrome, so I've not (yet) done that. The computer I'm using has a system time of 15:40 on 2018-11-15, and the other one has a time of 3:40 PM on 11/15/2018 — can't see how this would be a problem in my specific situation. Nyttend (talk) 20:39, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Job opening for product manager[edit]
Whereas Deskana has decided to reclaim his volunteer status, there's a job opening that may interest some of you: https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/1436077 The team is currently focusing on mw:Visual-based mobile editing, and is responsible for about a quarter of the known universe, including "All issues relating to the edit screen, edit conflicts, and saving edits". Please think about applying or encouraging good people to apply. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:32, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Template:Infobox album creating garbage[edit]
Is there a reason that the invocation of {{infobox album}} on Masterpiece (Thompson Square album) is spewing garbage all over the page? I have included a screenshot here. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 23:53, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- It's displaying the wikitext exactly as expected for me. You can try editing the page in safe mode [8] or whilst logged out to see if it's a malfunctioning script you have, or try a different browser to see if it's your browser. --Deskana (talk) 00:12, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Ah, looks like I was along the right lines. An edit you made using ProveIt was what introduced all the weird stuff. I guess ProveIt is malfunctioning somehow. --Deskana (talk) 00:13, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Users contributions are showing up on the article history but not on Contributions[edit]
Hi Folks, I found myself a bit surprised as to why this edit and other few edits made by the same user that shows up on Adiyogi Shiva statue page history does not show up on Special:Contributions/Qualitist. This looks very strange to me. Can someone explain this or file a bug if needed on this. thanks. --DBigXrayᗙ 14:44, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Shows up for me. Ctrl+Shift+R? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:49, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Works for me @DBigXray: I see it as the bottom edit on this page — xaosflux Talk 14:49, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Hi Ivanvector, Xaosflux, yes, On checking the page again, I found it, I came here to self revert and got edit conflicted with you. thanks for your quick comments, neverthless. I have marked this as resolved --DBigXrayᗙ 14:52, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- For the record, "Show only likely problem edits (and hide probably good edits)" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rc can hide edits on contributions. The option is on the "Recent changes" tab but the subheading says "Revision scoring on Recent changes, Related changes, and Contributions". PrimeHunter (talk) 14:56, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- Clearly the real problem here, was just my failure to notice the said edits which were there at the bottom and the next page of the contributions page. PrimeHunter I see, my preferences for these were unchecked. but this looks like a good feature, thank you for making this comment, since I learnt about this new feature today. --DBigXrayᗙ 16:42, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- For the record, "Show only likely problem edits (and hide probably good edits)" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rc can hide edits on contributions. The option is on the "Recent changes" tab but the subheading says "Revision scoring on Recent changes, Related changes, and Contributions". PrimeHunter (talk) 14:56, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Hi Ivanvector, Xaosflux, yes, On checking the page again, I found it, I came here to self revert and got edit conflicted with you. thanks for your quick comments, neverthless. I have marked this as resolved --DBigXrayᗙ 14:52, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Revision scoring on Recent changes, Related changes, and Contributions[edit]
While testing this feature Mentioned by Primehunter I selected "Medium" threshold and checked "Highlight likely problem edits with colors and an "r" for "needs review"" . But I still dont see any kind of highlight on the Recent changes and contributions from accounts reported at WP:AIV.PrimeHunter, Is there something else needed to be done in order to make this work ? --DBigXrayᗙ 16:42, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- With those selections I see around 10 highlighted edits in the 500 most recent changes. It appears that user contributions are not highlighted. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:31, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- PrimeHunter, yes, now I was able to see some orange highlighting on "Recent changes". But on clicking the contributions of problem editors (whose edits were highlighted on RC page, the same edits from the editor were not highlighted on his contribution page. Same as you observed. Is it the case that this feature is still not enabled for user contributions or is it a bug ?--DBigXrayᗙ 19:44, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Preventing redlinks auto launch into edit source mode[edit]
I am an active anti-vandalism editor using the old school method. When I rollback and go to warn the User, the User TalkPage automatically launches in edit source mode and not the static (read) mode I am used to. This also happens when I click on non-existent pages/redlinks. Any ideas as to what is going on? Do I have something accidentally selected in my preferences or is this a bug? I am primarily an English language Wikipedia user, it is hard to tell but it appears that this does not happen when I am on the German Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons. I have posted this issue here, the Help Desk, and Phabricator before but never received help/a solution. This might seem like a minor inconvenience, but adds major time in fighting vandalism for me. Thanks in advance for the assistance. Please ping me, as I do not watch posts. Classicwiki (talk) If you reply here, please ping me. 21:44, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Classicwiki: You could add the following to your
common.jsto disable the auto-edit on redlink annoyance:
(function() {
var len = document.links.length;
for (var i = 0; i < len; ++i) {
var l = document.links[i];
if (l.href.indexOf('&redlink=1') > -1) {
l.href = l.href.replace('&action=edit', '');
}
}
})();
- Or as a one-liner, for those who like a more compact version:
(function(){var len=document.links.length;for(var i=0;i<len;++i){var l=document.links[i];if(l.href.indexOf('&redlink=1')>-1){l.href=l.href.replace('&action=edit','');}}})();
- I had to dig through several VP archives when I wanted to find this a month ago. Now I get to pass it on.
— AfroThundr (u · t · c) 05:10, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
Problems using the VE interface[edit]
Today I set some global preferences which apparently have me using the VE interface instead of the source editor I am accustomed to. I figured I would give it a try but am dismayed by the interaction. Firstly, I only see a link to publish my changes; no preview, show changes, or cancel buttons exist. Secondly, the down arrow key between the publish changes tab and the pencil symbol gives a drop down menu which includes a source editing link but clicking on it does not escape the visual editor. I am experiencing the same thing in preparing this posting as well. I have attempted to include a file showing a screenshot but can not preview its positioning or size so if it's snafu-ed, please fix it for me. I'll be heading over to mw to undo my global preferences and have a look when I return. Doesn't that beat all? When I pressed the publish changes button an interim screen opened which contained therein a preview button, another publish changes button, and a resume editing button. Whomever thought it would be intuitive to press publish changes to get to the preview button is sorely mistaken. I'm still fixing to turn it off.--John Cline (talk) 12:40, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- Clicking Publish takes you to a modal popup that allows you to Preview, Show changes, and Publish, as well as provide your edit summary. Old hands hate the workflow. :) Pressing your Esc key will cancel an edit. --Izno (talk) 18:25, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- As for "escaping" the VE, you're looking for the Beta feature called "New wikitext mode". Turn that off. You may also have "Automatically enable all new beta features" turned on. You may not want that either. --Izno (talk) 18:28, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks Izno, I appreciate you. If this is a beta feature, where do you go to share feedback? There are aspects of this "new mode" that I could warm up to; assuming the bugs will be resolved.--John Cline (talk) 19:53, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
DYKUpdateBOT malfunctioning[edit]
For some reason, the automated updates by the DYK bot have not been running for two days in a row. Requests for manual updates from admins have been posted at Main Page Errors. Any suggestions for a fix are appreciated. Flibirigit (talk) 05:16, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Community Wishlist Survey – Vote NOW[edit]
NPR NEEDS YOU! New Page Reviewers operate the only firewall against junk, attack, spam, and undeclared paid editing which has aways made up the majority of a day's intake of new pages masquerading as articles. Community Wishlist Voting is taking place now until 30 November for the Page Curation and New Pages Feed improvements, and other software requests. The NPP community is hoping for a good turnout in support of the requests to Santa for the tools that are urgently needed. This is very important as the Foundation has been constantly asked for these upgrades for 4 years. The Page Curation suite of tools now stands a good chance of getting long awaited attention to the upgraded tools it needs, but it needs your help: whether you are an active patroller or just want a junk-free encyclopedia, the Community Wishlist Survey needs you: Vote NOW, and do also consider applying to become a New Page Reviewer. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:57, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Animated gif files[edit]
Is there a gadget or css snippet that stops animated gif files from animating? Nthep (talk) 12:37, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
- I don't know a gadget or css but your browser may have a setting or suitable extension. You can Google for the browser name and
disable animated gif, or ask at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing with the browser name. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:31, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Open-source[edit]
I'm afraid I opened a can of worms when changed the target of redirects Open-source and Open source toward Open source (disambiguation) and I suspect a bot might help but I neither know how to request nor build one. I was not even aware of this problem until it was pointed out to me, User talk:JasonCarswell#Open-source, where the conversation continues. I will watch this space for answers but I'd prefer that you continue the conversation on my talk page and include/ping the others please. A bot would save days worth of editing. Thank you in advance. ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 13:22, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Ideally the bot would go through theses lists of thousands and find/add/replace disambiguation-pipe-links then no longer be needed, unless I'm mistaken about something I'm unaware of.
Thanks again. ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 13:48, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Temp password expired[edit]
Someone requested that an account be created. This was done and a temporary password assigned but they failed to login before the password expired. They've requested a new password but I don't know how to do that. Is it possible? if it matters, the username is Titanrich. ticket:2018111710004008 --S Philbrick(Talk) 13:28, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Sphilbrick: that account appears to have been created 42 days ago by JJMC89. Assuming the email is correct they should be able to reset it with PasswordReset to generate a new email. (See a similar chain of events documented at phab:T103667). — xaosflux Talk 15:44, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
- Xaosflux, Thank you. The sad thing is that I knew that but had a brain freeze and forgot that was possible. I've point to the user to this discussion so hopefully they will either follow the advice or get back to me and I'll help. S Philbrick(Talk) 16:23, 18 November 2018 (UTC)