Hi, I recently noticed that customized signatures can mess up template strings when ~~~~ is used as an argument. We specify template parameters using triple braces, e.g. {{{1}}}, and when this parameter is filled out by something with html tags, that messes up how the template displays itself.
For instance, let's take up {{Unsig}}. (The example template can be anything because it's a matter of parameters.) With the default signature:

• {{Unsig|Nonexistent user|~~~~}}
• — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nonexistent user (talk • contribs) Dragoniez (talk) 16:01, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

In this case, there's no problem. But when the signature is customized as below:

• <span style="font-family:Times">[[User:Dragoniez|'''Dragoniez''']] ([[User talk:Dragoniez|'''talk''']])</span>
• {{Unsig|Nonexistent user|~~~~}}
• — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nonexistent user (talk • contribs)

The signature is just gone. Actually, this can be circumvented if the html tags are nested inside the linking wikitexts, as in:

• [[User:Dragoniez|<span style="font-family:Times">'''Dragoniez'''</span>]] ([[User talk:Dragoniez|<span style="font-family:Times">'''talk'''</span>]])
• — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nonexistent user (talk • contribs) Dragoniez (talk) 16:01, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, this is a clear workaround, but you CANNOT decorate anything outside linking wikitexts. (Notice that the parentheses are in the default font in the example immediately above.) Thus:

• [[User:Dragoniez|<span style="font-family:Times">'''Dragoniez'''</span>]] <span style="font-family:Times">([[User talk:Dragoniez|'''talk''']])</span>
• — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nonexistent user (talk • contribs)

This doesn't work. I personally want to use:

• <span style="font-family:Times">[[User:Dragoniez|'''Dragoniez''']] ([[User talk:Dragoniez|'''talk''']])</span>

but is there any way to make it compatible with template parameters? Any help would be appreciated. --Dragoniez (talk) 16:01, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

This is not specific to signatures but an example of the second bullet at Help:Template#Usage hints and workarounds: "An unnamed parameter cannot contain an ordinary equals sign, as this would be interpreted as setting off a named parameter." There is an exception when the equals sign is inside certain elements like wikilinks, but not inside a span. You can write |1= for the first unnamed parameter. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Ohhh, I see. Thank you so much for your help! --Dragoniez (talk) 17:12, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello! So the user Gatemansgc has their table of contents tilted and on said talk page they have said they've done so on purpose. The issue they're having is that for whatever reason, whenever someone makes an edit to the page, the tilt changes. What they're wanting help with is to keep it tilted a certain way. I'm asking here for them since they have asked for someone who "knows what they are doing" to help with the tilt at the top of their talk page. Link to the talk page is User talk:Gatemansgc ― Blaze The Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 20:00, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Blaze The Wolf, User:Gatemansgc: They're using {{#invoke:RexxS|wobble}}, which intentionally "wobbles" the element back and forth each time the page is regenerated (which can be done either by editing or performing a purge). In other words, it's working as intended. If they just want it tilted, not wobbling, they should replace that module call with {{transform|rotate([ANGLE]deg)}}, replacing [ANGLE] with their desired tilt angle. I would also highly suggest that they change the "AAAAAA" image to [[Image:AAAAAA.png|225px|link=|alt=]] to avoid it interfering with gadgets that modify the username area (such as User:Anomie/useridentifier.js) and screen readers. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:19, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

22:26, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I can't see the point of __FORCETOC__. Accoriding to Help:Magic words it "Forces the TOC to appear in its default position." But that's where it appears anyway. What am I missing? Does this do something else undocumented? SpinningSpark 17:25, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: you should not normally need it, it is used to override __NOTOC__, for example if say NOTOC was being included via a template, but you wanted the TOC on that page anyway. See example at Special:PermaLink/1060134155. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:45, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I came across it where someone had added it to a couple of redirect pages [2][3]. It's not going to do anything there, right? SpinningSpark 17:58, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

__FORCETOC__ can also be used to display a table of contents even when there are fewer than four headings on a page. Where there are no headings, such as on (I imagine nearly all?) redirect pages, it is superfluous. isaacl (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

In such cases __TOC__ should be preferred. IznoPublic (talk) 20:48, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

__TOC__ also specifies a location for the table of contents. You may just want to trigger its creation in the default location. isaacl (talk) 22:32, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: also if you see odd magic words being added by a newer editor via the visual editor, it is almost always clueless additions that they made by clicking on things they don't understand. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Isaacl: I can think of one usecase for it on a redirect page; if someone is trying to write an article under a redirect while it is at RFD, but that does not apply in this case. SpinningSpark 21:58, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Sure, that could be a reason for headings. I imagine it's pretty rare. isaacl (talk) 22:37, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

While editing wikipedia I noticed an edit that tried to combine the {{Infobox TikTok personality}} and {{Infobox YouTube personality}} templates into subboxes of the main twitch infoxbox on the page. The solution that the user who made the change used doesn't look great, with the widths of the vertical bars being mismatched, as well as using an embedded infobox rather than another subbox like the Youtube infobox above it. I tried fixing this by making the template a subbox instead of an embed, but when previewing my edit, I'd realized that the header had disappeared, making it unclear that these were statistics related to a TikTok account. I have set up a demonstration on my sandbox showing this issue in action. After looking at the sources of both of the infoboxes I cannot figure out why the header would be disappearing just because the module is a subbox. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, ― Levi_OP^Talk 15:25, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

How I can find pages like Territorial disputes of the People's Republic of China or Territorial disputes of Japan without need to enter every category at Category:Territorial disputes by country? Eurohunter (talk) 20:32, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Eurohunter: Search intitle:"Territorial disputes". You could also try a deepcat search - see H:SEARCHING. ― Qwerfjkltalk 21:16, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Territorial disputes of Japan is far away in the results. Why I need to watch all pages which just has Category Territorial disputes of Egypt etc.? It is the same bad way as categories. Eurohunter (talk) 21:56, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Eurohunter It's not that far away - there are only ~24 results (or fewer with a stricter search). ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:28, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

And even fewer if you add china japan after intitle (not in it), if you specifically searching for China or Japan. MarMi wiki (talk) 16:49, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

Why can't I go directly to edit page from "What links here" (alt-shift-j) anymore? Anyway to get it back? Or is it a new bug? Christian75 (talk) 14:13, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't recall an Edit tab on "What links here". Are you referring to the shortcut Alt+⇧ Shift+e? I don't know whether that used to work. It doesn't work for me now. I have Vector, Firefox, Windows 10. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:12, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

@Christian75: are talking about the results page for WLH (try this example)? I see (links|edit) on each line there. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:53, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, do you mean that at the top of the page the "edit tab" control is not there? When did you last see it there? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:56, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Possible regression, seems similar to phab:T165010. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:00, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

It's that one, thanks. I'm using monobook and in the menu to the left "tools" it is called "What links here", and the shortcut i Alt+⇧ Shift+j. Christian75 (talk) 16:09, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Hmm. I guess it isn't that phab because it happend today (and that phap is from 2017). Normally you could edit a page from here: [4] Christian75 (talk) 16:12, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

@Christian75: WP:ITSTHURSDAY, if I understand your report correctly, you expect an "edit" tab at the top of the page there, and it is not there. That phab was an example of when something like this broke in the past. I understand that it isn't working today, can you recall the last time that it was working though? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:23, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Here is a non-Wikimedia wiki on an old MediaWiki version 1.27.7 from 2019: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Wikipedia. It has an Edit tab and Alt+⇧ Shift+e works. I guess I just never noticed the tab because I don't edit the page itself from WhatLinksHere. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:54, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

It seems like a bug. I filed T297744. Matma Rex talk 19:00, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

The buggy change has been reverted for now. Legoktm (talk) 04:15, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

Is it possible to pass a table via invoke?

A currently used template has an interface width of about 100 parameters and still is not able to show up neatly what it's supposed to. So I'd like to write a module accepting a table of uncertain length, returning table rows for insertion into WP table:

• Each input element shall consist of an n-type and a content.
  • the whole output shall be ordered by n-type.
  • display of content depends on n-type.
• Each content shall consist of an uncertain number of parts.
  • Each part is an n-value, a description, or an n-value AND a description and optionally has one or more control params.

So in Lua such a structure should be declarable like this:

input = {
  {n-type="first",
   content={{n-value="Harry", description="H.r."}}},
  {n-type="throne",
   content={{n-value="Henry I.", crown=true},
            {description="H.nr. 1st, Boss of Foo and Bar"},
            {n-value="Big Baboo", description="unofficial"}}}
}

How could I pass such a structure in WP via invoke to my module? --Vollbracht (talk) 04:07, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that you can. {{#invoke:}}, accepts positional or named parameters as text strings. It is possible to pass Lua tables from one module to another but not from wikitext into a module.

Just a quibble: n-type and n-value keys in your example should be written: ['n-type'] and ['n-value'] because otherwise Lua will attempt to perform a subtraction and because type is reserved as a standard library function name.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:11, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you so far! Anyway I won't call my params that way in a German template. Still I'd like to request a change for #invoke to accept single curly braces as table delimiters. Are any #invoke calls with params containing single curly braces out there yet? If bound to parsing a string describing a struct, I couldn't use '=' within that string. That's ugly. --Vollbracht (talk) 16:06, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this would work, but if your {...} code string was json compliant you could posssibly use mw.text.jsonDecode to create a table. The Lua Reference Manual is rather terse in its description, so I'm not sure if this is what it does. —  Jts1882 | talk  16:31, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the easiest way to do this is a Lua data structures in subpages of the module. You'd have your main module at Module:Vollbracht's royal lineage and your data would be at something like Module:Vollbracht's royal lineage/Harry, which would contain:

return {
  {["n-type"]="first",
   ["content"]={{["n-value"]="Harry", ["description"]="H.r."}}},
  {["n-type"]="throne",
   ["content"]={{["n-value"]="Henry I.", ["crown"]=true},
            {["description"]="H.nr. 1st, Boss of Foo and Bar"},
            {["n-value"]="Big Baboo", ["description"]="unofficial"}}}
}

You could then call {{#invoke:Vollbracht's royal lineage|main|Harry}}, which would use

input = mw.loadData("Module:Vollbracht's royal lineage/" .. frame.args[1])

. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:17, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

In the end users should create an info box containing the data. This must not be complicated, so I won't expect s.o. to create separate royal lineage modules. (Still: thank you for showing up this solution!) Even mw.text.jsonDecode is sub-optimal. It would require the users to write even param names in double quotes.

It should be possible to write a parser which uses a template for the structure of the data it shall parse. So the template developer defines such a structure in a json string which his module passes to the parser together with the template user's data. Now, if the template expects a "first"-param in a row, it could reply with "unknown parameter: fist". Any ideas for necessary or sensible specifications for the parser or the json string? --Vollbracht (talk) 23:00, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

If you where to rename the param names so there is not a minus there, then you do not need to use double quotes for them. If you do want to go that route you would avoid all characters under mw:Extension:Scribunto/Lua_reference_manual#Tokens .

Separate royal lineage modules are not needed. An template with numbered parameters would need to explicitly define each parameter, where as an module only needs one definition per each group (that is, handle all parameter names that consist of number + word in a certain way). An module could also power multiple templates easily, where as that is unlikely in a template. Modules are much less complicated than wikicode templates, and modules are modular, where as wikicode is not.

I would assume the n in the parameter names actually stands for a number, which could be anywhere from 1 to 100 or even indefinate.--Snævar (talk) 20:37, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, yes, I want to program a module. And no, in the end it's about name types by which name information shall be sorted: display Horus name information before throne name information before given name information and so on.

This thread is about passing a struct from wikicode to module to reduce interface width just as you recognized: the old style has had numbered parameters like throneName1Code, throneName1Description, someThroneName1ControllParam, someOtherThroneName1CP, throneName2Code, etc. up to 10 and same with a couple of other name types giving a still not sufficient total of about 100 possible params. --Vollbracht (talk) 02:48, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done: A parser for a very simple string syntax has been written: de:Modul:SimpleStruct

There appears to be a quite a bit of interest in dark mode - going by the several help desk and teahouse queries and the posts at user talk:Volker E. (WMF)/dark-mode. However, the current user experience is sub-optimal as the gadget doesn't provide a toggle, and it seems unlikely that users want the dark mode on all the time. So I suggest converting a dark-mode toggling script such as User:SD0001/dark-mode-toggle.js into a gadget. See also the initial discussion. – SD0001 (talk) 06:37, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Not a direct answer to your suggestion, but I recently created Wikipedia:Dark mode to try to consolidate info on various dark modes available in one place. This page could also be a good place to discuss a toggle which has come up a few times.Dialectric (talk) 10:14, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Posted a linkback to here on its talk page. – SD0001 (talk) 05:47, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

• Support I didn't use the dark mode because it didn't have a toggle, and I didn't use SD0001's toggle because it didn't support toggling it without reloading the page, but now that it does, this seems like a good idea. Nardog (talk) 07:42, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support I did it on viwiki. P.T.Đ (talk) 18:27, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Would be very useful. MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:31, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Sure I can see the value in this one. Ktin (talk) 21:29, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support I think this is a great idea if you want to read or edit Wikipedia at night or you have sensitive eyes. I think adding a built-in high-contrast mode too would also be useful for visually impaired Wikipedians. Linux rules, Windows drools (talk) 06:48, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
• Question... any Foundation/phab/MediaWiki movement on this lately? If they're doing something about it soon then we might want to let that option take its course. Enterprisey (talk!) 07:23, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

  Not as far as I know. @MusikAnimal would be able to provide a qualified answer. Dark mode did end up #2 in 2019 Community Wishlist but it was declined. – SD0001 (talk) 13:21, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

  ughhhhhhhhh ok, thanks for the digging. Support as it's the best option we have available; I'll stand by to implement it, assuming there's consensus here (I see a little precipitation, in fact). I was going to make a few feature requests for the script but it already implemented everything I could think of, so great job! Enterprisey (talk!) 20:20, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

  To my knowledge, no, there is no official dark mode coming soon. What I had heard in the past was that it was (maybe) going to be part of the Desktop Improvements project, so you could ask over on their talk page.

  Anyway, given the absence of a better system, I too support making the toggle script a gadget. I wish there was a way to have both gadgets in the same definition, though, so the user only has to tick one checkbox in their gadget preferences. I suppose that isn't possible? Additionally, I think the Dark Mode gadget should graduate from the "Testing and development" section. It has remained there as we kinked out the bugs, which I assume is more stable now. It hurts to see us iterate and improve on the gadget while mw:Extension:DarkMode collects dust, but I digress. — MusikAnimal ^talk 20:01, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

  In the sense of possibility, yes; in the sense of good possibility? it goes from being a styles-only (early) load to a late load, so FOUCs for everyone. Izno (talk) 21:05, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

  If I understood the conversation between SD0001 and you correctly at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 189 § Proposal for a dark-mode gadget addition (before Earth Day 22 April?), it seems it should be possible to just enable the toggle gadget. isaacl (talk) 21:15, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

  Ah right, apologies for my poor memory and negligence to re-read the discussion! So it seems we will have to have two visible checkboxes, but the user needs only to enable the toggle gadget. That said, perhaps it's best to keep the core Dark Mode gadget where it is under "Testing and development", since it will only be for internal use. Re Izno on FOUCs: my understanding is there won't be any visual flickering, but with the caveat that Dark Mode itself won't enable until you browse to a different page. I think that's fine, though, as long as it's clear in the documentation.

  SD0001 Any interest in making the toggle in the personal toolbar like User:Volker E. (WMF)/dark-mode and the DarkMode extension, or should we keep it nested under #p-cactions ("More" menu)? No strong feelings from me, but I would think the personal toolbar will more clearly expose the toggle, and be less clutter for those of us with many things already buried in cactions. — MusikAnimal ^talk 22:11, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

  @MusikAnimal The caveat has also been removed now (see talk discussion). Toggling applies the new mode immediately by modifying the <link> tag on the page -- which is hacky from a developer perspective but I think worth it given the aesthetic effect from a user perspective. Re the extension: actually I thought about suggesting the same technique for it as you can then avoid sending the dark mode styles to the client when dark mode is disabled - but was unsure if the hack would survive an MW code review!
  Re portlet location: no strong feelings from me as well, but I thought it was better in cactions as that's the standard place for script/gadget buttons, and there's no jump effect (which could be avoided by reserving space using the css, but then there could be folks using just dark-mode without the toggle gadget) – SD0001 (talk) 16:50, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  I would prefer p-personal too, it's annoying it gets collapsed in "More" with p-cactions in Vector. Nardog (talk) 23:23, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  I'm gonna come down on the side of p-personal as well because this gadget is going to be used by new users, so the change to the interface should be obvious. Of course, nothing against a common.js "preference" (the horror!) to set it to p-cactions or whatever. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:56, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

  Looks like I stand outnumbered. Feel free to make the change (before or after this becomes a gadget). It isn't exactly trivial however as it needs accompanying CSS to avoid the jump effect and we need to support minerva as well (in which order of elements in p-personal is different). – SD0001 (talk) 08:00, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

  pt-preferences doesn't seem to exist unless advanced mode is on. Edit request filed. Nardog (talk) 11:01, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support as a user of the gadget first, then swapping to the toggle because the dark mode handled certain tools like Redwarn terribly. Super good for proofreading and resting my weary eyes when I end up editing at 2 in the morning. Sennecaster (Chat) 19:06, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support - I can't really understand why dark mode isn't a thing here ?, It's like the WMF still think we're in 1996 or something. Anyway I support this proposal. –Davey2010^Talk 22:00, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support: My eyes would really appreciate a dark mode right now. I've been dealing vertigo today and yesterday due to COVID—more specifically, due to fluid buildup causing pressure in my inner ears—and Wikipedia, one of my homepage tabs, along with YouTube and Facebook, is the only one without a dark mode. Sunglasses have been helping today. However, I also prefer dark styles in general and would still support it even if I weren't currently sick. Amaury • 02:44, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Amaury and Davey2010: You have access to a dark mode today, please take a look in gadgets preferences toward the bottom. This discussion is solely about being able to toggle easily between dark and light. Izno (talk) 02:54, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Izno: Doesn't look like it affects the Preferences page itself, but that's fine. There's not ever a reason for me to go to that page except rarely when I change something like just now. I wish I had known about this all this time. Wow! Thanks! Amaury • 02:58, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  No gadget ever affects the preferences page. That's for safety reasons. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:32, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  Like I said, it's not a big deal for me, but what safety reasons? Amaury • 23:47, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  You don't want to make it impossible to disable a gadget that is causing trouble when enabled. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:54, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Izno Brilliant thank you, I'll admit I never ever expected it to be in gadgets but gadgets is better than nothing at all, My eyes and I are very pleased lol, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 08:45, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support: Cabayi (talk) 09:11, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support a toggle seems useful. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 11:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support: It's been some months now we have it as a gadget in my homewiki (SqWiki). - Klein Muçi (talk) 09:50, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Requested implementation at: Wikipedia:Interface administrators' noticeboard#Dark mode toggle gadget. – SD0001 (talk) 10:11, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Support and make it a default enabled gadget - for our readers sake, everything has a dark mode. We should provide one by default. ✨ Ed talk! ✨ 10:32, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

In Nimrud lens putting the identifier W_-90959 at {British-Museum-db|90959|id=W_-90959} produces nothing. Template:British-Museum-db says it relies on "&objectId=" parameter value in the URL of the British Museum collection database record for the item. However, now it seems the museum no longer uses it, e.g. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_-90959. Could someone help? Brandmeister^talk 16:47, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@Brandmeister The BM has changed their system. The link in your example needs changing from https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=W_-90959 to https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_-90959. I've changed this in the template and also the default link to the help page for the search.

However, a complication is that it doesn't work for the number ids given on the Mold cape page, which have BM registration of form 1883,1207.1 and numeric ids. These now work by modifying the registration number, prefixing with an "H_" and using hyphens as separators, as in https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1883-1207-1. I don't know if this was working correctly before the change, although the page is linked from the template page. —  Jts1882 | talk  17:22, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. It seems that template documentation needs an update now, as do nearly all articles using this template where previous identifiers don't work anymore. Perhaps a bot could do those mass updates? Brandmeister^talk 17:35, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I've updated my statement above on the Mold cape page. They've replace numeric ids for the items in the old database with ids based on the item registration number. I've changed the examples on that page so they work with the template update.

Another example at Chandragupta II needs a "C_" prefix. So does this mean prefix depends on type (C for coin)? Probably means these need to be changed and checked manually. 90 transclusions is not too bad. —  Jts1882 | talk  18:02, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I was told to ask about this here.

The map of Moscow used on pages about its districts seems to be missing some. Maryino District shows up fine, but Metrogorodok District (north-east) among others is not marked in green at all. This seems to be based on Template:Moscow district OSM map and I am not proficient enough to make sense of it. If someone would be willing to correct this, I send my thanks. SuperJendrej (talk) 21:54, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

That is Wikidata code. Reposted at d:Wikidata:Project chat#Russian district map. The color on Metrogorodok should be red, since the map shows where the district is, but on other pages the district would be green.--Snævar (talk) 12:17, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Wiki -

You want to know why you're not getting more donations? I offered to make a donation and when I click submit you asked for more money!

I gave $25 to the wiki cause, but I keep getting the incessant requests to donate. If there's any way to not make that happen anymore, that'd be great! Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1000:B12A:9D1D:B990:6216:C43E:7DF4 (talk) 01:58, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

So far as I know, the only way is to adblock the elements or to register and browse while logged in. Izno (talk) 04:56, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Welcome and thank you for your question about donations! To hide the fundraising banners, you can create an account and uncheck Preferences → Banners → Fundraising. The Wikimedia Foundation does not track the identity of IP addresses, so it doesn't know your age, income level or whether you donated in the past.
None of the Wikipedia volunteer editors here who add and improve content in articles receive any financial benefit. We all simply contribute our time because we care about building a great encyclopedia for you and innumerable others around the world to use.
If you cannot afford it, no one wants you to donate. Wikipedia is not at risk of shutting down, and the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the Wikipedia platform and is asking for these donations, is richer than ever.
We are led to believe that users who allow cookies are less likely to see these banners on repeat visits (further information is available here), and you are welcome to communicate directly with the donor-relations team by emailing donate@wikimedia.org. Thank you! ― Qwerfjkltalk 08:38, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Although we welcome your comments, this page is a forum for the Wikipedia community: the unpaid volunteers who write and maintain this encyclopedia. The WMF inserts the appeals into Wikipedia, and receives the resulting donations. The WMF can also be contacted at m:Talk:Fundraising. Certes (talk) 12:37, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Just a heads-up that in about a month, the [reply] tool will be enabled, default-on, for all editors here. Please make a note of:

• Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion – the exact section of your prefs where you will be able to turn it off in January
• mw:Help:DiscussionTools – basic help page
• mw:Help:DiscussionTools/Why can't I reply to this comment? – not-so-basic help page, likely to be a favorite resource for the regulars here
• mw:Extension:DiscussionTools/How it works – by the tools' devs, for other tech folks

If you somehow haven't tried this out yet, then click on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)?dtenable=1 to reload this page, and look for all the little [reply] buttons after each signature. The Reply tool will auto-sign and auto-indent your comments, has an easy ping (just type @ to see a list of previous participants in the discussion), and you can choose between visual and wikitext source modes. Only the [reply] tool will be enabled in January. Everything else (e.g., the [subscribe] button) will wait for a future date. You can opt in now at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. Once you've opted in, you can adjust your prefs at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion (e.g., if you want topic subscriptions now, or if you don't want the simplified/auto-signing ==New Discussion== tool).

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:54, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Also: Their next projects involve getting the Reply and New Discussion tools on mobile, where the talk page experience is generally poor, and doing some work to make the pages more useful. (mw:Naming things is hard. I've been calling it "Usability", but "Usefulness" might have been more descriptive.)

As a heads-up on that – which you'll probably see in a few months, if you enable the Beta Feature and you use Vector – this Useful Usability Thing is going to involve changing the appearance. This is because when you add new useful features, you have to have a place to stick them. Also, some newbies seem to have difficulty noticing that the talk page is not the place to post their would-be articles, and they think this is partly because the pages look too similar. Even doing something fairly small, like making the ==Level 2== section headings use the "wrong" (sans serif) font, might help with that. So if you flip the Beta Feature on (so far, I'm loving it) and your talk page suddenly looks different in a couple of months, then don't panic. Just tell me what you think of it, and go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion to flip it off if you don't like it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Trying it out right here. This is pretty great, kudos.  — Scott • talk 20:12, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad that you like it. About a half million comments have been posted via the Reply tool now. It seems to be pretty popular. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:19, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

YES! Enterprisey (talk!) 20:26, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• @Whatamidoing (WMF): Is the new-page-creation workflow hijack by discussion tools (see mw:Topic:Wiggfwdwlg1hu8be) going to be the new default for everyone? For example, clicking on this redlink seems to no longer go to the new page workflow, but to the DT widget. Perhaps the editor is just trying to do something like add a banner, simply "following a redlink" doesn't mean you want to "start a disucssion". — xaosflux ^Talk 14:42, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  Maybe some day, but definitely not in January. They're still working on the main test to see whether it was a good/bad/neutral idea. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:30, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Whatamidoing (WMF): ok thanks, hard to test what "will be" in that workflow right now :) So long as this is something that (a)can be disabled and (b)doesn't break what happens when you follow a red link, I can't see it being anything but a net positive. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:59, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  What "will be" is what all the wikis except Meta-Wiki, enwiki, fiwiki, ruwiki, and Wikispecies already have, so you could go to Commons or dewiki or eswiki to try it out now. (Around January 12th, half the users at 20 of the Wikipedias will get a new feature as part of that test, so this won't always be true, but for right now, what they've got is what we will get.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:26, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello! So as you can probably see my account has been renamed. However it appears that some lists no longer include me because they have my old username on the list instead of my new and current one. Would it be possible for someone to assist me in updating my username on any lists that include mine? I've already updated a few however I would like assistance fixing the rest. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:30, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Which list(s) are you talking about? —GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 15:20, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

@PorkchopGMX (on the go): I'm honestly not exactly sure. I know the signpost is one of them however i've added my name to various things that I can't remember all of them. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:49, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

You can try WhatLinksHere from your old userpage. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:26, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

That won’t work for all of the lists, I see some that don’t link the userpage and/or only the user talk page. —GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 16:37, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I get it now. Those are mass message lists. Is it ok if I go through your contribs and update your name in each of the lists? —GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 16:26, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

@PorkchopGMX:​ Feel free to do so! ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 18:00, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done, I’ve updated your username on the remaining lists.—GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 18:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:05, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Note that MassMessage follows redirects, so it's not strictly necessary to update usernames (though I understand why it would be wanted). Legoktm (talk) 02:58, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Hu, would anyone be interested in generating the list from the Missing Redirects Project (if it still works)? The source code is on the page - I would run it myself if I had the technical ability. ― Qwerfjkltalk 10:16, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I just downloaded the archive and had a look at the README.txt and a couple of other files. There is unfortunately no explicit license or statement of authorship on the code. William Avery (talk) 10:39, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@William Avery: I think it would be safe to reuse, though not listed in every file the launcher, new-run.sh does declare:

# Purpose : Download the latest EN Wikipedia database dump, store it, and then run our script.
# Author  : Nick Jenkins
# License : GPL v2
# Created : 25-April-2005

So long as you keep it under GPLv2 you should be fine to make derivatives. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Sorry about that, and good spot. Taking a closer look at the code, I notice it refers to the cur table, from which it gets a page's text content. So I don't think it will run against a current database dump without modification, and the corresponding current dump would be pages-articles-multistream.xml.bz2, meaning somebody doing that needs to be able to handle a ~80 Gb database. William Avery (talk) 20:30, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello! I've recently made a question in Template talk:Infobox military conflict regarding I18n and the template's technical nature but I've gotten no answer there for many days no. I thought I could try my luck here. Can someone with some extra time take a look at my question there? I hope what I've written does make sense. My technical terminology is not that good. - Klein Muçi (talk) 23:49, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I'm currently trying to make a template, and I need your help (note that this is just for personal use). I'll just simplify what I'm trying to do, it's something like when you input a value for parameter 1 (a username), you'll get:

• Example (talk · contribs)

and when you input values for parameter 1 and 2, you'll get:

• Example (talk · contribs)
• Example2 (talk · contribs)

and so forth. I then tried the following (see Special:PermaLink/1060989898 for the original (coloured) code, and Special:PermaLink/1060989936 for its actual output):

<includeonly>{{ {{{|safesubst:}}}Ifsubst||{{Subst!|}}}}</includeonly>
* {{User|{{{1}}}}}{{#if:{{{2|}}}|* {{User|{{{2}}}}}}}

When I use this with {{subst:template|Example|Example2}}, I get the result I want. But when I look at the source text, it has {{#if}} left over like the following:

* {{User|Example}}{{#if:Example2|* {{User|Example2}}}}

What I want is the source text of:

* {{User|Example}}
* {{User|Example2}}

How can I do this? Thank you for your help in advance. --Dragoniez (talk) 23:55, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Put {{{|safesubst:}}} before #if in the template. – SD0001 (talk) 07:48, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Here are lines 2 and 3 from Module:No globals:

function mt.__index (t, k)
	if k ~= 'arg' then

It used to be that CodeEditor would report the 'columnar' position of the cursor at the right edge of its footer taking into account the width of a tab character (4) so that if I placed the cursor between the tab character on line 3 and the i of the if keyword, CodeEditor would account for the columnar width of the tab character. Not so anymore; it now ignores the columnar width of the tab character and reports '1'.

When did this change? Why did this change? Should it have changed?

Also, somewhat related, didn't there used to be a help link in the CodeEditor header?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:21, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

as far as i know, it has always reported character offsets, not column offsets, and 1 tab is 1 character. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:44, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Based on Wikipedia talk:Lua style guide § CodeEditor switched to tabs, after a few months of deployment, the code editor changed from inserting spaces to inserting tabs. Perhaps you have been looking at some code that was written back then? Or someone manually entered in spaces? (Although that's a pain to do with the auto-indenting feature automatically entering tabs.) isaacl (talk) 21:05, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I have used CodeEditor a lot. I prefer tabs to spaces so I notice it when I encounter all those damn space characters in another editors' work; I tend to think the editor (especially for recent work) used the wikitext editor or used an external text editor to create/maintain some bit of code. I am pretty sure that I remember CodeEditor accounting for tab width but, of course, I could be wrong. It seems to me odd that I would only notice that now having spent all these years with CodeEditor.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:00, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello developers

the feature of "copy link to highlight" in google chrome was recently intruded, can you develop the reference box to accept such links?, the benefit is known to editors and reviewers, a lot of references are to long to read, but when the citation goes right to the line from which the info was taken it would be time saving.--Abu aamir (talk) 14:13, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@Abu aamir This feature just appends a URI fragment like #:~:text=This is the text I want to highlight to the URL. Editors can simply include this in the URL when adding citations. If I understand you correctly, there's nothing developers can do to help the situation. But nonetheless I agree it would be good practice to start doing this. Perhaps it's worth documenting at WP:CITE or elsewhere. This feature apparently isn't unique to Chromium and it is likely a matter of time before all major browsers support it. — MusikAnimal ^talk 00:39, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello :@MusikAnimal

thanks, I just have tried the URI fragment in English Wikipedia, it worked.--Abu aamir (talk) 11:52, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I would HATE that. There's no guarantee the page will not change or that everyone who clicks the link will see it (e.g. some may see a paywall), and citing URLs with fragments like that makes maintenance harder (e.g. in case of a link rot) and reusing the same source to support different statements needlessly difficult. If anything they should be removed—not added—just like UTM parameters. If indicating the relevant portion of a source is somehow desired, |quote= is right there. Nardog (talk) 12:36, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

If the text is no longer present, it simply wouldn't highlight anything (the status quo), so I don't see how it could effect link rot. In fact, if given an |access-date=, IABot will find the closest matching archived copy which in most cases should yield a still-working URI fragment. To me the practice seems harmless. You make a good point about reusing sources, but using |quote= would seemingly have the same problem. — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:19, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Since we try to be semantic with citations, it would be better if the text is added in |quote= param and Module:CS1 automatically inserts the URI fragment, if it's short enough to be highlightable. – SD0001 (talk) 06:25, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Or in subject lines, or new threads such as this. What's causing it? Doug Weller talk 10:25, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Could be related to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 193#Performance issue with syntax highlighting – SD0001 (talk) 12:32, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I get this lag too, even with syntax highlighting disabled. I wasn't experiencing this like a month back. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:33, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

If you're on Chrome, try turning off the spellchecker. – SD0001 (talk) 12:39, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Or switch to the 'enhanced' spell check. But be mindful of your privacy because whatever you type goes to google...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:10, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

The bug has been fixed, but it will take a while for it to get into the release Chrome versions. In the mean time, Trappist's workaround will work. Rlink2 (talk) 13:55, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I meant to come back here and say that User:Trappist the monk's suggestion did indeed solve the problem. Thanks all. Doug Weller talk 14:43, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

 – Was a title blacklist issue, not a protection bug. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:09, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

For a long time, I have been setting "extended confirmed" create protection on article titles that have had a history of repeated creations and deletions, so that a user with extended-confirmed privilege can move a reviewed-and-approved draft to that title without needing to involve an administrator.

However, something isn't quite right. An extended-confirmed user notified me on my talk page that s/he is unable to move a sandbox draft to the create-protected title Kobi Arad. The user, MerliSter, has the extended-confirmed user right but gets a message that one needs to be an administrator to perform the move.

What is going on? It is reasonable to expect that EC users should be able to create articles on ECP titles. ~Anachronist (talk) 14:42, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Just tried this myself and it seems to be because the title matches an entry ( .*kobi ?arad.* # [[Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Kobi Arad]] on the title blacklist. —GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 14:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That explains it. Thanks. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:58, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

22:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello! After much head scratching, I realized that the sticky table header gadget ("Make headers of tables display...") causes a cell of a wikitable to disappear. Here are screenshots with and without the gadget enabled from the page 2014 Ontario general election. I did attempt bypassing my cache, and I am currently using Chrome, version 96.0.4664.110 (Official Build) (x86_64). Please let me know if you need any more information! HouseBlaster^talk 23:17, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

@HouseBlaster the table was broken. Fixed now. Most of those tables still need a lot of work though. Still stuck in ancient styles. Probably copied over s from earlier election articles. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:40, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

 – Seems to have fixed itself

--Andyross (talk) 17:13, 20 December 2021 (UTC)Not certain where the bug is, but on the Roku page, there are several very wide tables with device info. In both MS Edge and Firefox, there is no horizontal scroll bar. Is this a page issue, or something with the code Wikipedia is generating?--Andyross (talk) 15:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

On Firefox, I get a scroll bar across the bottom of the window allowing me to move the entire article sideways and see the rightmost columns. Should I expect another scroll bar specific to the table itself? Certes (talk) 15:25, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I, too, get a whole-page scrollbar on my Firefox (94.0.2 (64-bit)). Don't know why you're seeing anything different. I will point out, though, that there is only one table on that page (besides, technically, the infobox). — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 15:49, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Odd. Now it's there in both browsers. Maybe some sort of weird glitch at the time from the servers.--Andyross (talk) 17:11, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

It is indeed only one table, but is divided up into ten sections by full-width cells having the purpose of a subheading, each of which (except the first) is followed by a double row of column headers. These column headers are not always consistent from one division to the next, which might constitute an accessibility issue; the first two columns are consistent down the table, but those from the third column onward vary. For instance, at the "Sixth generation" point, an additional "HDR format" column is inserted between the "Video resolutions" and "Audio output" columns, so if you're reading down the table looking at the "Audio output" column, you need to take a jump to the right here. I think that it should be split into ten tables, each of which should use the caption element properly, instead of using a full-width cell as a pseudo-caption. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I am preparing to remove the CSS for navbox out of MediaWiki:Common.css in the near future in lieu of its current TemplateStyles implementation (see MediaWiki talk:Common.css/to do#description for rationale), but it will have one effect that may warrant review. Please take a minute to review or comment at Template talk:Navbox#TemplateStyles followup. Izno (talk) 22:29, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

800km
500miles

  

China-India border missing

For perhaps a week now, the Wikipedia maps using OSM data, via OSM Location map, Maplink etc., have stopped showing the China-India border. This appears to have been done systematically as if it is a policy decision taken by somebody. But I have know idea who or why. Can anybody throw some light on this? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:03, 21 December 2021 (UTC) FYI: DiplomatTesterMan. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:05, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Great Wall, Great Lakes, what's the difference? (I'm assuming these are symptoms of the same problem, tracked in phab T288897). — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 10:29, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I can reproduce on Firefox 95.0.2 (most recent version), Win10. Zoom level does not affect it and clearing my browser cache does not affect it either. I can follow the west and east Nepal border and there is no sign of an India-China border there, at any zoom level. There are regional borders, but that is it.--Snævar (talk) 11:58, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

It is not a "technical" problem, I don't think, because the border was showing fine till about a week ago. What is more worrisome is that an entire state in the east, Arunachal Pradesh, which China disputes, has been removed. On the western side, at least the states are shown, though not the national boundary. This makes me think that it is a deliberate policy decision made by somebody. It can't be an accident or a bug. My question really is, who is making the decisions here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:43, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Is there one? Using Lua under the hood probably. I feel like I've seen such a thing around somewhere. I.e. something like {{RedirectTarget|MainPage}} rendering as Main Page.  — Scott • talk 00:13, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Module:Redirect. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:17, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

That's the one. Ah, it's under Module:, that's why I couldn't find it. Thanks!  — Scott • talk 01:07, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I have found {{Target of}} which invokes the module but has few transclusions. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:47, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi all... just been looking at one of Wikipedia's map functions, and it looks like North America is short two of its Great Lakes... it may just be my browser (Safari 15.1), but have a look at this and see if you also see the problem... Grutness...wha? 15:24, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

There for me, too, with Firefox 94.0.2. I assume it's a rendering issue (if that's the word i want), nothing more serious, as it also shows places called "nd Rapids", "ittsburg", and "nd du Lac" among others. Funny look, though. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 15:59, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Missing for me on Chrome 96.0.4664.93 as well. ah yes, the coveted land border between Michigan and Ontario! Curbon7 (talk) 00:56, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

nothing more serious ^{[verification needed]} -- GreenC 04:37, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Ha ha, You're right; i probably could have gone with a better ~ slightly more alarmed? ~ choice of words there! Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 11:10, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Hey it's OK, things happen!. "The phenomenon is called a ‘dry down’". -- GreenC 15:26, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

The infobox map of Interstate 80 does not display Lake Huron or Lake Ontario, making the Great Lakes region look . . . strange. What is wrong and can it be fixed? Cullen328 (talk) 02:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Cullen328: I moved your post to the existing section. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:28, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

No problem, PrimeHunter. I am frequently six days behind the times. Cullen328 (talk) 04:16, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I want to build a little dashboard showing the length of the various WP:SPI queues over time. Rather than reinvent many many wheels, what I'd like to do is just write a little data shim that throws numbers at some pre-existing dashboard system such as Graphite (software). Does such a thing exist in wiki-land? -- RoySmith (talk) 23:25, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Something via {{Graph:Chart}}? There are some interesting examples and other graphs at Wikipedia:Statistics. DMacks (talk) 23:43, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

WMF used to use Graphite for their statistics, then it moved to Grafana/Prometheus. There is also an unmaintained Grafana extension to display data onwiki. The underlying extension behind Graph:Chart, mw:Extension:Graph, can be used in an interactive way and you can feed it data from the API, so maybe give it a chance.--Snævar (talk) 00:09, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Graph:Chart looks like it might be what I want, although I'm not seeing how you get it to graph data from an API. I had once enquired on the cloud mailing list about this stuff and was pointed to Prometheus, but it looks like it's not really meant for public consumption. You need to log in to a private admin site, sign an NDA, etc. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:10, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Since all the SPI queues have dedicated categories, you could use User:MusikBot/CategoryCounter to automate populating a JSON page with the sizes of the categories over time. That can easily be fed into a chart using {{category chart}}, though currently you can only show one dataset per chart. — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:00, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, cool. This led me on a fun romp exploring mw:Extension:Graph, and Vega, and some obtuse corners of wiki markup. I've added an entry to User:MusikBot/CategoryCounter/config; please feel free to back that out if it breaks anything. I think I've got all the basic pieces here to build what I want without any new wheel inventing. Thanks! -- RoySmith (talk) 14:48, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

@RoySmith Special:Diff/1061256467 :( I do have a bot that's an interface admin, but per WP:ADMINBOT it would need some prior discussion to transfer the task to that account. I was wondering though, is there a reason you're doing this in your userspace, and not the template or project space, like the other examples? Then you could display it at the top of Category:Open SPI cases to satisfy all who are curious (you could transclude a userspace template, too, it's just a bit odd as it implies ownership). — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

The only reason I was doing it in my user sandbox was to not mess up project space with my early experiments. For the moment, I've got some work to do getting my head around Vega, and I can do that with a static data file. Once I've got that sorted, I'll move everything to project/template space and I'll re-enable the MusikBot data feed. Thanks again for your help. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:18, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

A small but massive scale issue that has long confronted us when designing infoboxes is how to handle labels of infobox parameters that are sometimes plural and sometimes singular. There have been several approaches in wide use, each of which has had flaws:

1. Using (s) in the label, which produces displays like the example at right. This produces a non-optimal display for readers.
2. Changing the display based on the parameter. For the example, that would mean displaying "Spouse" if |spouse= is used and "Spouses" if |spouses= is used. However, this is highly vulnerable to error if e.g. someone remarries but editors forget to change the label. Also, it would require extensive bot work to implement en masse for parameters currently using the first approach.
3. Changing the display based on automatic detection using {{Detect singular}}. For the example, this would mean the infobox would display "Spouse", but would switch to "Spouses" if a second spouse was added. However, {{Detect singular}} is not perfect, and this option cannot be used widely without a way to correct the rare errors.

Following several rounds of previous discussion, we've recently introduced a simple method for overriding the rare {{Detect singular}} errors (just use e.g. |spouse=Charles, Prince of Wales{{force singular}}), which makes the third approach a lot more appealing.

Given all this, I'm opening this discussion to affirm general consensus for the third approach. If there's agreement to move forward, the next step will be to have discussions at individual infoboxes before implementation. Local consensus will be allowed to override if there are any concerns, but if not this will be presumed the standard best practice. Thoughts? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:33, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Courtesy pinging prior discussion participants:@BilCat, Jonesey95, RexxS, GhostInTheMachine, Funandtrvl, AlanM1, Hike395, Gonnym, and Shushugah: {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

- Klein Muçi (talk) 00:09, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I like this third approach. For the 90% of editors who aren't deeply familiar with templates, they can move along happily, and for the edge cases, we have transparent {{force singular}} and {{force plural}} overrides. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 23:53, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I've been adopting the 3rd method and in the infoboxes I work with I've yet to encounter a need for the 4th method. Even in a case like Charles, Prince of Wales can be handled automatically by telling the {{Detect singular}} to count the number of links. In this case, there is one link which would mean singular entry. In any case, if the need requires the force templates, that should be a per template discussion and not a global one. Gonnym (talk) 14:15, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

On the other hand, your idea of counting links would screw up cases like William Jefferson Blythe Jr., who has multiple wives listed but only one is a link (FYI, he and the linked wife are Bill Clinton's parents). 93.172.224.115 (talk) 20:33, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Since we're already focused on edge-cases, let's be sure we don't break things further for the range of related edge-cases there might be. What if there are multiple entries that include commas in them? As an actual example, the children of Henry VIII are:

• Henry, Duke of Cornwall
• Mary I, Queen of England
• Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset (ill.)
• Elizabeth I, Queen of England
• Edward VI, King of England

It's a fundamental problem that already has multiple approaches to address when the delimiter between items is an actual valid component of items themselves. Rather than tagging the whole field, it might be simpler to mask the comma character itself so it is the correct character but be parser-recognizeable as a non-delimiter character DMacks (talk) 22:23, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

There's definitely room for some further improvement of {{Detect singular}}. If you or anyone else here would like to work on that, please do! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:46, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

As I thought here, I still think it's un-necessary; "Spouse(s)" looks perfectly fine, and the change is not worth the extra gnoming and maintenance. Should it be implemented, {{Detect singular}} should recognize {{Unbulleted list}} (etc.) being used with only one parm (yes, it could have been added correctly when there were two values and then had a value removed without removing the template :) ). It does currently recognize:

{{Detect singular|{{Ubl|foo|bar}}}}

as not singular, yielding nothing between the arrows:

→←,

but:

{{Detect singular|{{Ubl|foo}}}}

also yields nothing:

→1←.

A shorter form of the template name, like maybe {{Det sing}}, would be good, too. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 19:10, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Is there a template that outputs the timestamp of a user’s most recent edit? I was able to retrieve this information from the API sandbox (see here), but I haven’t found a template that can do so. —GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 18:55, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

This is not possible, I believe for performance reasons. Izno (talk) 23:08, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Hey guys. I need to find a way to disable auto hyphens in the search bar from my custom CSS.

• Scenario: I type a long query, then it is shown in a box underneath with hyphens at the end of the line. I tried to disable that using the code:

.wvui-typeahead-search--show-thumbnail .wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text,
.wvui-typeahead-search--show-thumbnail .wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query
{
-ms-hyphens: none !important;
-webkit-hyphens: none !important;
hyphens: none !important;
}

I also tried writing break-word instead of none, but nothing functioned. Please, help me disable them. They are extremely annoying! --Mahmudmasri (talk) 02:12, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: I haven't seen such hyphens. Do they occur if you log out or view a page in safemode? What is your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? What is your browser? Please give an example query. You mention long querys. I see three dots (an ellipsis) at the end of the "Search for pages containing" box if the query is wider than the search box and is cut off. Is that when you see hyphens? How many? The box is not supposed to show the full query. It's just a way to always choose search results instead of going directly to a page with an exact title match. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:46, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Prime for answering.

• That behavior was from Safari on Vector skin, the newer version of it, not the legacy version. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 09:40, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
• Which means, I could not verify that while logged out, since the new vector look is only available to logged in users.
• Another notice is that the old look only shows a tiny bit of what was written, underneath in a box, so hyphens can't appear anyway.
• I tested Google Chrome and I saw the same extra hyphenation. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 21:40, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: If "Use Legacy Vector" is disabled at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering then the "Search for pages containing" box can be multiple lines and hyphenate words at line wraps. Is that all you mean? Add the below to your CSS.

.wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query {
   hyphens: none !important;
}

PrimeHunter (talk) 22:44, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: All skins may be viewed while logged out, you just need to add a query string to the URL: View Example in the skin:
. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:05, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Prime, it was what I meant, but the code did not help, however, it was already included in the long code I had on my common page.

• The following is the line I saw in the inspector:

   .wvui-typeahead-search--show-thumbnail .wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text, .wvui-typeahead-search--show-thumbnail .wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query
   {
   -webkit-hyphens: auto;
   word-break: break-word;
   word-wrap: break-word;
   }
  

• Upon unchecking the -webkit-hyphens: auto; from the browser, no hyphenation was added. I don't understand, why can't a custom CSS disable that one?

Thanks, Rose, I did not know that it was possible, however, the same hyphenation appeared, logged out. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 00:03, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: The code works for me in Google Chrome and Firefox on Windows 10. You posted broken code here with a split

.wvui-typeahead

search__suggestions__footer__text__query

instead of my

.wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query

so I didn't know you already had a valid version of my code in your common.css. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:38, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the unintentional copy mistake. As I tested right now, it works too from Google Chrome, however, I am using Safari (on Mac). Would there be a solution somehow? Thanks. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 13:21, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• I'm having a hard time reproducing a problem here, tried with a chrome and a firefox browser, logged out, desktop vector. Is this some sort of safari-only bug that should be reported to them? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:32, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Steps to partially reproduce for me:

1. Enable Vector and disable "Use Legacy Vector" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering.
2. Enter a long term with long words in the search box at top of pages, e.g. supercalifragilisticexpialidocious pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism antidisestablishmentarianism honorificabilitudinitatibus.
3. Look for a box right below the search box saying "Search for pages containing", followed by the search term. It's multiple lines when Legacy Vector is disabled. Your browser will probably break some long words into two lines and place a hyphen at the end of the first line. This seems normal.
4. The box has the class wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query. Mahmudmasri is annoyed that the word breaks with a hyphen aren't avoided in Safari on Mac if this is added to your CSS:

   .wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query {
     -webkit-hyphens: none !important;
     -ms-hyphens: none !important;
     hyphens: none !important;
   }
   

All three are sometimes recommended, e.g. at https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css3_pr_hyphens.asp, presumably to cover more circumstances. I only need hyphens: none !important to avoid the word breaks in Firefox and Google Chrome on Windows 10. I don't have a Mac for testing. Safari doesn't support Windows. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:59, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Prime for summarizing the issue. Thanks, Xaosflux for caring. By the way, Safari is also available on iPhone and iPad. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 23:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

— xaosflux ^Talk 00:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC)}}

@PrimeHunter: I was able to get a hyphen to show in that results (see image); however it was a cosmetic display only - actually clicking on it did not insert the hyphen in to the actual search, which worked fine. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

If this is a cosmetic display only concern, what would you want the behavior to be? For example, forcibly expand the box? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:19, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

In conversation elsewhere, it was mentioned that the XML dumps for Wikispecies don't include the Wikidata link (QID) of the corresponding entries there. Is that so? Is it the same for Wikipedia's dumps?

What's the best venue to discuss the feasibility of including them, or to request a change? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:12, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

There's the xmldatadumps-l mailing list or you can make a request in the Dumps-Generation Phabricator project. See also "Getting help" on m:Data dumps. Legoktm (talk) 18:20, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

 – Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:52, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

I noticed a problem for a particular reference/footnote mark (superscript "[3]") in Ecdysozoa (but now only in this recent version since I put a workaround into the article). The problem is that (1) hovering over the mark does not pop up the reference contents as usual, and (2) clicking on the mark does not take you to the entry in the References section. In the linked version, this happens for notes [3] and [4], and a later one, but the problem does not happen on the other reference marks.

The problem looks to be due to a bug in a change to the html anchors used for references when a reference name is given and the name includes the string %20. For instance in the above version, the reference [3] name was "nature%20phylo" and this caused html usages <li id="cite_note-nature%20phylo-3"> and <a href="#cite_note-nature_phylo-3"> and this mismatch probably caused the lack of the popup and failure to scroll. I changed the reference name to "nature_phylo" in the current version, and this avoided this instance of the problem.

There may be dozens to gazillions of such reference names scattered about articles, so this needs attention. I have no idea what piece(s) of software might be involved or how to get fix work going. --R. S. Shaw (talk) 20:40, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

There's maybe just a dozen or so instances (times out). I'd just fix them and if you really think it's necessary, file something in the Cite project on phab:. Izno (talk) 22:03, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Why do you want encoded spaces? If you use normal spaces, the MediaWiki software will transparently perform any encoding that is necessary. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:11, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't care in the least about spaces in reference "names". I had never visited that page before and I just cared about being able to see the references - but they were broken because somelone had used %20 in the "name". This occurs in an unknown number of other arbitrary articles. --R. S. Shaw (talk) 00:38, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Turns out this problem occurs for many other strings besides %20. I've reported it on phab (T298278). --R. S. Shaw (talk) 23:06, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Is it just me, or do others have a problem when they click on history to thank someone, try to click on thanks, and just before I do the screen "resets" so that under my mouse when I click is "undo"? Doug Weller talk 12:05, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: you have a lot of user scripts that are running - so could possibly have a race condition. Do you have the problem if you use safemode such as in this link? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I think that may be the case, it seems steady on my iPad and my PC. I doubt I can find out what's causing it if it's a script. Thanks though. Doug Weller talk 14:44, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Do you mean when you click "Thank" in "Publicly send thanks? Thank Cancel" that shows up after you click "thank" in "(undo | thank)", or when you click "thank" in "(undo | thank)"? Nardog (talk) 14:39, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

The latter. I don't know why at times I get sent to a separate page and sometimes I don't. Doug Weller talk 14:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

You asked that question and received an answer already: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 192#Why does it behave differently at different times?. Nardog (talk) 14:49, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Oops, my bad. Slow senility obviously. Doug Weller talk 16:08, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

This happens to me a lot. I start to make a click, and just as my finger is moving, the page updates and by the time the click gets sent, there's something different at that location on the screen. Sometimes I can even see it happen, but I'm not fast enough to stop my finger from moving on the mouse button. I'm sure there's something interesting there about the relative speeds of the human visual and motor neural pathways. I really wish browsers had some mechanism to not accept mouse clicks on an element until that element has been stable for 100ms or whatever. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:23, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@Nardog: I’ve disabled my scripts for a different purpose and I’ve got 500mb speed. Still happens. Doug Weller talk 07:42, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I've created a new category, but there already exists a smaller, more specific category which doesn't include all environmental sampling techniques. The Entomology Equipment Category is a sub-category of Entomology, but obviously Environmental Sampling Equipment branches beyond the domain of entomology - so, can entomology equipment be a subcategory of both simultaneously? Many thanks EcheveriaJ (talk) 18:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Place a colon in front to link a category. The mentioned categories are Category:Entomology equipment, Category:Entomology, and your creation Category:Environmental Sampling Equipment which has improper capitalization. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:27, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Yes, sorry about that - I forgot I needed to place a colon in front, I speedily reverted it. Is the category capitalised improperly in its title, or are you saying that my quoting it did not match the actual name? Thanks EcheveriaJ (talk) 18:29, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@EcheveriaJ, the category Category:Environmental Sampling Equipment is misnamed as according to WP:CATNAME only the first word should be capital (excepting proper nouns), hence "Environmental sampling equipment". --R. S. Shaw (talk) 23:59, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

@EcheveriaJ That arrangement presumes that all "Entomolgy equipment" is also "Environmental sampling equipment". If there is anything in the "Entomology equipment" category that is not specifically related to sampling then it would be better to create an intersection subcategory "Entomology sampling equipment" that contains only the specifically relevant articles. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:56, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Maybe it's just my computer. But, is anyone else having trouble when the edit or post? Now & then, when I do either, somehow I 'edit conflict' myself. It even happened 'here', making this post. GoodDay (talk) 19:06, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

It's happened to me in the past as well, if I click the Publish changes when the page is loading slowly. ― Qwerfjkltalk 10:08, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: This comes up often. Standard questions that I always ask:

1. Are you double-clicking the "publish" button?
2. Might your pointing device be failing, and sending spurious double-clicks?
3. Are you using the WikEd gadget?

Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:15, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

It's like a mouse issue. GoodDay (talk) 20:19, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

This used to happen to me a lot, it still happens occasionally. Doug Weller talk 19:03, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

On {{OTRS pending}} and {{OTRS received}}, it would be nice if these templates could exclude user .js pages from the category list. Category:Items pending OTRS confirmation of permission as of unknown date, for example, is filled with users' javascript pages. (It's throwing errors in my OTRS date-sorting bot. I can certainly fix the bot to ignore the pages, but the pages really shouldn't be in the category to begin with.)

So we want something like if NAMESPACE <> "User" or PAGE NAME does not end with ".js". (Userspace drafts can legitimately have {{OTRS pending}}, so we don't want to block that from working.) But I don't see a way to do that with the parser functions. Any thoughts? --B (talk) 16:46, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

(ec) To be clearer, the tags should not be used on user pages that end in .js, for example, User:B/somescript.js. The tags are legal on userspace drafts, like User:B/My draft article about something. So if {{NAMESPACE}} is 2 AND the last three characters of {{PAGENAME}} are ".js", then we want to exclude the category listing at the bottom of {{OTRS pending}} and {{OTRS received}}. The problem is that I don't see an "ifnoteq" parser function (which would allow nesting them) and I don't see a way of using an "and" or an "or". Does that make better sense? Thanks, --B (talk) 17:22, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

These are not natively permitted in parser functions and at this time it would probably cause significant breakage to do so. There exist some helper Category:If-then-else templates, {{if both}} for logical and and {{if either}} for logical or. Otherwise, you have to resort to Lua.

For the full question, Template:When pagename is and/or its underlying implementation may be of interest. Izno (talk) 17:44, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##ifexpr has and, or, not, and everything else in mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##expr. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:20, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

A better option would be to exclude pages whose content model is JavaScript. That can be done by wrapping the template in {{#switch:{{#invoke:Page|contentModel}}|javascript=|#default=...}}. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:32, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks - that worked! (I was actually in the middle of saying that my way wouldn't work anyway because the string parsing functions don't seem to be enabled here.) --B (talk) 23:55, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

We have Module:String if you need it. Izno (talk) 00:06, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't wind up needing it. I was trying using [7], which I see is a little bit different. In any event, I have updated and tested the templates. They are now excluding user js pages from the categories. Thanks all. --B (talk) 00:23, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@TheDJ: I refer to your archived contrib from 2008-04-14. In many cases the use of very simple and small svg symbols would be very much appreciated. Many png representations of given svg are bigger than the original.

In 2008 you stated

The client support for SVG is not "ubiquitous" enough yet to make this a default any time soon.

What about the situation now: Has it changed? Could we now realize small inline SVG portions or even direct presentation of wikimedia svg instead of its png representation wherever the svg is smaller? --Vollbracht (talk) 00:46, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

See phab:T5593 for discussion. It's also linked in the old discussion you quote: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 36#Serving SVG images themselves instead of rasterizations. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:56, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

ok! But what does that mean to us? phab:T5593 isn't assigned to anyone. Everything I could see is a wish for change and a lot of users arguing that clients support svg well enough in a time of ubiquitous html5.

What I do not understand is: If I write inline SVG and inspect the site I find this code as text in html p tags. If I clip this code and reinsert it as inner html it is recognized as a bunch of tags and displayed as an image. So what made it show up as text before? --Vollbracht (talk) 04:03, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

It means that because of the scale of Wikimedia, we cannot just serve up SVGs even WITH sufficient browser support. Because an SVG can be 20MB and you don't want that send to your browser for a 200x200px inclusion, and because text can look very different on different client machines if we send raw SVGs. Because WMF doesn't invest in multimedia it is also difficult to solve these problems.

It would require significant engineering (to assess raw size and return pngs if the svg is too complex, and to render text to vectors via an intermediate svg in other cases, plus a few other things). So what is means is status quo until someone throws money at the problem or a volunteer gets really really really bored. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:02, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

There are several solutions to this problem then. One is to stick ones head in the sand. The other is to support at least inline svg at first. This IS limited to an affordable size as no one will accept a wiki page with a source flooded with more than a couple of paths. And it may be limited to usage of our standard text font. We already filter wikimedia svg to be free of links. We already specify css to be sanitized before usage in Wikipedia. Why not specify svg to be sanitized (no "wrong" font, no link out of Wikimedia, no huge size) before accepting it as media suitable for WP client rendering?

If we'd go that way we could accept ONE Wikimedia SVG source file instead of some 100 pngs to generate one new svg containing many portions of the source instead of a complex table structure used in our <hiero> technics and filled with those pngs e.g. --Vollbracht (talk) 00:32, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I am Itcouldbepossible. I had posted a question at the Teahouse and they asked me to post it here instead. The problem is described there. And there is also a screenshot at Wikimedia Commons. Please see the screenshot and give me a solution to the problem. ― Itcouldbepossible^Talk 06:52, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

You seem to have several (13?) questions posted at the Teahouse. It might avoid confusion if you re-post the question here — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 17:13, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Why "Email me when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed" and "Email me also for minor edits of pages and files" are located in the "User profile" tab instead of the "Notifications" tab, where they would fit naturally under "Email options"? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 17:37, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

They were introduced much earlier than the notifications tab was. I agree they would probably be better placed in either the notifications or the watch list tab. You can submit a feature request at phab:. Izno (talk) 17:47, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

The email features on the user profile tab are part of the core software. The notifications tab is part of mw:Extension:Echo. phab:T128351 from 2016 suggests moving notifications to core. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:59, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Is watchlist in the core? It would actually make more sense to move these settings to the "Watchlist" tab, as Izno suggested (I haven't paid attention that "Notifications" don't have watchlist-related settings). — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 18:29, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Watchlist is in core. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:45, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

OK, I've checked Phabricator and found that this issue has been already raised in phab:T98379 >6 years ago! Can this, apparently simpler, solution be implemented now instead of waiting infinitely for the proposed Echo unification? I can try to work on a patch if somebody points out where this stuff is coded... — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 19:40, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mikhail Ryazanov: "we", the editors of the English Wikipedia, can't do anything about this. You can poke someone on the phab ticket, or you can help write a software patch and submit it there. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:25, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

We could write in the preferences tabs that some settings are on the User profile tab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences?uselang=qqx#mw-prefsection-watchlist and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences?uselang=qqx#mw-prefsection-echo only show interface messages intended for headings so it wouldn't be so pretty. Some of the other tabs can add a general message at top but not Watchlist and Notifications. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:45, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

It's not really a simple change. mw:Requests for comment/Redesign user preferences goes into a lot of the differing considerations on how things could be organized and I doubt there's much appetite to fix one little thing when we need to fix everything anyways. Legoktm (talk) 01:14, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't see anything specific in that RfC except merging all notifications, which is apparently not going to be done in any foreseeable future... So if nobody works on the "ideal" solution for years, why not to take at least a small step towards it? And why do you think that it's "not really a simple change"? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 19:13, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

 – Was a commonswiki abusefilter. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:52, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I've just tried to upload a png image that I created by myself (it was an edited screenshot of one graph that I made based on some published figures), but Wikimedoa does not allow me to upload it. I uploaded several images in the past, and I never had problems of that kind. That is my own work made based on the figures published in a peer-reviewed journal. I have no clue why the system does not allow me to upload it. Can anybody explain me why? Paul Siebert (talk) 19:14, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert: I'm assuming you were trying to upload these to Wikimedia Commons, not here on the English Wikipedia - correct? If so, it appears you got hit with their filter, commons:Special:AbuseFilter/154. It seems to be a false positive, and it should have told you to just press upload again to resolve it. If that doesn't work, try using an almost blank description, then fixing it after. Your false positive appears to be the pharse "Getty" in your description. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:31, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, xaosflux. Did I understand it correctly that the system recongized the name of the author (a historian Arch Getty) as a reference to Getty images?

I removed the name, and everything works now. Thank you. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:36, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert: there is a somewhat agressive filter check over on commons that should give only a warning if the description contains a string like "getty" for getting images, or other known image sites that don't necessarily have open licensing. You should be able to edit that description and fix the author name now; classic Scunthorpe problem. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:41, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Understood, thanks. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:08, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Either this is a bug, or I just don't understand how range blocks work. Earlier today, @Star Mississippi placed three related blocks: [8], [9], and [10]. If I look at the contributions for the /64, I get the message:

This user is currently blocked. The latest block log entry is provided below for reference:
(change visibility) 2021-12-23T15:48:12 Star Mississippi talk contribs block blocked 2a02:908:186d:f960:: talk with an expiration time of 3 months (anon. only, account creation blocked) (Per SPI) (unblock | change block) Tag: Twinkle

Why is it showing me the 15:48:12 block (on the individual IP) and not the 16:35:35 one on the /64? -- RoySmith (talk) 22:47, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Likely relevant: T146628, T139656, T188690. DMacks (talk) 23:20, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@RoySmith You said "if I look at the contributions", but you actually linked to the userpage. There's no concept of IP ranges on userpages, so it's just interpreting the /64 as a subpage of User:2A02:908:186D:F960:0:0:0:0, hence why it shows the block for the single IP. If you check Special:Contributions/2A02:908:186D:F960:0:0:0:0/64, you correctly see the latest range block. — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:54, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, that makes total sense, thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 03:01, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Belated thanks @MusikAnimal and RoySmith: for this lesson on range blocks, contributions and SPI. Super helpful. Star Mississippi 00:35, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Having a h2 of == == on a talk page makes it so you can't view the talk page at all on mobile as it interprets an empty section link as wanting to open the empty section header section so you can't actually view the whole talk page. Example: Talk:voiceless glottal fricative.  Nixinova   T   C   23:55, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

You can tap < at the top left to go "back" to the table of contents although you haven't been there before. I would still call it a bug. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:07, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: that isn't working for me, and fails in different ways depending on logged in or logged out status as well. In any case, I've opened phab:T298329. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:20, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

I tested it in Firefox on Windows 10 and Safari on iPhone 8. It worked before but now it varies. I haven't found a system. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:45, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Is there a convenient way to create an archive of user talk discussions by extracting the threads from the page history? I neglected to archive my talk page and now wish I hadn't. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 04:40, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@John Cline: Archiving a talk page gives you a few options. ClaudineChionh (talk – contribs) 05:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, I'll look straight away.--John Cline (talk) 06:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello! For a while now, when I go to my watchlist then click on "Edit your list of watched pages", I get the error message "The maximum request time of 60 seconds was exceeded." Essentially, I cannot reduce my watchlist because I cannot access the list. I am currently watching 22,384 pages. Is there a workaround, or a maximum number of pages supported by watchlists? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:32, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Watchlist timeout time has come down in the past few years, topping out around 15-20k (but just by time).

Can you access Special:EditWatchlist/raw? Izno (talk) 19:15, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@Izno I can! So I just backspace out entries here instead? Thanks for the link. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:16, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Exactly so. Try removing one item and then hitting submit to see if the database will actually transact.

I wish it were more obvious in the watchlist links at the top of Special:Watchlist for the power users who do tend to get stuck with watchlist timeouts. Izno (talk) 19:20, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

You might also try a one-hour watchlist as that has less work to do. Johnuniq (talk) 22:57, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: the problem being reported by Another Believer is not of viewing Special:Watchlist, but of being unable to use Special:EditWatchlist. I had the same problem when I got up to a similar amount of watched pages, and successfully used Special:EditWatchlist/raw to trim it down significantly. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:51, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello all, is there any way to update automatically vaccination statistics from a website? Specially I talk about COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh and URL is http://103.247.238.92/webportal/pages/covid19-vaccination-update.php thanks. —MdsShakil (talk) 15:58, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@MdsShakil: WP:BOTREQ. ― Qwerfjkltalk 16:05, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl is that possible? If possible then i will post a task request at WP:BOTREQ —MdsShakil (talk) 16:19, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@MdsShakil: I don't think some IP address is a "reliable source" to reference, seems like that page is just a summary of the actual source somewhere else? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:06, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux this address was used by Directorate General of Health Services for providing real time information, you can also found at here —MdsShakil (talk) 20:23, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Does this get asked regularly? Apologies if so. But I've heard OTGV that if one can still access one's email account, it's possible for devs to retrieve a lost password from the depths. Is this true, and if so, how does one go about it? Many thanks in advance for any advice  :) ——Serial 19:18, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Serial Number 54129, OTGV presumably means wikt:hear on the grapevine? To answer your question: no. Your password cannot be recovered. Developers who store user passwords in plaintext anywhere on their server are idiots, so it's a safe bet MediaWiki doesn't do that. If it did that would be a serious security issue. (note that recovering a password is not the same as resetting it, but Special:PasswordReset doesn't recover a password) — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 19:32, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: Passwords are stored in a hashed form. There is no means for converting a hashed password back into its cleartext original: when logging in, the password entered by a user is itself put through a hashing function, and the hashed form is compared against the stored hashed password. If the two hashed passwords match, the cleartext passwords are assumed to match as well. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:54, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: what you've probably heard a combination of a couple of things: (1) Users with confirmed email may use that along with Special:PasswordReset to reset their current password, this will make use of that email address to reset a forgotten password. (2) It is possible for those with direct database access to reset a password (they won't actually know what the old password is) - and that in some cases they have done this for people and sent the reset password to their email. There is no official support for the workflow of (2), so it should never be relied upon. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:00, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

As far as I know, they just set a requested email address for the account so the user can use Special:PasswordReset on their own. They want good evidence that the request comes from the user, and they only do it in special cases. I don't know what they require. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:41, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

For future reference, you can refer to Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical § How do I recover a password I have forgotten?. isaacl (talk) 21:10, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Not sure if I have to mark this as {{resolved}} or anything, but I'd just like to offer my gratitude to @Alexis Jazz, Redrose64, Xaosflux, PrimeHunter, and Isaacl: for their replies; very interesting and very useful, cheers! Season's greetings to you all! ——Serial 14:36, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Mone%27_Symone

I can load the page in mobile view but once I click desktop on bottom bar, page loads halfway then hangs. No other wikipedia page, draft, or submitted draft is having same issue.

Tried inspecting wikicode in mobile but didn't see anything obvious

Galaxy S8 Chrome 96.0.4664.104 Android 8.0 Slywriter (talk) 18:18, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Not reproducible in Chrome 96.0.4664.104 Android 8.0 from a different device. Have you tried logging to a different network? Or, clearing cache? TrangaBellam (talk) 18:58, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

loads when I'm signed out. Suspect something with AFC Helper script. Maybe the apostrophe in title. I'll drop a line on AFC help desk (see if another editor can reproduce)if no one can help me here. Slywriter (talk) 20:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Is it possible to make a query that searches only in an article's lead? I think I probably want the negative lookbehind from the WP:REGEX documentation with "==" as the string to look behind, but I can't quite get it to work. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:21, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

If you are using Special:Search, lookaheads/behinds are not supported. Izno (talk) 04:09, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Izno, I'm looking to do an AWB run, so I think that's indirectly using Special:Search. Is there a different way to go about it? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:00, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, if you have 70-90GB free, you could use an en.wikipedia dump and do a AWB database search. You could also do it in multiple searches of dumps that are around 2GB, so 60 searches in total to cover the whole namespace. The dumps are at dumps.wikimedia.org.--Snævar (talk) 00:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm probably stupidly missing something, but I can't find this info elsewhere. https://www.bondinho.com.br/, the official site of the Sugarloaf Mountain Cablecar tourist attraction in Rio de Janeiro, serves 6 wikipedia.org scripts and 15 en.wikipedia.org scripts. Why would it do that? The WMF cookie statement does not mention such use. HLHJ (talk) 21:19, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

You will probably need to ask whoever runs that website. Try [11] RudolfRed (talk) 02:03, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I suspect that this request may not be entirely within the terms of reference for this forum but...

For months now, Citation bot has a perennial problem with conflict between 'general housekeeping' batch runs (on the one hand) and editors using the bot to clean up and verify citations on individual articles (on the other). For the latest frustration, see user talk:Citation bot#And failure is the usual option again. The issue could be resolved if there were separate instances of the bot for batch runs v individuals. Bot operator AManWithNoPlan says that this needs ToolForge access that they do not have. Maybe they are too proud to ask here but I'm not, I just want the problem fixed and if that means a chorus of disapproval, I have broad shoulders. But if the sentiments of the season motivate someone to be kind, I will be most grateful. Thank you in anticipation. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:10, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Likely it needs one of the people listed under "maintainers" at toolforge:admin/tool/citations to deal with it. Anomie⚔ 18:33, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately the maintainer list consists of Davidbarratt (a former WMF staff member with no obvious volunteer account), Kaldari (who is retired), Mattsenate (who hasn't edited since 2015), Maximilianklein (who hasn't edited since November 2020), and Smith609 (who hasn't edited since September 2021), so you are unlikely to get a response here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 05:26, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Kaldari somewhat recently added a new maintainer to a different tool of theirs, so they might be willing to do that here as well if somebody wants to take it up and contacts them. Rummskartoffel 12:36, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

just getting citations-dev up and operational would help. OR Perhaps the PHP configuration can be changed to allow more threads. OR the bot needs more CPU at the VM level. Maybe all three. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

In principle, I approve the idea of expanding the capacity of Citation bot. It's a wonderfully powerful tool, and its huge utility has created high demand. In short, it is a victim of its own success, and since WP:V is core policy, some WMF assistance would be appropriate.

It would be great if batch jobs could run in a separate queue, though I still think that we should distinguish between targeted batch jobs (sets of articles known to concentrate a high level of bot-fixable problems) and speculative trawls (batches of articles where the bot is asked to see if anything needs to be done). A large proportion of the bot's current capacity is wasted on these low-return speculative trawls.

However, some caution is needed: the bottleneck may not actually be in Citation bot. Citation bot's title-filling relies on Zotero servers which are overloaded, and the zoteros frequently fail to return the info needed to fill a bare URL ref which is filled on a later task. So it is possible that extra instances of Citation bot may simply lead to a higher number of pages being processed without a higher number of fixes. This would need testing.

Ideally, Citation bot would have a more sophisticated queueing system like that of InternetArchiveBot, which gives priority to individual page requests. That may be a very big programming job, but it is very desirable.

Whatever else happens, adding new maintainers is clearly long overdue. And technical help with the config is clearly needed.

Above all, please acknowledge the wonderful work dome by @AManWithNoPlan to keep Citation bot running. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I have finally managed to recover my toolforge account. I have no idea why password resets do not work, although I am not sure why my phone of all things had the password on it. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:38, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Citation bot seems to be limited to a certain number of PHP sessions at a time. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:42, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

The Community Wishlist Survey 2022 starts in less than two weeks (Monday 10 January 2022, 18:00 UTC). We, the team organizing the Survey, need your help.

Only you can make the difference

How many people will hear and read about the Survey in their language? How many will decide to participate? Will there be enough of you to vote for a change you would like to see? It all depends on you, volunteers.

Why are we asking?

• We have improved the documentation. It's friendlier and easier to use. This will mean little if it's only in English.
• Thousands of volunteers haven't participated in the Survey yet. We'd like to improve that, too. Three years ago, 1387 people participated. Last year, there were 1773 of them. We hope that in the upcoming edition, there will be even more. You are better than us in contacting Wikimedians outside of wikis. We have prepared some images to share. More to come.

What is the Community Wishlist Survey?

It's an annual survey that allows contributors to the Wikimedia projects to propose and vote for tools and platform improvements. Long years of experience in editing or technical skills are not required.

Thanks, and be safe and successful in 2022! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 03:15, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Why did this edit define the reference every time, it was used? I used the cite button to generate the first reference and copy-pasted the reference to the end of all other lines. Ideally, there should be one <ref name=":0">{{cite ....}}</ref> and then many <ref name=":0" /> TrangaBellam (talk) 18:41, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Can anybody confirm if they are able to edit the reference after the line A. R. Rahman of the Quaid-i-Azam University and Ahmad Hasan Dani did rudimentary field surveys in the late 1960s in the current version of the page, from VE? I am getting a rectangular box captioned <> Refon the right and an Edit button on the left. Clicking the button opens a blank text box; under that, is another (editable) field for name, prefilled with :0 Bizarre. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:49, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

When you copy paste, there is no automatic duplicate detection and deduplication logic. If you want to re-use a reference, choose insert reference -> re-use and then copy and paste THAT (just like with wiki text). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

User:TrangaBellam I checked. I am getting the same blank text field with name :0. Akshaypatill (talk) 04:52, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Seems like you need to delete and re-add the references. The page was alright before your edits. There are multiple errors with the citations. Akshaypatill (talk) 05:15, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Where do I go to request a change to Special:BookSources? I'd like a link added to the results page for the old google books url, which still exists and is so much better than the new display for our purposes. The instructions at Help:Special page#Modifying special pages just leads to a bunch of deleted pages for this particular special, with no indication where the information now resides. SpinningSpark 11:05, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Book sources. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. SpinningSpark 11:28, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I have found a problem with the OneDrive article, and despite my best efforts, cannot find how to correct it. Reference 54 shows up as {{cite web |url=https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/onedrive/9wzdncrfj1p3 |title=Get OneDrive – Microsoft Store |website=Windows Store |publisher=Microsoft However, I cannot find where that reference is set up. The text includes <ref name="winstore">{{cite web|title=OneDrive |url=https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/onedrive/9wzdncrfj1p3 |website=[[Windows Store]] |publisher=[[Microsoft]] |access-date=July 13, 2016}}</ref> which appears to be similar, and in the right area for it being ref 54, but it is not quite the same and seems to be properly formulated. Can anyone offer any help as to how to fix it please? Bob1960evens (talk) 16:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@Bob1960evens it's from {{Template:Latest_stable_software_release/OneDrive}}, included automatically via the software release infobox. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@TheDJ Thanks for the info, and for fixing the problem as well. Bob1960evens (talk) 16:19, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I am trying to come up with some numbers for Wikipedia:Wikipedia_records#Oldest_pages_in_each_namespace, and am running into bizarre issues. Module talk:Infobox military conflict, for example, seems to have an empty move log... but in its history we see: 2009-09-12T07:39:40‎ Kirill Lokshin talk contribs‎ m 60,547 bytes 0‎ (Kirill Lokshin moved Template talk:Infobox Military Conflict to Template talk:Infobox military conflict: Fixing name capitalization to comply with template naming guidelines). Since this is in the history of Module talk:Infobox military conflict, this obviously indicates it used to be at Template talk:Infobox military conflict. Similarly, in the most recent 500, I see 2014-10-07T07:52:46‎ Jackmcbarn talk contribs‎ m 12,545 bytes 0‎ (Jackmcbarn moved page Template talk:Infobox military conflict to Module talk:Infobox military conflict: the module can be used without using the template, but not vice versa). So it was obviously moved -- but there's absolutely nothing in the move log for this either. What the hell is up with that? jp×g 14:18, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@JPxG: the move log is indexed to the page that was moved, not to the new page name. For example, that move is in the log here. Is that what you are looking for? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:37, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

See also phab:T66184 / phab:T152829 - possible candidate for the 2022 meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2022 possibly. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:41, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia:Teahouse § Twinkle Citation Helper

 –  ― Qwerfjkltalk 21:12, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

I use Twinkle, and so there is a citation helper there. I just paste the link, and it automatically generates all the necessary details about the link. There used to be a reuse citation tab, but now nothing happens whenever I click the tab. Is something going wrong from my side? ― Itcouldbepossible^Talk 07:05, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:Twinkle has nothing to do with citations. You seem to be talking about the Wikipedia:RefToolbar instead. After expanding "Cite", I still see a "Named references" option using which you can reuse citations (the ones which have a <ref name="" set) – SD0001 (talk) 11:55, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@SD0001 Mine looks like this. But unlike you, after clicking cite, the reuse citation tab is disabled. How may I show you? ― Itcouldbepossible^Talk 14:15, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@SD0001 Please look at this photo. See, the reuse tab is disabled. Can you tell why? ― Itcouldbepossible^Talk 14:19, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@Itcouldbepossible I see that now. It works for me on VisualEditor, but on the 2017 wikitext editor that you're using. Not clear to me why, I suggest asking this at WP:VPT. – SD0001 (talk) 14:36, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@SD0001 Should I just paste this in WP:VPT or tell them to look here? ― Itcouldbepossible^Talk 15:20, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

This is not part of Twinkle, but the "2017 wikitext editor". Citation re-use appears to have never been enabled there, phab:T164954 is the request to add it. the wub "?!" 21:32, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@The wub Well but once I had seen it, and used it also used it, but now you are saying that it was never enabled. Well maybe. Itcouldbepossible^Talk 04:17, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I am referred to this page from edit notice of Module talk:Mapframe. Please take a look at the bottom map in the infobox of Satna Junction railway station. It is added using default parameter of the maplink. The map is practically useless as it is zoomed out and gives no useful information. I would like to zoom it a few clicks so that the location of the station in the city is visible in the infobox map. I tried but could not do it. Can someone do it for me. Please ping when you reply. Venkat TL (talk) 09:17, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

See Template:Infobox_station#Mapframes. The infobox automatically generates the mapframe with a zoom level of 10. You can set the mapframe-zoom option to change it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@TheDJ Thank you. The maplink was included by adding | mapframe = yes. I was wondering where to put the mapframe-zoom option to set a zoom level of 12. Jts1882 has added it now. So my problem is resolved. Jts1882, TheDJ, please update the documentation to make this clear that these options do not need an infobox module and can be added directly into the infobox. Venkat TL (talk) 13:36, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I feel like I'm missing something obvious:

1. In a new private tab, open https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:1916_Texas_hurricane
2. Wait a little while for all the Javascript to finish loading
3. Click on one of the section headings, e.g. "Todo"

Where's the "reply" form? I see it when logged in, but when logged out, I can only add a new section or edit the lede. The only way to edit any other section is to first click the "read as wiki page" button. And why would someone looking to reply to comment know they have to click on that button? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:22, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Reply links are not (yet) default for editors who are a) not opted in to DiscussionTools which includes b) all editors who are unregistered. Anyway, that is supposed to become the default for all editors sometime (a month or so) on the other side of the calendar rollover I believe, including for unregistered editors. Izno (talk) 20:38, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

If you do want to be notified when IPs do get the reply tool, then follow bug phab:T296645.--Snævar (talk) 00:05, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm not saying that there's merely no way to use mw:DiscussionTools. I'm saying that there's no way at all to reply to a talk page message, unless they guess to click on the unintuitive "read as wiki page" link. As in, someone asks "Good suggestion. Do you have a source?" and they won't be able answer at all except by creating a new section (which might get them yelled at) or editing the lead section (which probably will get them yelled at for "vandalism"). Is that really the expected behavior? For some context, see WP:EFR#Possible strange widespread vandalism of talk pages. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:29, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I tried your test and you are correct. There is no way for an IP editor on mobile to reply to a talk page message. If only the WMF had some money to pay for a developer. Johnuniq (talk) 22:57, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

If you don’t go into “read as wiki” mode, stay in the default viewing mode, click on a section. Then you’ll see a “reply” box at the bottom. But it does no indentation etc and it’s only capable of adding a reply at the very bottom, so it’s quite lousy. I just use read & edit in wikitext and edit the section manually, and avoid all the reply buttons. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:39, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

That’s logged in tho. I missed the “IP” part — this doesn’t work for IPs. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:42, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Guys, there is an deployment freeze going on at WMF due to the holidays. While I do appreciate the enthusiasm, this is a bit much. Changes like this one are generally just a config change. There is an assigned person on the task, ppelberg, so in January, he will request on wikitech:Deployments a window to enable this config change. There is a team that handles deployments and the assigned dev (or the requester) is required to be present. You would not like to be asked to do an mass admin task during the holidays, so do not expect the devs to do a similar thing.--Snævar (talk) 00:41, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

No problem. Speaking at least for myself, I don't expect problems to be fixed in a holiday period. I don't know how long this situation has existed but if it is fixed some kind of testcase to avoid a similar issue in the future would be good. Johnuniq (talk) 01:13, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

If only the WMF had some money to pay for a developer When I access logged out, I had a begging message in the last week or so. Previously I posted somewhere recently that after I donated some years ago, the b******s sent a begging letter to my name/home address provided by the PayEnemy organisation, even though there was no purchase of product, which I want to pursue with the regulator (Information Commissioner's Office). I still haven't found it but should be in the house - I want to see the name/office details.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 01:22, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@Snævar: Thanks for the response. I'm not expecting anything to be fixed tomorrow. The task you linked to above (phab:T296645) mentions enabling DiscussionTools for IP users, but not mobile users. And indeed, even when logged in and with DiscussionTools enabled in my preferences, DiscussionTools is not enabled on the mobile site. I just see the better-than-nothing form that lets me add a comment to the end of the thread. Is there also a plan to enable DT on mobile (either logged-in, logged-out, or both), and where is the task for that? Because otherwise I don't see how enabling DT for IPs will help with this issue. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:40, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

I think it's phab:T282638. Izno (talk) 05:05, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

The RFC by the community to enable the talk page access to anons in phab:T293946 seems to have focused on making the talk page link visible without considering the full talk page experience.

The existing workflow is not yet DiscussionTools.

Making the reply box appear is likely highly straightforward... just open a Phabricator ticket and I am sure that done in the new year. However, the existing talk page feature was never finished. It has no support for AbuseFilter or blocks and never will (our energy is better spent on DiscussionTools).

Please also check in with the discussion on Wikipedia:Edit_filter/Requested#Possible_strange_widespread_vandalism_of_talk_pages before opening up more routes to talk page editing. The lack of a reply may actually be serving a purpose in adding friction to people using it as a commenting board.

Jdlrobson (talk) 16:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Is this keyboard shortcut defined to be something? I'm using Monobook with Firefox with the original wikitext editor, and if I do Alt-Shift-O while I'm editing (accidentally, when I meant to do Alt-Shift-P for preview), it replaces the contents of all the form inputs on the page (the search box, the edit textarea, and the edit summary/new topic subject) with values that I previously entered some time ago (like, weeks or months). It's extremely annoying because I can't use Ctrl-Z to undo and so it means I can lose a whole lot of work. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 09:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

If you are logged out then Alt+Shift+O logs in. If I'm logged in then it doesn't do anything for me with Firefox and Monobook. Does it happen in safemode? Do you have a browser extension which may do it? PrimeHunter (talk) 10:50, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah yes, it turns out to be this "Form History Control" extension which I didn't even remember I had. Alt-Shift-O is "fill fields with most often used entries". I don't even know how it decides what those are. —howcheng {chat} 17:59, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Shortcut keys are listed at Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts, and Alt+⇧ Shift+O is indeed shown as Log in.

Many forms are designed in such a way that every control - whether it be a checkbox, button, text entry or whatever - has an ID that is unique to the page. For instance, the edit box that I am typing in right now is a <textarea>...</textarea> element having the ID wpTextbox1. This extension that you mention would, I assume, maintain a table with three columns - ID, value, and the number of instances that the given value was used for that ID. It would be keyed by id and number of instances so that it is easy to determine which value had been used the most times for any given ID. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Is there any way to see a draftification log (that is pages moved from mainspace to draftspace)? Special:Log/move doesn't account for this separately; the only way I can figure out is to Ctrl+F with the "Not ready for mainspace, incubate in draftspace" string. Curbon7 (talk) 11:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

User:SDZeroBot/Draftify Watch is updated weekly. – SD0001 (talk) 12:27, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi. I am able to edit on my pc, but mobile editing doesn't work. I've tried deleting the cache. I've tried multiple browsers (Kiwi, Chrome, and the Wikipedia app). I get the following message after an edit, before being able to click Publish. My version of Chrome is 96.0.4664.104. I'm on Android 11, SM-A217F Build/RP1a.200720.012.

Edit: I should mention that this has been happening for over two months. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stix1776 (talk • contribs) 04:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stix1776 (talk • contribs) 04:26, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Stix1776: are you using the mobile site, mobile app, or desktop site? Can you give step-by-step directions to reproduce this error? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:32, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I'm so sorry for the slow reply. It's not easy to edit without my phone 😂

Anyhow, if I go to most any page and try to make an edit. For instance, I'll edit the page on Cats

So I'll try to delete the last comma in the header.

After I click on the top-left blue arrow, I'll get the preview page. But the preview doesn't show, and I'm unable to finish the edit.

It happens regardless of whether I use Chrome, Kiwi browser, or the Wikipedia app. I've tried "Desktop Site" function in the browser, but it doesn't change my experience. It works fine on my PC, with the same IP address. Thanks so much for your help.Stix1776 (talk) 10:05, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, I haven't been able to get this to fail yet (test edit worked). — xaosflux ^Talk 14:56, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

• Seems like you are getting phab:T139861. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:57, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

1. Is it possible to get a list of users who were indef blocked on a certain date?
2. Is it possible to see a log of page moves for a given page?

-- GreenC 01:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Special:Log/block can show all blocks on a date, not limited to indef. Special:Log/move can show moves away from a title but not to the title or in the page history between other titles. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:05, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I'll be putting #2 on the wishlist survey this year. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:23, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

If you want to and from a quarry like quarry:query/61120 could work. Note that it gets some false positives from interpreting page names as regex which is probably needed to account for both old and new move logs. --Trialpears (talk) 02:26, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Or use my MoveHistory script! Nardog (talk) 16:02, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

@GreenC: you should be able to get that via the API, try in sandbox (example date: 2021-12-27). — xaosflux ^Talk 02:40, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

To use, click that link (permalink), verify I didn't try to make you do something nefarious, then click make request. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:42, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! -- GreenC 06:32, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Error Our servers are currently under maintenance or experiencing a technical problem. Please try again in a few minutes.

See the error message at the bottom of this page for more information.

If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below.

Request from 139.55.214.38 via cp1075 cp1075, Varnish XID 59530574 Error: 503, Backend fetch failed at Fri, 31 Dec 2021 22:22:04 GMT

My computer has been slow today but this happened a lot in the past few minutes.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:30, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

OWID (Our World in Data) maps. Many OWID maps are used throughout the Covid articles.

OWID has dates at the end of the top text of many maps. The OWID logo is also in that area. When the text is long enough the OWID logo will cover some of the date in the SVG version of the maps. But not the PNG version. I am wondering what is causing this? Is it a Mediawiki software problem? Is OWID not coding their SVG correctly? Or what?

Compare this PNG and SVG map pair:

• File:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.svg
• File:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.png

Note the OWID logo overlapping part of the date in the SVG version. At the OWID source it is not a problem. You can narrow your browser window as much as you want and overlap does not occur at the OWID source. See source for above maps:

• https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-people-vaccinated-covid?tab=map

Another map pair with slightly different date overlap:

• File:World map of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people by country or territory.svg
• File:World map of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people by country or territory.png

OWID source:

• https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccination-doses-per-capita?tab=map

--Timeshifter (talk) 00:06, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

In the header, it looks like it's a font issue. Whatever font is being used (probably DejaVu Serif) is much wider than the one that the svg was laid out for. Looks like it doesn't like the " in the style attribute for some reason so it's not recognizing the expected alias of "Times New Roman" to Liberation Serif. Literal single-quotes would work.

I also see the footer isn't displaying. It seems that the version of rsvg in use doesn't like <a> inside <tspan>. Anomie⚔ 18:48, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

It should be noted that the maps displayed on the file description pages for the two .svg images mentioned above are not themselves SVGs, but are PNG representations. To compare the actual images, it is necessary to click the "Original file" links, i.e.

• Media:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.svg
• Media:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.png
• Media:World map of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people by country or territory.svg
• Media:World map of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people by country or territory.png

Whether the document is HTML, SVG or XML, constructs like ' and " are never valid within the value of an attribute: it may only be used outside of tags. Font names that include spaces must be quoted; and the quote type must not be the same as the one used to enclose the value of the attribute. The quote used as a delimiter must be a literal quote, not an encoded representation. So these declarations are invalid:

• font-family:Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif
• font-family:"Playfair Display", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif

and should be replaced by the following:

• font-family:Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif
• font-family:'Playfair Display', Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif

I don't think that <a>...</a> elements are allowed in any circumstances. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:27, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

There is an formatted list over installed fonts at meta:SVG fonts. That list is a bit outddated though, so fc-list is better. As you can see using non-free fonts is not supported, so you should use other fonts in your SVG.--Snævar (talk) 23:30, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Whether the document is HTML, SVG or XML, constructs like ' and " are never valid within the value of an attribute That is incorrect. Codes like &#x27; and &quot; are entirely valid in attributes in HTML, SVG, and XML. That's a big part of why &quot; exists as a named entity in the first place. This seems like a bug in rsvg to me. I don't think that <a>...</a> elements are allowed in any circumstances. The SVG spec explicitly allows <a> inside <tspan>. Anomie⚔ 00:41, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Anomie, Snævar, Redrose64. So the SVG coding is fine, but Mediawiki is not up to date? And so Mediawiki is not using the fallback fonts?

We can't expect OWID to change their SVG if the problem is not on their end. That leaves Mediawiki? Are there Phabricator tasks about these specific problems?

--Timeshifter (talk) 02:40, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

First off, we don't use rsvg any more, but librsvg, which is different.

The SVG spec does allow <a>...</a> tags, but we don't. If you use the ' and " entities, what you get is the displayable character, and not a valid delimiter - which is what is desired to indicate the positions of the beginning and end of the font name. From the SVG 1.1 spec: Property declarations must follow CSS style rules; and see also the CSS 2.1 spec. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Anomie, Snævar, Redrose64. I left a message via the feedback form linked from this page:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-people-vaccinated-covid?tab=map

Message: Hi. Please see this Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) thread titled "Our World in Data" logo overlapping dates in SVG maps, but not PNG maps":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#%22Our_World_in_Data%22_logo_overlapping_dates_in_SVG_maps,_but_not_PNG_maps

Feel free to comment now. The thread will go to the archives in a few days, or sooner. Search the archives for the thread title then to find it. [End of message].

--Timeshifter (talk) 08:36, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Did you notice that rsvg is a redirect to librsvg? They're the same thing. Are you trying to refer to the fact that development stopped for a few years, then a new developer picked it up?

You claim that "we" don't allow SVGs with <a>. This is clearly false as the SVGs linked in this topic do indeed contain <a> tags and they weren't blocked from upload. On the other hand, MediaWiki currently does not support <a> tags in that it renders SVGs to PNG for display and does not make any attempt to preserve the links. But despite that the text inside the links should still be preserved, as it is in other places in those same SVGs.

You seem to be heavily confused as to what's going on with &quot;. What you link is talking about the value of the attribute, while the &quot; we're discussing is part of the syntax of the attribute. As stated in the intro, SVG is a language for describing two-dimensional graphics in XML [XML10]. How do you represent the value of an attribute containing double-quote characters in XML? See the "Attribute" EBNF in the XML spec, one way is by using the &quot; entity.

HTH. Anomie⚔ 14:46, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

There is a syntactic difference, simply, it's whether the quote marks are literal parts of the font name, or are delimiters. When we have the declaration font-family:'Playfair Display', Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif the single quotes are delimiters for two font names, the font names being Playfair Display and Times New Roman. But when the declaration is written as font-family:"Playfair Display", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif here the single quotes are taken as literal characters being part of the name itself, so the agent will look for fonts named "Playfair Display" and "Times New Roman" where the quotes are no longer delimiters. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:02, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

You still seem completely confused. The thing you posted in your second bit of code doesn't have any quotes in it at all, and what you have there is not even valid CSS. But regardless, you're still confusing the encoded representation in XML with the CSS value. Let me try one more time, by analogy: In a URL like http://example.com/?field=%22foo%22, the value of the field is "foo" even though it appears encoded in the URL as %22foo%22. Similarly, the value of the style attribute might include "Times New Roman" even though when encoded in XML it appears as "Times New Roman". Anomie⚔ 23:38, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Exactly, it is not valid CSS: but that is the code that is in File:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.svg, specifically, the style= attribute of the first <a> tag on line 12. Go to Media:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.svg and use your browser's "View source" feature. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:35, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

but that is the code that is in File:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.svg You continue to confuse the XML syntax encoding the attribute with the CSS encoded by the attribute. It works in HTML too: Example monospace text using &quot; in the font-family. But apparently I am unable to convince you of that, so I'm going to give up now. Anomie⚔ 20:31, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, the SVG parser will translate the character entity to a quote character, so by the time the CSS engine gets to see the property name/property value pair, it sees a quote in the same way as if a literal quote character had been entered as part of the property value. isaacl (talk) 21:20, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I left a request on some map and SVG pages for more help. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:19, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

The overlap is a font substitution issue. If a font with wider metrics is used, the overlap happens. SVG 1.1 does not have a facility to automatically break lines.

A reasonable workaround would be break the line before the date, and to put the date completely on the second line. That gives the heading a lot of extra space to account for wider fonts.

The version of librsvg used by WMF is very old. More recent versions have fixed a number of bugs, but WMF has not updated to the newest verion. There has been substantial drift, and the new version of librsvg would break a lot of files on WMF sites.

One of the librsvg bugs is the improper handling of quotation marks for font-family. See Phab:T64987.

Leaving out the single quotation marks should not be a problem for most fonts. Although single quotes are recommended for font family names with embedded spaces, most CSS parsers do not need them.

XML defines a small set of character entities. Those entities may be used in SVG files. HTML defines a much larger set of character entities (e.g., ×). HTML-specific character entities do not work in SVG.

CDATA blocks do not interpret character entities. Early versions of HTML would embed a CDATA block within the style element to avoid accidental character entities. I'm not sure, but I believe modern versions of HTML treat the content of a style element as a CDATA block. SVG files would also embed CDATA blocks within the style element. See SVG 1.1 Styling § 6.6 which suggests the practice.

In most situations, a CDATA block will not be needed.

In most situations, CSS styling does not need to use character entities.

Glrx (talk) 19:49, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Note the files in question do not use a style element (i.e a <style> tag). They do include a style attribute that is running into the bug linked. Anomie⚔ 20:31, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Comment. Why not just use SVG files directly in Mediawiki? No messy conversions to PNG. SVG is supported very well (with few problems) in all the browsers listed here:

• SVG (basic support) | Can I use.

I looked at some of the huge bug trees on Phabricator concerning SVG. People could code SVG images to solve browser problems, and not Mediawiki problems. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:09, 1 January 2022 (UTC) --Timeshifter (talk) 02:09, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I've been editing a particular page using Chrome on an Acer Chromebook:

List of Canadian appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 1920–1929

The problem is that the edit function has become increasingly sluggish, to the point that it can take a minute or more for the cursor to relocate when I click on a new edit spot; deletions of characters may never happen; new text can take minutes to enter after I hit the keys. Selection of text that needs to be moved (to chronological order) just doesn't work - nothing happens after I hit control-X.

A friend of mine tried to help and said that he didn't have any problems using a Windows browser. At first, he didn't have any problems using Chrome, but he left the tab open for an hour or so, and then found he was having exactly the same problem trying to edit the page on Chrome.

The page is an extremely long table; I don't know if that's part of the problem? I could split it by years if that would help (it covers 10 years of court decisions), if, of course, I could edit it!

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 16:36, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Turn off spell-check or switch to the 'enhanced' spell check. But be mindful of your privacy because whatever you type goes to google...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:52, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

How do I do that, please?Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 17:02, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Three vertical dots in upper right corner; click that. Then choose Settings → Advanced → Languages.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:46, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

That's fixed it! Tjhanks! Can you explain, for a non-techno person, how the spell check caused the problem? Also, by privacy, I assume you mean that the Chromebook saves most of its data to the Google cloud? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 18:48, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't know what it is that causes the basic spell checker to hog so many cpu cycles; its broken (and not for the first time). The enhanced spell checker mode causes your browser to send everything that you type in a browser text box to google where your words are spell checked and the result returned to the browser for display. Google do not say what (if anything) happens to your words after the spell checker is done. Google knows that your browser sent the words so, no doubt, they can combine what you typed with what they know of your browsing habits for <reasons>. What you type here at en.wiki is probably less meaningful to Google than what you might type on a social networking site...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:18, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Fascinating! Thanks again! Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 23:28, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mr Serjeant Buzfuz: tihnk the bug is fixed in the devel repo, the Chromium authors have an "official unofficial" site https://chromium.woolyss.com where you can download the latest development builds. Those should have the bugs fixed. If you want to keep using Chrome but not enable enhanced spell checking, this might be an option. 17:04, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello there.

I have a few operational tasks that I would like to build a bot or two. Where can I start learning how to write a bot on MediaWiki? A Bot Builder 101 of sorts. Thanks.

Ktin (talk) 18:50, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ktin: The main page is Wikipedia:Bots. To operate a bot, you must read and understand Wikipedia:Bot policy, also Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval which shows how you file a request. Often, it's much easier to simply ask for somebody else to perform the task by posting at Wikipedia:Bot requests. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:53, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

The official Help:Creating a bot page is a mess. You would find User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Toolforge bot tutorial lot more useful. There are some programming language-specific resources as well – which one are you planning to use? – SD0001 (talk) 20:03, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Mangrove microbiome is meant to redirect to a section in Mangrove. But instead, at least on my computer, it redirects uselessly to somewhere in the middle of the references section. — Epipelagic (talk) 07:25, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I works fine for me. I note there are two collapsible sections (collapsed by default for me). Perhaps they have something to do with it and the redirect is taking you to the page position where the section would be if the tables were expanded. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:01, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

When using the source editor to add tables to 2020 Chilean national plebiscite, the editor frequently froze for 10-20 seconds. I just switched to Windows 11 from Windows 10 and did not have this issue beforehand. The browser I am using is Google Chrome, version 96.0.4664.110. I am not sure if this is an issue with my connection or with the source editor in general. Thought I'd post here in case it is the latter. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 23:07, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@Presidentman: This is a bug with Chromium based browsers, so it will effect Edge as well. Trappist the monk suggessts that people turn on Enhanced Spell Check to fix the issue, but to be "wary" since "all your keystrokes will go to Google" (his own words). You can also try using a different browser like Firefox, or downloading the updated Chrome/Chromium binaries at https://chromium.woolyss.com which should have the issue fixed. If you want to download the updated Chromium from the site, you want to download the one that is colored orange, since that is the latest version. Rlink2 (talk) 23:10, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

You can also disable spell checking. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:46, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi video experts,

I made this Ogg Theora video file for Tennis racket theorem. When I click on the thumbnail, it plays once. As more than one iteration will demonstrate the principle better, is there a way to specify in Wikitext for it to loop? (I know I can add multiple iterations in the video file but that seems an inelegant hack.)

Thanks,
cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 22:21, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

there is no option for this right now. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:51, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

The article Goat (zodiac) starts like this: The Goat (Chinese: 羊; pinyin: yáng.

So, the character 羊 has four horizontal lines here, but three in other parts of the article and also in the Wiktionary article linked. It took me a while to understand that it is because the character is underlined. Does this even make sense? I don't think the Chinese ever underline characters, and I bet there are instances where this changes the meaning. Should there be an exception in this Wiki code for Chinese characters, or an option to omit the underlining? --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:38, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling By default links are not underlined except when hovered over, unless you have changed the "Underline links" settting in your Preferences, or customised your CSS. I think it would be possible for site CSS to override this and hide underlining for Chinese characters, but not convinced it would be wise. If someone has selected "Underline links: Always" we should probably respect that, especially as they may have accessibility reasons for selecting it. the wub "?!" 15:41, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Ah! That explains it. I did not think that there would be such an option. Thanks! --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:59, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I own a few children's and "easy reader" books in Chinese where all names are underlined. —Kusma (talk) 15:55, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

So, I am twice humbled. Thanks to you too. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:00, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi, are there MW functions that can be used in Lua modules, which serve to differentiate between IPv4 and IPv6, and which detect whether a user with a certain name exists in local? Mw.util.isIP and its variants don’t seem to work in Lua modules. And if there’s any module that’s already been written and that involves these functionalities, I’d appreciate it if you could provide a link. Thanks. 2001:268:90AE:7C2B:40FC:BC23:135B:7882 (talk) 09:51, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Template:IsIPAddress? ― Qwerfjkltalk 10:40, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

For use in a lua module, you'd want to use Module:IPAddress instead of {{IsIPAddress}}, e.g.:

require('Module:IPAddress')._isIp('192.168.0.1')

will return '4' or '6'. You can also use the :getVersion() method from Module:IP, e.g.:

require('Module:IP').IPAddress.new('192.168.0.1'):getVersion()

will return 'IPv4' or 'IPv6', or you can use the :isIPv4() and :isIPv6() methods if you need it to return a boolean. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:57, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there any way, to get a feed of new pages, that are made by autopatrolled users AND are not redirects to another page? Rlink2 (talk) 16:41, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@Rlink2 You could always filter it from EventStreams. I took https://codepen.io/ottomata/pen/LYpPpxj?editors=1010 and quickly hacked together https://codepen.io/zanhecht/pen/poWVwPm?editors=1010. You can select the "page-create" stream, put "enwiki" as the database, set the user group filter to "autopatrolled", and set "Page is redirect" to "yes". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 00:12, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello!

Is there someone with free extra time able to help me set up Module:Rfx for my homewiki (SqWiki)? Normally I'd just deal with the importation myself but in our community we don't use specific sections for votes. We use only 1 section for all votes, so support/oppose/neutral results are all mixed and therefore the module's code would need to be modified accordingly. Unfortunately my skills at Lua are too small to be able to overtake such a task myself. - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:33, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Has anyone encountered this before? See this edit and the discussion here. Those same hidden characters have appeared twice at WP:FA in article names. Are they being generated when the FAC page is created, or are they coming from the actual article title, or is is something else? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:15, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

The character sequence \342\200\216 (octal) or \xE2\x80\x8E (hexadecimal) is the UTF8 left-to-right mark. It means that the following text reads left to right when the previous text is right to left (eg Hebrew or Arabic). It happens when you copy/paste from certain Windows applications. Unfortunately, the FACBot cannot perform this task, because unlike GA there is no indication of the classification of a featured article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:07, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

It also can happen when you copy-paste from certain parts on the Wikimedia interface. A bot could strip those out of links if desired, as MediaWiki already strips U+200e, U+200f, and U+202a–U+202e from titles. Anomie⚔ 13:35, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I hope this is the correct place to address this issue.

When I look at a wikidata item page, all the properties are listed. With a grey background we first have the property name, and to the right of it with a white background the property value. Behind the value the "edit" option is shown.

I work with an increased fontsize of 125% (using CTRL-+) on my screen. Most properties have a value in text format. The increased fomtsize causes some values to be wrapped over 2 or more lines. This os not a problem. However for the image property (P18) there is a problem. An image cannot be wrapped so as a result the "edit" option is moved outside the screenview. The "edit" option getting moved outside the screenview wouldn't be a problem either if a horizontal scrollbar would appear. But the scrollbar doesn't appear and therefore it It seems as if the "edit" option doesn't exist for the image property. This I consider to be a bug, not the most problematic one, but it is a problem imo. If I increase the fontsize even more (in my case to 150%) the "edit" option reappears in the top left corner of the image. When I increase even more (175%) part of the image is moved out of the screenview as well. Only at that time the horizontal scrollbar appears. However I can scroll only far enough to the right to make the full image visible but not even further to the right to see the "edit" option as well. Two additonal increases (250&), when the full image ends up outside the screenview, the "edit" option reappears again. However it's shown in front of the property name (not value). Of course, not likely someone will increase the fontsize to 250%, but I'm probably not the only one with an increase of 125%. At such an increase the "edit" option should either be visible (e.g. below the image) or it should be possible to make it visable using the horizontal scrollbar. --Sb008 (talk) 00:48, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@Sb008: The correct place for this issue is d:WD:Contact the development team. Izno (talk) 04:00, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi all

I've spent the last few days compiling Flora of Malta, I think the article would be much more helpful to the reader if each plant had an image. It seems like most of the linked articles has an image. Does anyone know a way to add an images column to the tables and populate them automatically? I'd really appreciate it if you could do it, its way above my technical ability.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 13:04, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I think you have more pressing issues at that page. Trying to have more than 1000 refs, the references are no longer usable and the page is added to Category:Pages where post-expand include size is exceeded. Fram (talk) 13:20, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

And as an aside, is there a way to disallow the addition of such categories directly, manually, to pages? I just had to remove it from here. Fram (talk) 13:24, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Such a function might not do the article justice. I have done similar exercises (eg Dorman Long) and the headline image for each article is not necessarily the best one to use within a list or table; it may be unsuitable as a thumbnail, or not showing distinctive features, or not the best historical portrayal. --Verbarson ^talk_edits 13:57, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Fram An edit filter to prevent it would be a good idea (I submitted a request at Wikipedia:Edit_filter/Requested#Prevent_manual_addition_of_automatic_mediawiki_categories), but in this case a redirect to that category was added inside a comment by User:Wbm1058, User:SdkbBot ran AWB genfixes which moved it outside the comment, and User:RussBot then changed the redirect to the tracking category. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:58, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks (both for the edit filter request, and for the explanation of what happened here). Fram (talk) 15:01, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Manually added categories can be searched with something like: incategory:"Disambiguation pages" insource:"Category:Disambiguation pages" insource:/\[\[:?Category:Disambiguation pages\]\]/ (currently 185 hits I'm not going to check). PrimeHunter (talk) 15:12, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Then AWB is buggy: it must not alter comments in such a way that commented-out wikicode becomes live wikicode. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep; discussion on the AWB error started here. Best, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:58, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi all

Jts1882 has suggested something super useful, which is a template which calls the Wikidata image for the topic. This is extremely helpful for very large lists of plant species eg Flora of Malta. However it doesn't scale to such large pages, its limited to around 500 images.

{{wikidata|property|raw|page=Abutilon theophrasti|P18|format=\[\[File:%p {{!}} 50px {{!}} left\]\]}}

Which makes this happen

Is there some way to auto replace this wikidata template with the normal image code e.g [[File:Example.jpg|100px]] or whatever.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 10:19, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Whether it's technically possible or not, it's wrong to automate the addition of images to articles, list or otherwise. A significant proportion of images that have been linked from Wikidata items are mis-identified or now have different scientific names, at least in the English Wikipedia which is usually more up to date. Images always need reviewing. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:58, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

{{Wikidata}} works with subst.

{{subst:wikidata|property|raw|page=Abutilon theophrasti|P18|format=\[\[File:%p {{!}} 50px {{!}} left\]\]}}

saves as

[[File:Abutilon theophrasti 2006.10.11 17.01.39-pa110057.jpg {{!}} 50px {{!}} left]]

If a page is affected by template limits then you can do it on a part of the page at a time. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:00, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much PrimeHunter this works perfectly. Peter coxhead I will check them all manually against the images on the Wikipedia article, this will save me hours of copying and pasting. John Cummings (talk) 13:00, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

<languages />

Hello all,

The ceremony of the 2021 Wikimedia Coolest Tool Award will take place virtually on Friday 14 January 2022, 17:00 UTC.

This award is highlighting software tools that have been nominated by contributors to the Wikimedia projects. The ceremony will be a nice moment to show appreciation to our tool developers and maybe discover new tools!

Read more about the livestream and the discussion channels.

Thanks for joining! andre (talk) -08:02, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

In the external links section of the end of an article, there are a number of templates that you can use to automatically use data from wikidata, such as {{Official Website}} or {{Twitch}}. I was wondering why there was no option for this on the {{YouTube}} template. There is a option to link to a channel, but it requires that you provide a channel id. Is this purposeful? Why can't it just default to the wikidata property like the other templates of the same nature? Thanks, ― Levi_OP^Talk 18:16, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Likely because the Youtube template can be used for a variety of link types. YT Video, channel, playlist and user, all with separate Wikidata properties. As such there is a lot to interpret if you want to find the accompanying YouTube link for a page. Generally you'd probably want the channelling, but maybe not always? And which channellink, as many YT'ers have multiple channels.. But if someone were to convert the template to Lua and put some though into how to select the best appropriate YouTube related property, then there is no reason it cannot be done. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:49, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't know much about "converting templates" to lua, but by looking the source for the official website and twitch templates, it looks like you can just invoke {{#property}} with the name of the property and it will just return it's value. Some template editor could probably go in and make the default channel id when there is none provided {{#property:P2397}} (youtube channel id). I don't know if this is a good idea or how it works, but I'd like to be able to have some template that can do this. ― Levi_OP^Talk 15:14, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Why not just use SVG files directly in Mediawiki? No messy conversions to PNG. SVG is supported very well (with few problems) in all the browsers listed here:

• SVG (basic support) | Can I use.

I looked at some of the bug trees on Phabricator concerning SVG. Seems like a lot of those problems would disappear if SVG files were used without conversion to PNG. People could code SVG images to solve browser problems, instead of Mediawiki's conversion to PNG problems.

For context see this archived discussion:

• Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 194#"Our World in Data" logo overlapping dates in SVG maps, but not PNG maps.

--Timeshifter (talk) 12:05, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

1. We need protection from 20MB SVGs
2. Font differences between clients
3. SVG translations
4. Someone has to put in the work to counter 1-3

—TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:06, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

TheDJ. I am not a developer, and so I am just throwing out ideas here. It sounds like to me that solving those 3 problems would be easier than the many SVG conversion to PNG problems I see in the bug trees on SVG issues on Phabricator. Am I wrong?

Maybe there could be a separate SVG permission for specific SVGs that use only certain fonts or font trees, and also met other strict Mediawiki SVG standards.

[[File:Some graphic or map.SVG|strict]]

The "strict" parameter would allow it to be posted without conversion to PNG if the Mediawiki filter determined it had already been approved for this purpose. A whitelist of approved files or something. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:42, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Well.... its a scarcity problem. Enough users to deal with problems, but developers and their time to fix these issues (and get those fixes deployed) is scarce. Like all programming, this is a time, cost, quality tradeoff. So as long as it works 'good enough' the required investment to make a change is pretty high. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:35, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

What's happening with the format of watchlist showing whitespace with miniscule green/black bullets, and why can't I go back further than a few days (29 Dec) when clicking on 30 from drop-down? --Rocknrollmancer (talk) 23:37, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

maybe because you hit 500 changes before you hit 30 days ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:13, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

TheDJ - it appears to be capped at 250 (emphasis as showing on watchlist page): "Below are the last 250 changes in the last 720 hours, as of 4 January 2022, 23:19". Not much use if I have a few days off (presently showing 30 Dec to 4 Jan); 2,290, must need a purge.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 23:30, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

You can change "Maximum number of changes to show in watchlist" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:48, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

ThanQ, PrimeHunter, done. I noticed the 'old' watchlist format is still being used at Commons. Initially I suspected it (this new visual with excessive whitespace on en Wiki watchlist) might be a change to Firefox that I normally use, but Chrome shows the same anomaly.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 17:41, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@Rocknrollmancer, I wonder whether MediaWiki talk:Recentchangestext#Suggested page layout improvements is what you're dealing with. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) - unfortunately I am completely bemused, looking at the content of the link. Comparing 'new' format with 'old' at Commons (or, at least, what I surmise En Wiki looked like before the changes) the most obvious difference is that (diff|hist) has been shifted from the left to a more-central position; ie. they are often out of line (vertically) with each other (dependent on the number of characters in the article title), so I'm constantly shifting the mouse cursor. I don't think I ever screengrabbed watchlist, so I'm uncertain. I feel I should be looking for a restore classic view option.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 21:55, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Rocknrollmancer, if you look in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rc do you see an item (under "Advanced options") that says something like "Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist" or "Group results by page"? If that's got a check mark, try unchecking it and seeing whether you like the results better. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:02, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

(Remember that you have to uncheck it and also save the changes to your preferences.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:03, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep, Whatamidoing (WMF) - that's restored it (I unchecked the box). I've mentioned before that I intended to explore the menus, but still haven't got around to it. Thanks.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

If it stays fixed, you're set. If it seems to make a habit of screwing up your prefs, then you'll want to consider installing the automagically-unbreak-my-prefs code in phab:T202916#4807046. I've been running it for three years because of this bug. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:30, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi all

If I have a list article with a few hundred article links in and say half of them are redlinks, is there a tool which allows you to just list the links that are red? (to create a to do list).

Thanks very much

. John Cummings (talk) 18:10, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Each red link corresponds to a <a class="new"></a> element. You can use javascript to list all elements with "new" class. Ruslik_Zero 20:30, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Also, I think AWB can do this. ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:19, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Ruslik0 and Qwerfjkl, I'm not a very technical person and don't understand either of these options, what would be the easiest way to do this and where are instructions? John Cummings (talk) 00:07, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

John, is this a one-off request, or something you'll need to do repeatedly? Do you already have the list? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:31, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

To implement Ruslik0's solution, you could open up your browser's developer tools, go to the console, and run

console.log(Array.from($('.new')).map(x => "* [[" + x.title.replace(' (page does not exist)', '') + "]]").join("\n"))

This should print out a list of the red link targets formatted as a wikitext list (i.e. if the link is [[link target|link text]], this will output [[link target]]. Vahurzpu (talk) 05:45, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I think the shortcut is ctrl+⇧ Shift+j. ― Qwerfjkltalk 07:12, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much all, this is really helpful, I want to use it for creating list articles from lists of species from external websites e.g species in a country. Then I can use this to make a to do list for myself and others. Thanks again. John Cummings (talk) 21:31, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I occasionally tag pages to be deleted under criterion G8 (dependent on non-existent page), and I think some of this could be automated. For example, talk pages without an associated page could be tagged if they meet one of some criteria (not all should be deleted, because some are misplaced drafts). In addition to having to meet one of these criteria, the page must have only one revision (to avoid page-move vandalism etc.). Right now, I think the criteria could be:

I'm going here before I file a BRFA to ensure that there's consensus for this. What do you think? Tol (talk | contribs) @ 23:43, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Chris G used to run Orphaned talkpage deletion bot; here's it's BRFA. Graham87 06:08, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Graham87: Thanks for letting me know! Tol (talk | contribs) @ 21:33, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Here's the setup.

1. Consider this revision here.
2. Look at the line containing the phrase "were rejected", and take note of the three bullet points.
3. Now pick a random wikilink (e.g. someone's signature, or the link to water which I put at the bottom of the wikitext) on the page and delete it.
4. Go back to the line containing the phrase "were rejected". Are the bullet points gone? (Edited to clarify: by gone I mean not visible. The asterisks of course still remain in the wikitext.)

Can anyone reproduce this? Deleting other things might also result in the bullet points disappearing, e.g. deleting the first template in the revision. Winston (talk) 04:55, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Notsniwiast: I cannot reproduce it with preview in Vector, Firefox 95.0.2, Windows 10. Such things may be caused by mismatched tags. What is your skin, browser and operating system or device? Does it happen if you log out? Please save and link a version where you don't see the bullets. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:32, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

See this diff. The revision on the left doesn't show the bullets but the right one does. I have seen this difference on both Firefox/Chrome, Windows/MacOS, and logged in/out. My skin is Legacy Vector. I believe preview doesn't show the difference I do see the difference in preview. Indeed, preview sometimes (but very rarely) doesn't match the actual edit (this might be due to a beta feature). Winston (talk) 12:29, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Another diff here, based on a linted version from @Jonesey95. I also thought lint errors might have something to do with it, but earlier I tried cleaning them up and it didn't work either. Winston (talk) 12:33, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I think you're trying to track down a GIGO problem. The bullets either appear or do not appear in this line:

**:*::{{yo|Nug}} I'hat[[User:atSiebert|Paul 
Siebert]] ([[User talk:atSiebert|talk]]) 00:at(UTC)

Those lines have nutty asterisk and indenting, followed by a line break in the middle of a wikilink. That's broken; don't expect it to work predictably. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, you may be right. For me the bullets appear or do not appear for the line following that one. Are '\n' characters inside a wikilink ever valid? For example, is

[[Earth|
EARTH]]

allowed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Notsniwiast (talk • contribs) 22:53, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

No, because of the problems that it causes. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:37, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Got it. I've seen people make such wikilinks and always wonder if it's a typo since it usually still works. Winston (talk) 23:55, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

For some reason, {{Infobox mountain}} is giving me an error with {{native_name}} (see Mount Elbrus) even though it's formatted correctly; I'm using Safari 15.2 on Mac OS 12.1. Esszet (talk) 02:12, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Esszet: At a quick glance, it seems to me that {{Infobox mountain}} is not equipped to handle a list in the "native_name" parameter; it seems to want just a simple text value for the "native_name" parameter and a single IETF language tag in the "native_name_lang" parameter. DH85868993 (talk) 02:44, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you follow the helpful links, you get to this discussion. There are currently 1,525 articles in the new Category:Native name template errors. I tried putting {{native name list}} into the infobox at Mount Elbrus, but I got the same error message. Maybe Trappist the monk, who made these changes, will be able to update the category page with clear instructions for fixing these new red error messages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:46, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, and what helpful links are you talking about? Esszet (talk) 03:14, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Esszet: The infobox for Mount Elbrus currently displays the text: "Error: {{native name}}: an IETF language tag as parameter {{{1}}} is required (help)". If you click the word "help" it takes you to {{Native name}}. At the top of the template documentation for {{Native name}}, there is a box which says "For {{native name}} error messages appearing in various infoboxen, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes § native name parameters", which is the discussion Jonesey95 referred to above. DH85868993 (talk) 05:19, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I did click on that, I just missed the message at the topm this is embarrassing. Esszet (talk) 02:20, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I've recently moved Module:Adjacent stations/Kaohsiung Rapid Transit to Module:Adjacent stations/Kaohsiung Metro thinking it might work like regular articles but it end up creating a mess. Is there a way to undo it? I can't seem to move back to the previous Module name. Or alternatively a bot can help by replacing places where "Kaohsiung Rapid Transit" is used to the new name. However, I am also fine with a revert. If this is the wrong place to ask for help on this, I would appreciate it to be pointed to the right resources. Twoggo (talk) 02:07, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@Twoggo: I put some code in Module:Adjacent stations/Kaohsiung Rapid Transit to fix problems. If people want to keep Module:Adjacent stations/Kaohsiung Metro as the new name, articles can be slowly fixed to use that name. Johnuniq (talk) 02:19, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: Thanks for the quick fix! Twoggo (talk) 04:15, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Something I've been thinking a lot about recently is what I'm calling "the VE divide". Most experienced Wikipedians created their accounts before the well-circulated default state RfC. One of the things this RfC did, that I don't think was well-considered (or even considered at all) at the time, was enable the VE by default for new accounts. This created something I'm calling "the experienced Wikipedian VE divide", "VE divide" for short.

Other editors of similar or more experience have found it quite shocking that I always, or almost always, edit with the VE, and find the source editor to be an anachronism that hinders my ability to write articles. This has come up numerous times given a lot of my articles were written solely in the VE. It first came up in relation to the fact my VE-written articles had so many nonmeaningful ref names like :0, :1, so much so that I wrote a script (User:Psiĥedelisto/VisualEditor ref namer.py) to autoreplace these. It came up again at Talk:Osteogenesis imperfecta/GA1, where the reviewer just assumed I'd know how to do some complex source editor thing, but actually had to figure it out.

I'd like to write a project-space essay about the VE divide, but hesitate. It didn't matter to the RfC voters, should we care? And if it matters to the project now, does the VE divide rise to the level? Thanks for your time and any comments you leave. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 13:16, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

If you care, feel free to write an essay. You don't need to ask permission. Regards,— JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 14:11, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@JohnFromPinckney: Certainly, but the project space also shouldn't have essays no one else thinks are worthwhile, and I wouldn't want to write an essay only I'd want to read (I have plenty of such ideas but to everyone's benefit avoid them). Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 16:16, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

You can always draft it up as a subpage of User:Psiĥedelisto, publicise it in places like WT:VE and WP:VPR, encouraging people to comment or edit. Then when you have a few people in support, move it to WP: space; it can always be moved back if there is too much opposition. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:12, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes we should care, but unfortunately ppl get very stuck in their ways and things like mobile and VE get ignored by those who don't want to deal with changes. It's a difficult problem to address as it is a human problem. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:24, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

It really doesn't help that VE, upon initial release, was considered not fit for purpose. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 14:36, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

It's been almost 8 years. People have had kids that are now in middle school, or they themselves finished their entire medical school education, wars have started and ended. Several countries devolved back into full autocracies, the USA had 2 presidents, one of which called for and almost caused the USA to become a dictatorship itself. Things change. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:57, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@TheDJ: Sounds like a good alternate title: The VisualEditor is now in elementary school, joining many of its users. On second thought, let's forget it. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 16:16, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I, for one, would love to read such an essay. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 15:30, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: That's all the confirmation I need that writing one would be worthwhile! Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 16:16, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd also be really interested in an essay about this, and as a matter of fact I think I'm gonna go VE-only for a bit just to make sure I'm familiar with what newer editors are seeing. I'd seen the use of :0 and :1 as ref names before and just got slightly annoyed, wondering why the editors couldn't bother to be slightly more descriptive. Now I'm wondering what else I've jumped to assumptions about... Alyo (chat·edits) 21:17, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, Visual Editor was in fact enabled by default for newly created accounts on the English Wikipedia, as seen in phab:T90664, however it did not roll out as intended phab:T132806.

The :01 format in references is used where the user uses an existing citation, which has not been named. Since VisualEditor handles the code itself, they wanted to use an universially unique name so it would not conflict with anything.--Snævar (talk) 00:16, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Snævar: True, but perhaps not the full story; for example, as Alyo notes, in the VE, there is no way to name a reference, even a VE-managed, VE-created reference. The only way to name a reference is to change to the source mode and do it manually; once a reference has a source mode name, then the reference will preserve its name even in the VE, no matter how much it is copied, etc. By the way—this is why VE editors like me tend to use {{rp}} and not the more common style among those who learned to edit earlier of putting page numbers and using {{harv}} for example, because it's such a nuisance to deal with VE cites, we tend to like to cite the source once, and use either {{rp}} or a group=note second cite to expand on anything that can't go into {{rp}}. If you want a concrete example of what a VE-created article (to the extent you consider me an "experienced" VE editor, heh) looks like, either 2channel or osteogenesis imperfecta are a good example; I wrote both basically entirely in the VE, only using source mode to fix bugs the VE introduced. Heavy use of {{rp}}, using group=note instead of {{sfn}} as it confuses the VE. I've gained an intuitive understanding of when something I'm doing has a high chance of causing one of the many VE bugs I'm familiar with, so usually know to immediately go to source mode and fix it. Despite its many flaws though, I can't imagine how people edit the old way, all of the pressing Show preview, manual typing of cites, having to find my place in the textbox again when the preview loads—this stuff just kills my productivity and is why I've stuck with the VE so long, choosing to work around its bugs rather than abandon it. (And in the process, created User:Psiĥedelisto/Userboxes/VisualEditor, complete with a bug apology, as the first thing you see on my user page—because I know I sometimes miss a bug the VE introduced into a big edit of mine.) Thank you both for the idea of content that's needed in this essay, I'll mention all of this, especially the reality of cite naming in the VE. Honestly, it took me almost a year of editing to even know that cites have names. I thought they were just numbered. Sorry about that. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 05:29, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

WikEd's preview function is great because it doesn't reload the page. ― Qwerfjkltalk 11:39, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

You don't need wikEd for that. SourceEditor with the Live preview + syntaxhighlight options enabled does the same. And wikEd is broken in significant ways due to lack of maintenance. The only real reason to use wikEd is for some of it's text formatting cleanup routines. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:59, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@TheDJ: By "Live preview", are you referring to the "Show previews without reloading the page" option, or to the Real Time Preview for Wikitext project (which, as far as I'm aware, hasn't been made publicly available yet)? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 00:30, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

The first. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:56, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto, the reviewer for your GA nomination started editing two months after you. I suspect that he just happened to run across something that most editors haven't. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I converted the script into a pywikibot script (badly) - User:Qwerfjkl/VEref.py ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:18, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Psiĥedelisto, I'd also love to see such an essay. I sometimes notice editors at the Helpdesk and other fora (less frequently at Teahouse) steering users toward the desktop web site and classic editor. Occasionally I will check a new user's contributions before answering their question, to see if they use source/VE mobile/desktop so that I can tailor my response, but that adds extra effort. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 13:04, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Does anybody know what happened to Microsoft Academic? It was working a few days ago. And what kind of data can be shown in "authority control" section? I'm wondering why Microsoft Academic ID and ORCID are shown but not the Scopus and Google Scholar. Ali Pirhayati (talk) 12:29, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Microsoft Academic says it closed December 31, 2021.[12] PrimeHunter (talk) 12:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@GreenC: anything you can do here with archiving bots? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:04, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Headbomb, Done. -- GreenC 03:47, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@GreenC: was more thinking about the bot being able to find archived versions of these links, rather than marking them as dead. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:59, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Headbomb: It edited 74 pages (not all related to this domain). Added 39 archive URLs (Example). 25 {{dead link}} when no archive is available. For whatever reason the domain had a high proportion of unavailable archive links. - GreenC 01:01, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Ali, Microsoft Academic ID is also being discussed at Wikidata [13]. As for the other IDs, I think there was a change in the past year to make {{Authority control}} only show a small subset of identifiers? ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 13:17, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

On Dry Combat Submersible, there is a category named Category that I cannot figure out how to remove. I tried adding it and removing it, which did not work (I was not expecting it to work but it was worth a shot). It does not appear in the visual or source editor. Can someone else figure out what's going on, because I have no experience with categories? Skarmory (talk • contribs) 14:45, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

The category was being added by the {{Update after}} template. I have removed that part. DanCherek (talk) 14:48, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I have a question about coding. Is there any way to check if a wiki page exists in user scripts, using mediawiki api? I searched a lot but couldn't figure out how. Any help would be appreciated. --Dragoniez (talk) 11:48, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

The Title object has an exists() method — see Core modules #Title and The API doc — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 12:22, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@GhostInTheMachine: That seems like it, but I'm not sure why this doesn't work the way I want it to. The code adds a "test" button in the "More" list on the top of the page, and when you click it, it shows an inputbox into which you'll want to type in a wikipage name. So I need "true" back when I type in "Wikipedia:Notability" and "false" when I type in "Wikipedia:Bruhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" (when you run the code on enwiki), but it just returns null no matter what I type in. Do you have any ideas? --Dragoniez (talk) 13:57, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Try giving the function a Title object? — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 14:03, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@GhostInTheMachine: Thanks again for your reply. I'm quite new to coding and sorry still couldn't make it work. Does that mean I should give something like {Title: txt} to the exists() function as an argument? When I did so the console gave an error saying "give the function a string". --Dragoniez (talk) 15:27, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, not near a real computer at the moment, so I can't check this myself until later. I assume that the function can take a Title object, so first step is to construct a new Title object from the name of the page as a string and then give that to the exists() function. The info implied that the exists function could also accept a page title as text, but not sure if that needs a specific format ... — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 16:24, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

It's ok, I really appreciate your help! --Dragoniez (talk) 17:46, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Embarrassingly little help as it turns out. Sorry about that. Mind you, the documentation for the two exists() methods is quite specific Whether this title exists on the wiki. ..., but wrong somewhat misleading. I assume (from the existence of the exist() function) that the functions exist to cache the result of real "does it exist?" enquiries. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 13:00, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@GhostInTheMachine: No worries, it's totally fine. And I agree, the description of the function is misleading. --Dragoniez (talk) 19:04, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Just use action=query API with the pages in titles, and the corresponding query.pages[n] objects of the response will have missing if missing (and also known if it's a file on Commons or a user page on Meta that exists). mw.Title.exist is a synchronous interface you have to implement yourself (and obviously each tab in your browser doesn't know the names of all 60,524,821 pages that exist), and I don't know why it's there (I can't find any use cases in MW core/extensions). Nardog (talk) 18:11, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I see. I looked at the source code of mw.Title and noticed that Title.exist has the property of pages {} (an empty object). I'm guessing this means we need to define the content of the object manually when we use mw.Title.exist. Is my understanding correct? --Dragoniez (talk) 04:14, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

You don't even need to use mw.Title.exist (nobody does and I don't think you should). Just handle the response yourself, as in:

mw.loader.using('mediawiki.api', function () {
	var pages = prompt('Enter page names (separated by "|"):');
	if (!pages) return;
	new mw.Api().get({
		action: 'query',
		titles: pages, // This can be an array
		formatversion: 2
	}).done(function (response) {
		var msg = response.query.pages.map(function (page) {
			if (page.missing) {
				if (page.known) {
					return '"' + page.title + '" doesn\'t exist locally but is a blue link.';
				}
				return '"' + page.title + '" doesn\'t exist.';
			}
			return '"' + page.title + '" exists.';
		}).join('\n');
		alert(msg);
	});
});

Nardog (talk) 10:57, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Nardog: Thanks a lot for your help! I gave it a try in my local environment and something like the following worked just fine:

$(function(){

    $(".btn").click(function(){                             

        const apiEndpoint = "https://ja.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&format=json&origin=*&titles=";
        const pagename = prompt("Type in a page name.");
        const url = apiEndpoint + pagename;
        $.getJSON(url, function(result){
            for (var key in result.query.pages) {
                var missing = result.query.pages[key].missing;
            }
            if (missing === undefined) {
                console.log("The page exists.");
            } else if (missing === "") {
                console.log("The page doesn't exist.");
            }            
        });        
    });
});

--Dragoniez (talk) 13:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

FWIW I highly recommend you use mw.Api() (or at best $.get('/w/api.php', {...}), which mw.Api() is essentially a wrapper for). Your example won't work if the input contains e.g. an ampersand. formatversion=2 makes sure boolean-esque properties are returned as booleans rather than empty strings (which are a relic from the XML days) btw. Nardog (talk) 15:54, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Nardog: Got it. I tested it in a local html file, so I'll use mw.Api() when I write scripts on wiki :) --Dragoniez (talk) 18:36, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello all. I can't figure out a template issue. I am using {{Infobox theologian}} on this page, but when I add the parameter "| website = ", nothing appears. Though {{Infobox theologian}} doesn't show the website parameter in the documentation, it does appear in the source code. What could be the problem here? Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 03:55, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

The template does not actually use it; although it does appear in the source code, it's only there as part of the basic skeleton of things it could use when it calls Infobox person. Compare it with things like | birth_name = {{{birth_name|}}} or | notable_works = {{{notable_works|{{{notableworks|}}}}}} higher up in the template's code. Somebody would need to implement a website parameter, and for that, somebody would need to be sure there's consensus to add it. Leading to the question: Do a lot of theologians even have websites? — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 04:32, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

hastemplate:"Infobox theologian" incategory:"Living people" gives 67 hits so I guess there is some potential. hastemplate:"Infobox theologian" incategory:"Living people" hastemplate:"Official website" only gives four hits but many articles don't use {{Official website}}, e.g. the posted example Mary Healy (theologian). The implementation would only need website = {{{website|}}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:22, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Some time in the last 2 weeks, probably after Dec 31, I am now seeing a syntax highlighter active on all my enWiki editing pages. Is this a WMF change? If so, could someone point me to a discussion on the change?

I previously edited with plaintext / no highlighting, and prefer the plaintext style. I don't recall changing any preferences or settings related to syntax highlighting. I use Vector with the 'legacy vector' option checked. I tested with monobook as an alternative, and am still seeing syntax highlighting with monobook. I don't see much discussion of CodeMirror on enWiki, but did find https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CodeMirror, which says 'By default it is switched off.' I have not yet found a way to switch it off, or all syntax highlighting off, and would appreciate advice. The highlighter also seems to introduce some additional lag to edit page loads. Dialectric (talk) 01:49, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Did you unintentionally click the pencil icon (next to the advanced menu)?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 02:09, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) And that's to be exact. It's a highlighter, not a pencil, but you're not the only one. Nardog (talk) 02:13, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I did unintentionally click the 'highlighter' icon (and I subsequently intentionally clicked the pencil - not highlighter - icon that switches between visual and source editor a few times because I thought that might turn highlighting off). Now I'm going to edit my custom css to just hide the highlighter 'group-codemirror' class so I don't run into this problem in the future.Dialectric (talk) 04:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Can I get the wiki timezone using JS from something like mw:mw.config? (can't find it there) For example UTC for enwiki, CET for dewiki, etc. Not the browser timezone, don't care about that. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:51, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

meta=siteinfo&siprop=general? I don't know if there's a synchronous way. Nardog (talk) 21:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't know about JavaScript, but the timezones are in InitialiseSettings.php found from this page (they're under wgLocaltimezone). Graham87 07:02, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Graham87, Nardog, thanks. I made a feature request (phab:T298884) but if that gets declined/ignored I'll go the siteinfo way. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:34, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello! So in this dif, the archival bot archived a post from December of last year, however it ignored all posts before and after that. So uh... why did it ignore the older posts? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:02, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

It ignored the older post because that thread is pinned. I can't explain why it seems to have ignored the |minthreadsleft=2 setting and left behind two or three threads that seem to meet the 30d criteria. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:22, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

The remaining threads have been replied to within the last 30 days so they're not old enough to be archived yet. DanCherek (talk) 14:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

That would explain why they were ignored. I didn't see the previous post was pinned in the dif viewer so I thought the bot had somehow ignored that thread. My bad lol ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:27, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

DanCherek is right. I have been editing for too long today and failed to recognize that December 2021 was only two weeks ago. The bot did it right. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:26, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

It took me a while to figure out how to reproduce this, but:

• Go to Special:Permalink/1064841853
• Scroll down to the SPI Zero thread at the end
• Click the screenshot
• Click again with the magnifying glass cursor. That should get you to https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/69/SPI_Zero%2C_2022-01-10.png
• Click the browser "back" button.
• Click the "back" button again.

You should now have a huge "archive all the selected threads" banner on the bottom. What is causing that, and why does it take this bizarre sequence of events to get it to appear? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:45, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Didn't appear to work for me. From the screenshot I would guess that you are on Mac OS? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I also tried with my alt to see if my preferences might be affecting it but nope, same result. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:35, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

It's from User:Σ/Testing facility/Archiver.js. You import it in User:RoySmith/common.js. I don't know the script. Maybe it only loads properly for you in some circumstances. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:07, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Interesting. I guess it's time for me to make another sweep through my common.js cleaning out old junk I've installed and long since forgotten about. Thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:22, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I know how you feel. ― Qwerfjkltalk 18:15, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

01:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

See User talk:Bellezzasolo/Scripts/arb - when using the script to give a covid alert, it leaves the whole GS table but no alert. I don't know if anyone can fix it or write a new one, but I find it extremely useful. Doug Weller talk 08:52, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

If someone has a minor fix for User:Bellezzasolo/Scripts/arb.js - feel free to open an edit request on the associated talk page, an intadmin will likely process it. If a larger rework is needed this should probably be forked to either a community page or to the userspace of whomever is going to take over ongoing support. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm still around, just not very active at the moment! Iirc the script looks up the active GS sanctions from a table somewhere, so if COVID isn't in that table then it might be a problem. Alternatively format changes or anything really might have broken it...

It populates from User:Bellezzasolo/Scripts/arb/gstopics, which has COVID there. Tracing it through leads to Module:Sanctions/data, which doesn't have COVID. I'll see if I can fix that. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 19:38, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

COVID got switched from GS to DS. That may be what needs to be fixed. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:47, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I think Bellezzasolo fixed it. It's working for me now here. ––FormalDude talk 03:09, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

And for me. Doug Weller talk 08:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I've noticed here and there that I've been getting false warnings, when editing a page, that a draft article exists for that page. In each case, there was a draft page, at one time, that has since been published. The thing is when a draft is published, it is moved from the Draft: namespace into mainspace, leaving a redirect behind. In some templates, the test for a draft article is done with #ifexist, which only determines if a page exists, not an article. Redirects are returned as true, just as articles are, resulting in a false conclusion that an article exists. The test needs to determine if a page exists and that page is not a redirect. Template:ExistNotRedirect appears to be an example of just such a test.

For a current example of this behavior, try editing Oregon Trail Memorial Association, a redirect left as the result of a merge. I was trying to add a redirect description ({{R from merge}} is appropriate here.) Hitting "Edit source", I get a pink banner with the message "There is a draft for this article at Draft:Oregon Trail Memorial Association." That "draft" is, in fact, a redirect resulting from the page move of the draft to mainspace as described. Given that this problem is part of the edit function, deep inside the Wikipedia engine, I'll have to defer to experts to chase this problem down further. I hope this is clear enough to convey what appears to be wrong and why and hint at a possible solution. PoundTales (talk) 06:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

It looks like this comes from Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main. It looks like this functionality was discussed in the 1 October 2021 edit request, but not implemented because there was a bug in there somewhere. Pinging SD0001 and MSGJ who worked on that edit request. --rchard2scout (talk) 09:18, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Not usefuI in this case, but nevertheless the note is intentional. The draft exists, and usually draft redirects point to somewhere relevant. The way to "fix" this would be to check if the current page and draft page redirect to the same article, which doesn't really seem worth doing. – SD0001 (talk) 10:43, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

That warning is mostly of use to new editors, so they don't try to create an article from scratch when there is draft material to work from already - if you purposefully bypass the redirect this still could be useful as well, possibly the check would be to not show this if the draft is also a redirect, but depending on why the draft is also a redirect it could still be useful - and the template would have a hard time determining why it is a redirect. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:36, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I think it would be simpler to suppress that link when the draft is a redirect. Even if the redirect points somewhere useful, the message is incorrect as it is stating there is a draft article where there isn't anything. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@MSGJ: not sure, If I created Draft:Commonly Misspelled Word - then it got moved to Draft:Properly Spelled Word, creating a redirect - I'd say that there would be use in notifying creators of Commonly Misspelled Word that there is something else going on would be useful. Perhaps it would be even more useful if that message would tell such creators that a "redirect exists" though. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:28, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay, yes I agree that would be good. But I think a non-existent message is preferable to an incorrect message. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:02, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I added "or redirect" in to Template:Draft at - so it won't be incorrect now, still room for possible improvements. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:04, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this. The most important thing I was missing was the pointer to Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main. I had a sneaky feeling there may be a hook to a template somewhere in the code, but I couldn't tell where. There still seems to be some misunderstanding about how the Draft: space works versus other namespaces. In other namespaces, the usual page move is from one name to another within the namespace. In Draft: space, the normal move is from Draft: space to mainspace, not within the Draft: space. Think of a redirect in Draft: space as a Draft article's gravestone.

At any rate, while trying to troubleshoot this particular situation, I've run across some more odd behavior. Please try this: click on this redlink: FAO Money and Medals Program You'll get a create page with a perfectly valid warning. Now hit "Show preview". The warning disappears. I think I know why it does not appear in the preview, but why did it appear the first time?? What is different about the first display of a create page that does not happen with subsequent displays?? The reason the notice disappears is a mistaken "fix" in the 8 November 2021‎ edit of Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main. It appears they were trying to fix a double display of the banner and removed the wrong display. They removed the display generated by the template. What remains is the display coming from somewhere else. So the question, at this point, is where is that somewhere else?? Once the somewhere else is located, and that display removed, the banner should stop displaying completely. Then, when the edit of 8 November 2021 on the template is reverted, the banner should start appearing again ... this time, only once. Once that issue is resolved, I can finalize a proposed fix to the template (my original problem), which I'll post to the template talk page. But first, I need to know where the phantom display is coming from. Thanks for all your help. PoundTales (talk) 16:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@PoundTales: It comes from Template:New page DYM which is transcluded by Template:No article text (which is in turn transcluded by the system messsage MediaWiki:Noarticletext). – SD0001 (talk) 05:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@SD0001: Thank you so much for locating this stray hook. I do find it interesting that both MediaWiki:Noarticletext and Template:No article text display false warnings that "Wikipedia does not have a template with this exact name." even though you can "View source" and "View history", showing that pages clearly do exist for both of them. That's an issue I'll have to leave for someone else to chase, I've already drifted far enough from my original purpose. Given there is no talk page (or talk page redirect) on Template:New page DYM, I'll take further discussion to Template talk:Editnotices/Namespace/Main, the first hook identified. Thanks again for the detective work! PoundTales (talk) 08:31, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there a way for the Page creation log to include a namespaces option similar to Contributions to sort out pages accordingly? 1989 (talk) 01:39, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@1989, would Special:NewPages work for your purposes? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:45, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no. It is limited to 30 days, similar to the New pages feed. 1989 (talk) 02:47, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@AKlapper (WMF), I couldn't find a relevant Phab task for this, but surely someone's asked for this years ago. (Volunteer-me wants this for Special:LinkSearch, too.) Would you mind looking for me, and let me know if I need to write one? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Hi! :) Not totally sure which "Page creation log" this is about (links are always welcome to avoid ambiguity). If this is about Special:Log, then this would be phab:T16711. Cheers, --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 08:58, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

How do I get rid of the "Congratulations! You are now eligible for the Wikipedia Library" notification? I've looked at it & I'm not interested. But now, I'm stuck with a 'grey' notification square. GoodDay (talk) 19:48, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Click the blue "Mark as read" circle at the top right of the notification. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:54, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah unfortunately the mechanism by which notifications mark as read when clicked assumes you're going to land on another Wikimedia project, not an external site. We have a solution in mind (T295871) but it requires TWL being added to the interwiki map, which we're waiting on. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Clicking the blue circle worked for me in Vector, Firefox, Windows 10. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:22, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I got rid of both of mine today by clicking on them as usual. But why two, and why today when I've been using it for ages? DuncanHill (talk) 23:36, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@DuncanHill: Per T288070, this is something we've only just worked on - it's technically difficult to not send it to users who were already using the library, so this is just going out to everyone who meets the eligibility threshold. I'm curious about you receiving two notifications, because that shouldn't be happening. Did you see them on different projects, or the same project? If you go to Special:Notifications do you still see two separate notifications, or just one? Thanks, Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:46, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Samwalton9 (WMF): Both in my notices (at the top of any page) here on en-Wiki. Both still visible there and at Special:Notifications. The "markasread" links are 237041809 and 237041811. DuncanHill (talk) 15:37, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @PrimeHunter:, that did the trick. GoodDay (talk) 02:47, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I was under the impression that with dynamic IP addresses under IPv6, the first eight bytes were constant and the last eight would vary. Now take a look at these four edits - at first I thought that they were all the same IP because the last four bytes are clearly the same. I guess that :: is short for :0:0:. But the IPs differ although they're clearly the same person making them, one edit per IP address, all within the same minute; and the byte that varies is in the upper half of the address. How does dynamic IPv6 work again? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:03, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

The same as dynamic IPv4, it's just that (indeed) the WP:/64 address (the top 8 bytes) is the most common variance point for a single user. Some networks however, do other things, for which you can :|. Izno (talk) 22:28, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Izno: can you give me an example of using :|? Is there any way of knowing when to use it? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 08:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Doug Weller That is a flat face, not anything technical. :D Izno (talk) 08:50, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

The bottom 32 bits spell faceb00c (i.e. facebook). That's got to be spoofed. -- RoySmith (talk) 05:10, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Heh, check this out: https://www.facebook.com/groups/205279572820598/ -- RoySmith (talk) 05:12, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Those IPs all belong to Facebook/Meta, it's a pretty nice trick. Legoktm (talk) 00:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

So, does this means that it's some sort of proxy, like Tor? Should we disallow such IPs from editing? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:51, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

These are often related to Internet.org, and they've been discussed in the ANI archives. This /32 also has a block log. I'd say no to your questions, it's a bit like asking if a cheap or free ISP is a proxy. But I'm of the school which says blocks should be proportionate to any disruption. Is this /32 currently disruptive or full of socks? I don't know I haven't really looked. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Could someone with the technical expertise please restore the glossary of engineering back to its un-split version per discussion on talk page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:387:0:80D:0:0:0:5E (talk) 12:33, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I would oppose that per WP:SIZE. Even at 270k per page as it is now it is too large. Izno (talk) 18:52, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Why is there no link to Larry Sanger's user page in the first entry of User-friendly? Kleinpecan (talk) 19:42, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

@Kleinpecan: that, like many very very old edits, were recovered and/or imported; that one was via an import (Special:Redirect/logid/26539837) from this nostwiki page). — xaosflux ^Talk 19:55, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

@Kleinpecan and Xaosflux: Nope, if that edit had been imported from the Nostalgia Wikipedia, it wouldn't have had that problem, because the import tool would've fixed it. The problem is the underline in Larry's username, which was OK in UseModWiki and Phase II software but not now. There's a very long-standing bug about these usernames and how edits made with them cannot be accessed in a user's contributions list at T2323 (previously known as bug 323; see below), and Larry Sanger (or Larry_Sanger if you prefer) is just the most high-profile victim. It's only because of the current migration of user data to an actor table that we have the additional problem that the username links don't appear, because the user ID of these edits is 0. Apparently all the relevant database fields are supposed to be fixed eventually once the migration is complete, but for now we have User:Nemo bis/Bug 323 revisions. Edited to add: hmmm, [this edit is listed at User:Nemo bis/Bug 323 revisions/positive rev user but now appears correctly. Graham87 06:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello! A user has made a COI edit request on Talk:Rocket League however I'm thinking they didn't create it correctly as I"m unable to answer it with the edit request helper tool and I can't see anywhere to mark the request as answered. The request would be denied anyways as while what they said is technically true (i've played the game and know that is what happens, but that doesn't matter because that would be WP:OR), they didn't provide a reliable source to back it up. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 16:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I have reverted it as malformed, and as you say, grossly insufficient. Malformed, empty, or otherwise unactionable edit requests like this are often simply removed instead of being processed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Alright sounds good. Thanks for telling me! As I said I would've answered it but I saw no way to do so. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 16:49, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

See WP:TPO#empty edit requests. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:56, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is when students get paid to work on certain software projects over the summer. Usually there are Wikipedia-related projects. Maybe we could propose a project in which a student works on our community's citation expanding tools (reFill, Citation bot, etc). They could be better. We could fix the tools up and/or start a new one. This could help with Citation bot's limited capacity or with the need to bother maintainers when websites get mis-parsed (see also lottery factor). Please let me know what you think. I will default to submitting the proposal if nobody responds. There's also a related Community Wishlist entry, but to be frank, this has a higher (but still tiny) chance of getting approved; as with the wishlist, the more editors who support this, the better a chance it has. Again, your thoughts are appreciated and I'd be happy to answer questions. (I will ping some editors who work in this area.) Enterprisey (talk!) 07:58, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes please - ping me if you need any assistance. firefly ( t · c ) 09:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Support Even for GA getting the cites right is tedious, and it is one of the reasons I gave up trying to get a FA. Far more automation is needed. Chidgk1 (talk) 10:10, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• Not sure what GSOC can do with respect to increased Citation bot's capacity. GSOC students can't allocate toolserver resources after all. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:17, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

What exactly is the "limited capacity" issue? If the default allocations offered by Toolforge are not enough, has a request for a Cloud Services instance been made? I've seen a lot of trivial/superficial project requests being accepted, I believe this would be accepted easily. Is there any development work needing to be done, such as adding new features? GSoC students will have no interest in continuing maintenance after their 2/3-month project period gets over, so I don't see how this addresses the bus factor. – SD0001 (talk) 14:55, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

The bot's running at full capacity, and there are timeout issues when there's a backlog of jobs. @AManWithNoPlan: would be able to tell you the details of the issue. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:03, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

It might just need someone who understands PHP config files or it might need some serious re-working. Hard to tell exactly. It is problem with limited number of runs being able to run at one time. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:07, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Some more details of the issue would be helpful, along with pointers to what the problematic code is (or suspected to be). Any quota increase request would easily be approved, whether on Toolforge or in a separate Cloud VPS instance. Legoktm (talk) 05:58, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• If the quota is the only change needed, that's great. For the code, I still think having one bot that uses the Citoid database (as TheDJ suggested) supplemented with whatever the current bots use is the way to go. It should also be flexible enough to be run from an editor's computer, by itself on toolforge, or as a central toolforge tool. So that's at least two features. For the bus factor, the students may leave but the mentors will retain knowledge of the development work (and my bad for not mentioning that). Enterprisey (talk!) 06:13, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Resolved

Hello, Village Pump folks,

Currently, and for the past few hours, the speedy deletion categories are showing incorrect numbers for the contents in the categories. Sometimes the numbers are incorrect, other times there are numbers even though the categories are empty. This doesn't change even when you take the option to purge the pages, which in the past was effective in updating the counts. Look at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned drafts or AfC submissions, for example, and look at the right-hand list of categories. It gives a total of over 50 pages that have been tagged for speedy deletion but this is in no way an accurate number of pages if you go through the various categories.

I know there have been problems in the past with pages not showing up in category counts that has a priority which is way on the back, back burner for the WMF but the speedy deletion categories have been reliable for a long time so this is a new problem here. Thanks for any help you can provide. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:22, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

:Now I'm finding editor contribution pages that are not updating even though I can see edits they have made on to articles but they have no contributions since yesterday that appear. What's up? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:47, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Now the count for pages tagged for speedy deletion is 165! This is impossible since many CSD categories are empty. The counts are all off. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Liz: I left a comment on T293958#7621679 about the issues with category counts not updating properly. Can you clarify a bit more about the issue with Special:Contributions? You're seeing edits in article history by those users but it's not showing up when you visit their contributions? Can you provide an example? Legoktm (talk) 05:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into the category counts. I was incorrect about the contributor logs, it was an editor who is tagging a lot of pages for deletion tonight and when I looked at their Contributions, it looked like they hadn't been active since yesterday. I just needed to look at their Deleted Contributions and, for some reason, I was looking at their Contributions and their Log and not that. So, I've struck that comment and am kicking myself for not realizing this earlier! So, it's just the categories. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:19, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Given that a commons admin replied to that ticket suggesting that counts have been incorrect for them going back to at least Jan 5, I worry that this will not just be a 1 day issue. Any clever technical people with thoughts on how admin could see if there are actual CSD noms to attend to? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:11, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Could we just make it so purging a category page initiates a recount? At least for categories with less than 200 members? The issue is most acute for empty categories not showing as having 0 members (the number of pages in Category:attack pages for speedy deletion is used to notify some admins whether there are attack pages that need deleting; if that number is wrong these processes do not work). —Kusma (talk) 16:19, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Could you transclude all the groups onto one page (or at least the less busy ones) so you only have to look at that page?Slywriter (talk) 16:23, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

The issue for me is that I use User:HighInBC/attackPageNotifier.js, a script that adds a hard-to-ignore link to the attack page category to the interface whenever its official element count is nonzero. —Kusma (talk) 16:26, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Kusma:I noticed this last night. The API call for categoryinfo is showing 2 pages in the category, but the categorymembers API call shows nothing in it. Annoying I know, hopefully they will fix it soon. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 23:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

The "purging" piped to "recount" in places like {{Admin backlog}} does not in fact initiate a recount, it just means that the backlog condition is checked against the current value of PAGESINCATEGORY again. Our templates make it look like we are updating PAGESINCATEGORY. —Kusma (talk) 16:24, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure there's an older phab task about category counts somewhere. I vaguely remember Jonesey95 maybe participating in the ticket, so they may know which one I'm thinking of. Could be related. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:49, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Closest I could find is phab:T157670. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I have the following possibly related phab tickets on my hit list: T221795, T132467, and T157670. I don't know if they are related. We did just have a software update (Wikipedia:ITSTHURSDAY), which may have something to do with it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:46, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

phab:T85696 would be a helpful workaround for the next time we have this problem (this is not the first time). —Kusma (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)