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Village pump (technical) archive

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (technical). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Fresh MediaWiki installation swallowing Unicode characters?

Does anyone have any idea what's happening with [1]? The Unicode characters are being replaced by question marks by MediaWiki. It's not a browser thing; I'm on Google Chrome 9 dev. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 22:26, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I had no trouble saving it. Perhaps it is Chrome after all. — Edokter • Talk • 23:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

But edit shows ??? all over again. — Edokter • Talk • 23:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. On first saving (and previewing), Unicode characters display normally. However, if you perform any action except normally viewing the page after that (anything that invalidates the page cache or otherwise makes MediaWiki generate a new version of the page, it looks like) MediaWiki replaces the Unicode characters with ? - in this diff, I simply replaced my sig there with an unmodified copy of my sig here (except for adding the "wikipedia:" interwiki prefix) and it saved, and diff shows a 22-byte increase in RecentChanges but not in the page history. I don't suppose there are any MediaWiki settings which could somehow be affecting this (doubtful, since it was doing this with a nearly-vanilla LocalSettings.php)? 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 02:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

You may want to try #mediawiki ^connect for help with this; this page is just for technical issues with the English Wikipedia. Anomie ⚔ 03:56, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

You may also want to see if a bug report has been filed. – Allen4names 13:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

SQL question

I don't know much SQL, so I was wondering if anyone could provide some advice about Wikipedia:Database reports/Transclusions of deleted templates/Configuration. In particular, if you check the list (i.e., Database reports/Transclusions of deleted templates), you will see that the transclusion counts are inflated. Poking around, I believe this is caused by some issue with transclusions on deleted pages being counted. Is there an easy way to fix the transclusion counts? If I knew anything about SQL, I would try to figure it out, but I would be stabbing in the dark. 134.253.26.4 (talk) 21:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The database is known to be inconsistent. I have a query which show list red links from non-existent pages. Anyway, to improve the report add a JOIN page ON page_namespace=tl_namespace AND page_title=page_title. By the way, next time post at Wikipedia talk:Database reports — Dispenser 23:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Transcluding onlyinclude and includeonly tags

short question

Is there a way to let a template include <includeonly><onlyinclude>{{{date}}}</onlyinclude></includeonly> when transcluded?

longer explaination for question

I'll try to explain it with this table:

Page name:	Template(in this case: "template:update")	Page between(in this case: "update page")	Final page(in this case: "item page")
use:	add a notice to "update page"	show information about the update, and when transcluded show the date of it only	Only have the text between the onlyinclude tags included

This is because at the RuneScape Wiki i am trying to automate the update date. Because there is always a link to the update page on the item page, and the update page has the date on it, i want the update page to have an additional note with the date entered(between onlyinclude tags) and i don't want it to appear on the update page itself(between includeonly tags). All update pages have the template:Update on it, with the parameter {{{date}}} so I want template:update to add <includeonly><onlyinclude>{{{date}}}</onlyinclude></includeonly> to the update page so that when the item page has {{#time:j F Y|{{Update:(updatename)}}}} on it, it shows the date in "dd month yy" automatically without needing to add that yourself.

I hope someone can help me.Joeytje50 (talk) 17:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Try interrupting the tags with <includeonly> tags. See Template:Noinclude for an example. --NYKevin @257, i.e. 05:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't that only work when substituted? I tried it, and when i did, it didn't work when transcluded.Joeytje50 (talk) 16:04, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

We basically use {{#switch:{{SUBPAGENAME}}|Update=Special text|#default=Everyone else}} at {{Documentation subpage}}. — Dispenser 23:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I will check some things with that. Thanks for the advice.Joeytje50 (talk) 16:04, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Clickjacking?

Hi. I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, if not, please direct me to the right one. A NoScript warning appeared while I was in the wikiminiatlas warning me about clickjacking. It told me to click somewhere or not to click somewhere, something like that. I don't really understood it so I just closed the warning window. After that, when I opened the atlas again it became covered with writings mentions "server", "Bad Gateway" and "Zeus", I think. I did a seach on wikipedia and Bad Gateway seems to refer to 502 Bad Gateway. I also did a seach on Zeus and found this: Zeus (trojan horse). Now, everytime I try to see the atlas the same thing happens, only without the NoScript warning. Does anyone know anything about this? –Cattus ^talk 20:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Probably something toolserver related, If you could give use the exact error message it would assist in tracking down the problem. The toolserver runs Zeus Web Server ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 20:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, well, at least I don't have a trojan horse on my computer. :) As for the error message, I'll try. Thanks for the quick reply.–Cattus ^talk 20:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It seems to be working fine now. So you think the clickjacking thing was just a mistake by NoScript?–Cattus ^talk 20:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It is a warning about the click event passing through two domains. The close button in the en.wikipedia.org layer, but the map layer is on toolserver.org. To illustrate the security issue, consider if close button hide the save button for malicious user script/gadget on pt.wikipedia.org. — Dispenser 23:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I see. So NoScript was just being cautious in warning me. Thanks for the explanation.–Cattus ^talk 14:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Fix bunching added whitespace

Does anyone understand why [2] added excess whitespace to the top of the article? (for comparison, see [3] and [4] (before and after of that same diff)). I can't figure it out. --NYKevin @797, i.e. 18:07, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The templates somehow add whitespace. This fixes it. Ucucha 21:27, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

-webkit-text-size-adjust sorely needed

Seriously, right now it is almost impossible to read Wikipedia pages on an iPhone without a lot of zooming, horizontal scrolling, and rotating the device. -Webkit-text-size-adjust would fix this so I propose addingthe following code to common.css

body {-webkit-text-size-adjust:140%;}

access_denied (talk) 02:53, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Recently discussed at MediaWiki talk:Common.css/Archive 12#Add -webkit-text-size-adjust: none.3B to MediaWiki:Handheld.css — Dispenser 04:55, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Requesting the addition of a class "transborder"

Posted at MediaWiki talk:Common.css. PleaseStand ^(talk) 04:08, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Deletion logs

It would be helpful if someone could tweak the css so that deletion summaries are shown in a collapsed box. This is an increasingly frequent comment from individuals contacting OTRS about deleted articles; while the Google log purges and at any time when someone clicks a redlink you end up at:

This page has been deleted.

The deletion and move log for the page are provided below for reference.

(del/undel) 03:44, May 4, 2009 EvilBastard (talk | contribs | block) deleted "Deleted Person" ‎ (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deleted Person) (view/restore)
(del/undel) 04:14, April 30, 2008 AutobiographYNuker (talk | contribs | block) deleted "Deleted Person" ‎ (G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion) (view/restore)
(del/undel) 03:19, April 30, 2008 HeartlessPerson (talk | contribs | block) deleted "Deleted Person" ‎ (A7: Article that does not adequately explain the importance of the subject) (view/restore)

Actually of course we say "no explanation of importance" and so on, but that's what it looks like to the individual. In fact what it really looks like is:

This page has been deleted.

The deletion and move log for the page are provided below for reference.

(del/undel) 03:44, May 4, 2009 EvilBastard (talk | contribs | block) deleted "Deleted Person" ‎ (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deleted Person where a dozen people say deleted Person is insignificant) (view/restore)
(del/undel) 04:14, April 30, 2008 AutobiographYNuker (talk | contribs | block) deleted "Deleted Person" ‎ (G11: Deleted Person is a spammer) (view/restore)
(del/undel) 03:19, April 30, 2008 HeartlessPerson (talk | contribs | block) deleted "Deleted Person" ‎ (A7: Deleted Person is completely unimportant) (view/restore)

Don't focus on what we actually say, think hard about how it looks to the article subject. They do not care about our policies and internal processes, they care that Wikipedia says they are "not notable". That hurts. We can soften the blow.

There's no way we're going to stop using the term "notability" to describe suitable topics for inclusion, and actually no reason we should. Same with the various speedy and deletion rationales. But we could, with a fairly simple change, make it less hurtful to the individuals concerned, several of whom have not asked for their names to be on Wikipedia in the first place. Guy (Help!) 15:19, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh lord please yes. This would cut out a good 5% of the OTRS workload and make the other 95% considerably easier to handle. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 15:37, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Just a comment - 5% is actually a good few dozen mails a week. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 15:40, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Thirded. In my prods I've started to use "encyclopedically notable" instead, but this is an even better solution. I've also handled complaints about article templates (especially the cleanup ones) where the LPs don't understand the that the requests are about the poorly written articles, rather than critiques of the LPs themselves. Ideas on making these clearer? -- Jeandré, 2010-11-28t18:40z ^{[donation needed]}

I raised the same point recently but it got nowhere. We should collapse the boxes to "One or more editors has identified an issue with the content of this article" or something equally anodyne. Guy (Help!) 19:17, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

So the proposal is that we should collapse these boxes with a [show/hide] format? That doesn't actually remove them, and the logs would still be easily accessible. As a result, it seems to me, that this wouldn't really cut down on the complaints much (i.e. a significantly fraction of the people would click [show] and still be annoyed). So, it appears that the trade-off is something like: Slightly protect a small number of people that are highly annoyed by deletion summaries, vs. mildly annoy a larger population of Wikipedians that have reasons to look at deletion summaries by forcing them to add an extra click. I'm not really sure that is a net gain, and it also doesn't seem to do all that much to address the issue.

Let me suggest an alternative. If the problem is that deletion summaries are causing confusion, then why not add an explanation the message. Something along the lines of:

This page has been deleted.

The deletion and move log for the page are provided below for reference.

Presumably there are better ways to express the above sentiment, but I think providing an explanation would do more net good than simply trying to slightly hide the logs. Dragons flight (talk) 22:20, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

A bit overdone, IMO. Personally, I'd just add a sentence like your "The fact that a page was deleted should not be taken as criticism of the person or topic involved." in plain text after "This page has been deleted.", no odd-looking boxes inside boxes or anything. Anomie ⚔ 19:53, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe show a different message for ips, with a link instead of including the logs? Platonides (talk) 22:22, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection to giving more explanation but the reasons for deletion are, to article subjects, often inherently offensive. Hence the desire to simply collapse them. Not remove, just leave it so that you're not faced with text telling you that you (yes, you, the living person reading this notice) are not notable. Guy (Help!) 10:10, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it's necessary to pander to people's egos here. There are relatively very few people who are considered notable by Wikipedia's standards. If you're not one of them, tough luck. If that offends you or hurts your feelings, then that's your problem. I don't see the need to base our policies on that, or to conceal why articles were deleted because someone is having an unreasonable emotional reaction. It's good to clearly show why articles were deleted so that people don't recreate the same article unknowingly. Therefore, I can't support collapsing this information. I can, however, support the addition of a brief explanatory note per User:Dragons flight above. SnottyWong ^confabulate 00:45, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

We already address these complaints through OTRS, so it isn't a question of dealing with their reactions or not. It is a question of whether we do something to defuse the issue before they see it (but as a consequence affecting how users in general access deletion log info), or just deal with the ones who submit complaints (which is more time for OTRS volunteers but has less impact on users generally). --RL0919 (talk) 16:58, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand the idea but don't think it will work. Hypothetically, if I saw a page on me had been deleted (like the OTRS people you are talking about) sure the reason may not be there instantly but if it's a page on me surely I'll be inquisitive uncollapse the box and be back exactly where I started. As such I see this change as a disadvantage because I don't think it will fix the problem you are talking about and will just cause extra "show" clicks for everyone. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 17:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Snottywong, I am dealing with hurt and angry people emailing the Wikimedia Foundation. "No" is not a great answer when actually we can do it, if we want to. I really don't think you understand how offensive some people find this. Guy (Help!) 00:39, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Do collapse them, please. Just be sure that I can use custom css to uncollapse it. /ƒETCH COMMS / 16:07, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Another one today. Interestingly this individual stated that my temporary kludge ({{deleted article}}) is acceptable. The only substantive difference is that the pink box is absent. I think we should just do this, if anyone has the css fu necessary. Guy (Help!) 00:37, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Is this something that has to be done via Mediawiki:Common.css? I looked but could not find a mediawiki interface page for it, or I would have edited that to make it collapsible earlier today. /ƒETCH COMMS / 01:58, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

BLP applies to all Wikipedia content, and it is especially important in places where it can be seen as a sort of official summary. SW's view that this is pandering to people would basically mean the removal of all the BLP rules, all of which are there to avoid doing harm, primarily harm to people's feelings. There are various suggestions along these lines in aat WT:Deletion policy. This is a matter of policy, not just of technical display of material. I just point out here that any method used for necessary concealing of material should not emphasise the fact that it has been concealed. DGG ( talk ) 04:55, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

@Guy; re:{{deleted article}} I'm not sure this is a particularly good way to do it, it makes it somewhat easier for e.g. Patricia Caswell to come along next week and re-create her page without being picked up by a new-page patroller, it also doesn't give the bit of "in-yer-face" information to user:innocent-new-page-creator regarding whether the page may be a suitable candidate having recently been rejected by consensus and is also likely to be confusing to a new editor - and possibly even a more experienced editor - when they click the Start the Patricia Caswell article link. I hope this is only a "temporary kludge" and not applied to too many pages. --ClubOranje^T 10:53, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Couldn't you just post an extra note at every deletion log of a person who has complained to OTRS? Something like "The subject of this deleted article is a very sensitive person and should be treated extra gently?" If someone's sees the standard and rather tame deletion log given above, and interprets it in the fashion you described in the second fake box, then that's basically their problem. Blatantly incorrect or offensive deletion reasons should be purged from the deletion log, but apart from that, I see no reason to change our current notices. Perhaps we can draft a standard OTRS response to such complaints, making the life of the OTRS people easier without actually going along with the "some people complain, so everyone should follow" mentality that seems to pervasive in today's society. Fram (talk) 11:46, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

No, that's missing the point. The point is that a page is displayed which says the article has been deleted. As far as the subject is concerned, that means we have a page on them which says they are not notable. And then when they ask us to delete it, we can't, because there is no page to delete. This is not a great customer service outcome. Guy (Help!) 16:43, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't the plain fact that the page ever existed and was deleted say that to these overly-sensitive people, even if the actual reasons are hidden in a collapsed box? And what's to stop these overly-sensitive people from clicking the "unhide" button and then complaining about the deletion summaries again? Anomie ⚔ 19:53, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

'Note' I tried to find the relevant message in this list, but couldn't. On the other hand, Special:Search was also useless, and I confirmed with Lynx that the message is not loaded via Javascript or something similar... so I would assume the developers actually hard-coded this message. If that's the case, modifying it (if we choose to do so) will be... interesting. --NYKevin @978, i.e. 22:28, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

It appears the message displayed on the page view is MediaWiki:Moveddeleted-notice, and that on the edit view is MediaWiki:Recreate-moveddeleted-warn. The div around it (styled with CSS to give the red box) and the list itself are hard-coded, and there appears to be no message for after the list where the end of an existing close box could be inserted. Anomie ⚔ 02:50, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for finding that. --NYKevin @326, i.e. 06:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

@Anomie, <div class="mw-warning-with-logexcerpt">. There must be a way of getting a handle on that. Guy (Help!) 10:47, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Some sort of marker could be included in the notices I mentioned, and then some custom Javascript could apply collapsing to every UL inside a DIV with class=mw-warning-with-logexcerpt and that marker (the marker is necessary to avoid catching things like the protection log excerpt on protected pages, the block log excerpt on blocked user talk pages, and so on). But it's not as simple as slapping {{collapse}} in a message somewhere. Personally, I don't see how this proposal would accomplish its stated goals, see my unanswered questions above. Anomie ⚔ 12:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Guy, I really don't agree with this proposal, because if someone chooses to take offense at this sort of thing, the only way to pacify them, ultimately, is going to be the creation of an article for them, and I don't think notability policy should be changed just because someone wants us to do so. Using a {{cot}} (or similar) will cause inconvenience and other measures probably won't work as well (if at all). Saying things like "no endorsement" is redundant to our disclaimers. And suggesting that notability is not the problem ("one or more editors has identified an issue with the content of this article" was mentioned above; emphasis added) could easily lead to the celebrity trying to "fix" and thereby "save" the article after it's been deleted, and of course we have enough of that right now. --NYKevin @326, i.e. 06:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

You are wrong. I have two people who have explicitly expressed the view that my kludge / workaround (which is basically to subst the "no article" mediawiki text) is acceptable. Not everybody who has an article on Wikipedia, chose to have it. Some of our correspondents are the victims of attack pages. And even if they did create the page themselves, rubbing their noses in it is simply a bad idea - it will encourage them to hate us all the more and probably push a few over into vandalism or anti-Wikipedia activism. Ask any OTRS volunteer about the impact on real people's lives of what we do here. This is not something to be airily dismissed just because you don't see the problem. Guy (Help!) 10:42, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

People who had attack pages are a different issue entirely from people who created their own articles, and based on the discourse above they appear to be irrelevant (if I'm wrong about this, please indicate how they would be offended by such logs showing up; I don't understand that, although I also don't understand people being offended at their own non-notability). And as Anomie said above, people who are offended at their own non-notability are going to be unhappy that no article exists no matter what we do. {{Deleted article}} may be acceptable to regular people, but it is not acceptable to average Wikipedians, who will be confused by it since it mimics the MW interface, falsely suggesting the page does not exist and lacks a deletion log. If something does not mimic the interface, the sensitive people will probably notice this. I really don't think it's okay to break Wikipedia because some people choose to take offense at our notability policies. --NYKevin @268, i.e. 05:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Guy, you have also had at least two people who have explicitly expressed the view that your / workaround is not acceptable.--ClubOranje^T 08:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

So? A few people would still not be happy. That's not a great reason for failing to do something reasonably straightforward to keep that number to a minimum. The assumption above that these are all frustrated vanity spammers and therefore deserve to have their faces rubbed in it is also rather disturbing. Do you feel like writing to these people? Most of them are not threatening to sue us for defamation because of the log display, most of them are just upset and want it to go away. We could do that. Guy (Help!) 12:23, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

On one hand, I can tell you whatever notice is placed on these deleted articles is going to still result with complaints to OTRS. Maybe not as many, but there will be complaints. (And I say that as someone who has dealt first-hand with the great unwashed public in a call center; some people are best handled either by someone with extensive training as a social worker or therapist, or by hanging up the phone.) On the other hand, this thread reminds me of the form rejection letters I would receive back when I wanted to be a published writer. (For you young-uns reading this, before the Internet in order to have one's work published, one would mail a manuscript to an editor, who would then glance at it &, far more often than not, return it in the self-addressed stamped envelope provided with a form rejection slip.) These form rejection letters were incredibly colorless & unhelpful about why the work was rejected, & used when the editors did not have the time, or interest, to work with the author at the time; however, potentially good & marketable authors might have their submissions rejected early in their careers, so magazines & publishing houses went out of their way not to sound the least bit offensive. The average rejection letter read along the lines of: "We regret to inform you that your submission does not meet our needs at this time. Thank you for your submission." No names, maybe not even a letter head. -- llywrch (talk) 19:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Main page archeology

Can someone explain now did this happen? --illythr (talk) 11:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't follow... That's an edit form 2002(!). What is so special about it? — Edokter • Talk • 12:16, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Look at the dates. Some early revisions in the database have gotten confused, which causes anomalies like this. Ucucha 13:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The "diff=prev" command looks for the previous edit not by its date, but by its revision ID (the number 139992 in the above address). Many revision ID's from 2002 are chronologically out of order. Graham87 14:18, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see. There was some sort of technical problem which resulted in the main page history "looping forward" (in turn, as a result of some sort of a history merge). As an aside, the phrase "We started in January 2001 and already have about NUMBEROFARTICLES articles. We want to make over 100,000, so let's get to work" looks kinda cute from today's point of view. --illythr (talk) 20:21, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

CSS or JS expert WANTED

Hi there!

I'm looking for a CSS or JS solution for the following problem: I would like the background color of a section to be changed when moving mouse over its section-edit link (or if not possible over the whole <h> element). Actually this should help users see which part of the page will be editable after clicking the section-edit link. This is for a wiki written by children who have some difficulties to uderstand the difference between these section-edit links and the edit tab. I've tried with CSS 3 selectors to affect the right parts but this looks quite complex and I'm not really a techie. Maybe this could be done more easily with JavaScript? I hope some expert can help. Any solution would be greatly appreciated! And sorry for my english... --Lorangeo (talk) 15:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Nice idea, but very hard to implement. As the various headers and paragraphs on a page do not have any classes or IDs associated to them, it is virtually impossible to select those elements in CSS. JavaScript could be done, but it would have to enumerate all elements on a page, which could slow things down. — Edokter • Talk • 15:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

With CSS I first tried Adjacent sibling combinator :

.ns-0 h2:hover, .ns-0 h2:hover + *, .ns-0 h2:hover + * + *, .ns-0 h2:hover + *  + * + *, .ns-0 h2:hover + *  + * + * + *, .ns-0 h2:hover + *  + * + * + * + * { background-color: #ffffcc; }

But of course this is not accurate. I then tried General sibling combinator hoping it would be possible to set a limit (i.e. "apply this style to all elements until next header of same level"). But it looks like this is not possible. Well, maybe I could add something in the core of MW to make this more easy? But what? --Lorangeo (talk) 16:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Wrapping the entire section in a <div class="section" id="section-1"> etc. would be the most logical solution. Then the CSS becomes simple. — Edokter • Talk • 16:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Mhhh, I see. But actually I would need some help to do that with a clean code. :-/ Could someone help? I might paypal you something if necessary. --Lorangeo (talk) 22:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This isn't exactly the right place for this because this forum is for discussing technical issues relating to Wikipedia rather than other wikis, but here is some JS code that you could refer to. It depends on jQuery, so you would have to make MediaWiki include jQuery in the generated page. Of course, there might be some problems with this code, but it's a start. PleaseStand ^(talk) 02:40, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

if(wgNamespaceNumber == 0) {
    jQuery(function() {
        jQuery('h2,h3,h4,h5,h6').bind('mouseover mouseout', function(event) {
            var headingLevel = this.nodeName.slice(1), more = true;
            jQuery(this)
                .nextAll()
                .filter(function() {
                    if(!more) {
                        return false;
                    }
                    var match = this.nodeName.match(/^h(\d)$/i);
                    if (match && match[1] <= headingLevel) {
                        more = false;
                    }
                    return more;
                })
                .css('background-color', event.type == 'mouseover' ? '#ffc' : '');
        });
    });
}

Thank you very much! It works! I implemented it and you can see the result here: http://fr.wikimini.org/wiki/Chevalier. But there is still a problem with texts near a picture. --Lorangeo (talk) 11:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Legend box and line legend alignment

Breeding range
Winter range

Migration routes

This came up on White Stork - is there some way to fix Template:legend-line so that it matches in width with Template:Legend2 (and others in the family) at all font size settings. Shyamal (talk) 04:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

In it's current form, there is no way to ensure equal sizes, due to the use of non-breaking spaces and non-matching font-sizes. What would be best is to use CSS padding to size the boxes and the lines (see {{pad}} on how that's done), which means the templates need a bit of an overhaul. I can help with that if you wish. — Edokter • Talk • 08:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Sure, that would be welcome, or perhaps a multi-line legend box that uses a table for alignment. Shyamal (talk) 11:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

external text editor

the new edit toolbar doesnt even have find and replace.

Can you guys recommend a good external text editor?

Something that works well for editing wiki pages.

nothing fancy. I wouldnt know how to use it.

is there a wiki page explaining how to replace the javascript editor with an external editor? Just granpa (talk) 19:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The new edit toolbar does have find-and-replace; just open the "Advanced" section, and it is the icon at the extreme right-hand side. If you want to go back to the old toolbar anyways, you can go to the Editing tab of "My preferences", uncheck the "Beta features," and then click the Save button. PleaseStand ^(talk) 20:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

And if that doesn't rock your boat (and you use Firefox) you could try "It's All Text!" — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 20:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

You could use wikEd. Graham87 01:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"Your feedback"

At the bottom of the article Demographics of the United States there's a box asking for feedback in four areas. I've never seen a box like that before. Where did it come from?--178.167.130.90 (talk) 21:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a feedback project that's in testing right now. All the articles listed in Category:Article Feedback Pilot should have that feedback form. The category itself should have some useful links and info on it. Killiondude (talk) 22:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Standard.css#Add "print/export" section to the [classic] skin?

Cross posting to get more feedback. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 07:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The collection extension that generates this part of the Sidebar is not compatible with the Standard skin. Or rather, the standard skin does not have the hooks that allow the Collection extension to hook into it. The same probably goes for all the other 'old'/non-monobook based Skins. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"Internal error"

Just got this backtrace when trying to upload a file:

key 'st009c4b198kphhtn3cwlg9g3jqwdnt.' is not in a proper format

Backtrace:

#0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/upload/UploadBase.php(557): UploadStash->stashFile('/tmp/phpwFvokC', Array, NULL)
#1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/upload/UploadBase.php(569): UploadBase->stashSessionFile(NULL)
#2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/specials/SpecialUpload.php(292): UploadBase->stashSession()
#3 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/specials/SpecialUpload.php(514): SpecialUpload->showRecoverableUploadError('<p>A file with ...')
#4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/specials/SpecialUpload.php(404): SpecialUpload->processVerificationError(Array)
#5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/specials/SpecialUpload.php(167): SpecialUpload->processUpload()
#6 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/SpecialPage.php(561): SpecialUpload->execute(NULL)
#7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(254): SpecialPage::executePath(Object(Title))
#8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(64): MediaWiki->handleSpecialCases(Object(Title), Object(OutputPage), Object(WebRequest))
#9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/index.php(117): MediaWiki->performRequestForTitle(Object(Title), NULL, Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#10 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')
#11 {main}

--Morn (talk) 17:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Is it anything like this? :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 17:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

No, the intended file name is "Zippo_logo.svg" (local copy of non-free logo at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Zippo.svg), no colon to be found. Very strange, I've never seen a backtrace when uploading before, neither on WP nor Commons. --Morn (talk) 20:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Well that narrows it down a bit: it seems to be hitting with svg files. Oddly, I renamed the file, and it uploaded correctly; try a few different nmes. Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Now I've used File:Zippo.svg as the destination file name and that worked. --Morn (talk) 22:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This is something to do with the new UploadWizard, but for the moment I'm baffled as to why this happened. It's on the list of things I'm working on. 216.38.130.166 (talk) 21:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Which page uses a Parser extension tag

Is there a list which can tell a user which pages use a particular Parser extension tag?

For example, the <gallery> tag. Is there a page which will tell me a list of which pages the gallery tag is used on? Thank you! Adamtheclown (talk) 06:28, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

No. As of 1.17 (to be deployed in January or February) magic words like __NOINDEX__ and {{DEFAULTSORT: will be tracked. If you can make a proper use case for tracking the gallery tag, you can add a feature request to bugzilla. (Please add bryan dot tongminh at gmail dot com as CC if you do) -- Bryan (talk|commons) 21:43, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Viewing a deletion discussion in edit mode

Some instructions appear that currently state:

Welcome to the deletion discussion for [article]. All input is welcome, though valid arguments citing appropriate guidelines will be given more weight than unsupported statements; discussion guidelines are available. Be aware that using multiple accounts to reinforce a viewpoint is considered a serious breach of community trust, and that comments on people rather than the article is [sic] considered disruptive.

This needs a grammar revision: "is" needs to be changed to "are", because "comments" is a plural noun, and as such requires a plural verb. (I'm not sure if the Village pump is the best place for reporting this, but I don't know any other better venue.) --Theurgist (talk) 15:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixed, although I went for "commenting is" rather than "comments are". Hope that's okay. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 15:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Cheers! --Theurgist (talk) 15:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"Complete list" in Interwiki

I am an administrator on Turkish Wikibooks and I want to learn how you achieved adding "Complete list" entry to Interwiki section on the main page. Thank you. Bekiroflaz (talk) 18:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:FAQ/Main Page#How do you put the "Complete list" link at the end of the interwikis?—Emil J. 18:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Bekiroflaz (talk) 20:16, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Text area height

Hi. I use to create redirects and stubs, and I always need to scroll down to show the "Save" button due to the text area height. Can I modify the text area height or put a "Save" button in the top of the text area (using a gadget or so)? I guess that this problem is common to other users. The short cut ctrl+shift+s is not so quick for me. Thanks. emijrp (talk) 22:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

You can set the number of lines of the edit box in your preferences. — Edokter • Talk • 22:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Very useful, thanks! emijrp (talk) 22:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Loss of session data

Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still does not work, try logging out and logging back in

I've never seen this message until a month or so ago, but recently I began to hit it frequently, about every other day. What is going on?—Emil J. 13:56, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I've had that message off and on before. A different, but possibly related, oddity while editing Saengerfest, on Dec 9 and Dec 11. In both instances, I had a only section opened to editing. When I hit "save page", it replaced the entire article with only the section I had been working on. The rest of the article was gone. I did reverts to remedy it, but it was of concern nonetheless. Maile66 (talk) 14:57, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

My intuitive reaction would be to blame it on your browsers. Have you changed it recently? And do the messages coincide with going from logged-in to logged-out? Or they unrelated to your logged-in/out status? Regards, - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 21:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for a suggestion, but no, I did not change my browser (which is Firefox 3.5.5), and no, there is no correlation with logged-in status (I'm more or less permanently logged in). I should maybe also stress that every time the edit went through on the second try.—Emil J. 11:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I only get the "loss of session data" message if there has been a long delay during an editing session - the system appears to "time me out". I have, however, always managed to get the edit accepted when I re-submit it.
Arjayay (talk) 12:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Unable to login to a case-sensitive account I created because the login form forces it to lowercase

Hello, I created an account named "WarriorMonk" because the account "warriormonk" was created some years earlier (with no articles). Upon creation, I was logged-in as "WarriorMonk" but when I wanted to come back to the account the next day (after I had closed my Firefox browser, I found that I could not login again. The Wikipedia login form systematically force my username to lowercase. From what I can tell, this is being done in the form's javascript because I have cleared cookies for Wikipedia and attempted to login using Firefox, Chrome and Safari. The error I receive when I attempt to login is "Login error, Incorrect password or confirmation code entered. Please try again." but this should be expected because the form is trying to login as "warriormonk" which is not my account. I *was* however, able to login once as "WarriorMonk" by some series of form manipulation which I cannot remember or reproduce, so at least I can confirm that the account "WarriorMonk" is there and works with the password I am using and trying. What gives? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.208.250.85 (talk) 10:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The first character is case insensitive, the rest are case sensitive. There is no user account "WarriorMonk", you must have misspelled it or done something wrong. See [5].—Emil J. 11:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

See [6] for some similar usernames, perhaps including the one you used. Ucucha 15:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Warrior Monkey? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Or you can check the edit history pages of any of the articles that you edited that day to see which account is listed making your edits. Active Banana (^bananaphone 18:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Text Mining in Wikipedia?

Hi,

Do you know whether there are text mining algorithms running the background of Wikipedia?

Best regards, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oguzhanalasehir (talk • contribs) 14:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by 'text mining algorithm' but there are bots that check the site all the time for various reasons. Vandalism (User:ClueBot) being one. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Strange whitespace

While browsing Wikipedia, I've stumbled upon the following article - Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae. What caught my eye was that big gap between the title and the tracklisting, which I couldn't remove with any means. This doesn't seem to be a browser-related issue - at least both Firefox and Chrome display the page identically. Ezhuks (talk) 17:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem is with the hacky method {{Track listing}} uses to stop this happening, which can't handle the increased width of the infobox due to the long album title in the chronology section. There's some discussion at Template talk:Track listing. Algebraist 17:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I moved the whitespace above the heading, which looks a little better.—Emil J. 17:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Interwiki

Help me please. The interwiki of the article Harakat can't be sync automatically by bot user and has to be sync manually, please solve this problem. Aris riyanto (talk) 02:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Harakat is not an article. It's a redirect to the article Arabic diacritics. Redirects should not have interwiki links. If your concern is about interwiki links for Arabic diacritics then please clarify what you think should or shouldn't have been done by bots. Your only edits to the article is to add [7] and remove [8] the same interwiki link so I have no idea what you want. You cannot expect people here to know Indonesian. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I try to fix the interwiki by removing all of interwikies except the ar:حركة, and I am still waiting the bots fix the problem Aris riyanto (talk) 06:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I still don't understand what your problem and goal is. You removed [9] many interwiki links that looked valid to me. I'm not a linguist but it sounds appropriate to have interwiki links between Arabic diacritics, fr:Diacritiques de l'alphabet arabe and gl:Diacríticos do alfabeto árabe. Why did you remove them? PrimeHunter (talk) 19:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I removed all of interwiki on all language and hope the bot syncs them automatically, because bot cannot do that caused so many invalid interwikies, but forget it! The problem was fixed Aris riyanto (talk) 04:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Custom filtering of contribs?

Is there a way to get a view of a user's contribs by filtering on some criteria not already present on the standard contribs page? In my case, I want to see only my non-Huggle contribs, and this could be achieved by filtering out contribs with the "(HG)" token. But I can't find an on-wiki way to accomplish this. Thanks, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 17:46, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It can be done via script, and splendidly, one exists to do just that: User:X!/hidehugglecontribs.js. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts, where many other scripts are listed. Rd232 ^talk 10:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Old Wikipedia backup discovered

The subject line says it all! see this Foundation-l post. Graham87 01:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This backup contains some of Wikipedia's oldest edits (from 15 January 2001 to 17 August 2001), so there is a discussion about it at Wikipedia talk:UuU#Old Wikipedia backup discovered. Graham87 02:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This really is a treasure trove. A lot more will now be known about the very early days of Wikipedia. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Deleted page showing in Google cache

Q: why does this google search show up a deleted page? And would recreating it with NOINDEX help? Rd232 ^talk 10:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Google keeps a cache of things it crawled for some period of time (which, AFAIK, is highly variable). I suppose it's possible that recreating it might prod their spider to look at it again (whereupon it would notice the noindex), but only the Google people would know for sure— they keep a close lid on how their various algorithms work to prevent SEO sleaze from exploiting them.

Namespace filtering for Linksearch...

Hi, would it be feasible for there to be a filtering option on Special:Linksearch so that it's possible to only show externals links with the desired pattern found in a specfic namespace as is possible with other special pages like Special:Contributions and so on? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe the option already exists in MediaWiki but is disabled here for performance reasons. Anomie ⚔ 16:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I would like to second this request! If we could get this enabled I would be using it very often. Does anyone know what these performance reasons are? I posted this very question the other day on meta but the crickets are still chirping over there. Them From Space 16:15, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The links table isn't indexed by namespace; see bug 7804 and bug 10593. However the latter bug tells us that Special:Linksearch can be filtered by namespace with the API like this. Graham87 03:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Watchlist navigation/search/interaction/toolbox gone...

Has someone done something or is my watchlist too big? I get none of the above on my watchlist page, but do if I direct myself to any other page... The Rambling Man (talk) 17:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Now then, I've found the toolbox etc but it's right at the bottom of the page. It's only happening on the watchlist. I'm running Safari under MacOS. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Someone broke the watchlist layout when trying to remove one of the watchlist notices. Fixed now. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:11, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Cheers DJ. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:16, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Permalink

I'm just improving Help:Permanent link and want to be sure that what I wrote is actually correct: "when a permalink is clicked on, the website tries to show the page as it was at the time that version was created; differences may however occur. The most obvious differences are if images or templates that existed at the time are subsequently deleted. More subtly, changes may also occur due to transclusion of templates, which may have changed and will be transcluded as they are now, not as they were then." It would be possible for MediaWiki to try and transclude templates as they were at the time (based on timestamps), but it doesn't, does it? Rd232 ^talk 16:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Right. Help:Permanent link says: See Help:Page history#Linking to a specific version of a page for a little more detail. I'm not sure the technical details should be given in both places but if they are then there should probably be some synchronization between the two pages. Special:ExpandTemplates should be mentioned instead of or in addition to: copy the wikitext to a user page and use "subst:", if necessary recursively. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

That's interesting, and I've added a mention, but I don't quite understand how to use it. If you do, could you expand MediaWiki:Expand templates intro slightly? Rd232 ^talk 13:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what more to say. Just go to Special:ExpandTemplates and do the obvious: Copy the wikisource into the text field and click OK. That's it. The output is both displayed as code and previewed. It's available for copy-paste but isn't saved anywhere. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:53, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I guess it's the last sentence of the intro which is confusing: "One can't supply values for template parameters (e.g. {{{1}}})." What is the significance of that? What does this limitation mean you can't do? Rd232 ^talk 01:07, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

(←) It means you can't expand templates with parameters and supply values for those parameters via that field. So if you took the content of a template that uses parameters, those parameters cannot and will not be handled by Special:ExpandTemplates. --NYKevin @197, i.e. 03:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Image renderings are changed on English WP?

Apparently, the rendering of images is changed on English WP recently. SVG as well as PNG. In Firefox 3.6.10, all pictures look horrible now. Please revert this.--Wickey-nl (talk) 10:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Horrible how? And are you sure it's not your computer (software or settings)? Also the current version of Firefox is 3.6.13; you could try updating. Rd232 ^talk 13:11, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Images look blurred, like bitmaps that are enlarged to much. On Commons and other wiki's it is fine. I work on linux. Software and settings not changed.--Wickey-nl (talk) 15:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Tried it on a different machine? It's fine for me in Firefox 3.6.13 on Windows. Rd232 ^talk 15:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, make sure your page zoom in Firefox is reset (in the view menu). Firefox remembers that setting on a per-site basis. --Morn (talk) 21:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Please post a link to an image that looks OK for you at Commons and horrible at the English Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

--Wickey-nl (talk) 17:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I is not in konqueror, so it is browser related, but why the hell it was changed. 3.6.10 is rather recent. Has Microsoft also bought Wikipedia yet?--Wickey-nl (talk) 17:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for stating the obvious, but did you try to WP:BYC?—Emil J. 17:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a problem in Firefox 3.6.8. Try WP:BYC or reinstalling Firefox. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:03, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I also note that the two thumbnails you posted above are very small bitmaps. It's possible that you did this intentionally so as not to be obtrusive, but just in case: do you have, by any chance, installed some Firefox extension that automatically enlarges small images?—Emil J. 19:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I note that the image scaling on the English WP is done by the same server that do it for other languages and Commons. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This is weird. After log out nothing changes, so it are not my preferences. If it was due to my browser, it would also happen on other wiki's. I wil try an update, but something must have been changed on English WP.--Wickey-nl (talk) 08:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I have found the explanation! The quality depends on the resolution of the browser frame. That is not surprising, but there are two problems, one with the browser and one with wiki. First, Firefox remembers the page width you used last time for the specific adress. So there can be different widths for different pages (even after a new call) in different tabs, at the same time. A nice feature. Second, on different wiki's, e.g. English and German the same image at the same resolution behave different. Strange, but they become bad at different screen/browser-frame resolutions.--Wickey-nl (talk) 11:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

By the way, aren't svg files rendered as bitmaps on WP to support old, ramshackle and unsave Explorers? And shouldn't they be displayed as svg-images nowadays, because modern browsers can render them? Or should we support old, unsafe browsers?--Wickey-nl (talk) 12:05, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

IE8 still has significant market share. Anomie ⚔ 13:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, Firefox 3.6 doesn't support viewing svg via an img tag. -- WOSlinker (talk) 13:28, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Creating cross-browser compatible SVGs is a nightmare, even ignoring browsers that do not support it at all like IE. Moreover, it's quite typical that we have a 1MB SVG (e.g., check all those maps of the world) that is rendered as a 20KB PNG, hence serving the original files would be a significant resource drain.—Emil J. 13:31, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. It seems, SVGs are not useful at all, but probably WP is using them for scaling before making a bitmap when a larger view is asked. Then, they are only useful for larger images.--Wickey-nl (talk) 17:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Space in external link

I added a ref to an unref BLP here but it contains a space, breaking it. I tried (does not render here...) but it doesn't work anyawy (see what I mean)... even through the html address looks the same. Any idea how to fix it? The page is there (Kocoj.php link), but seems not linkable from MediaWiki... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Use percent-encoding, like this. Anomie ⚔ 18:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately {{urlencode:Henryk Kocoj}} outputs a plus “+” sign (which that server doesn’t consider equivalent). ―cobaltcigs 01:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Just replace the space with %20. — Edokter • Talk • 13:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Block

Hi one user requested help concerning his block, the issue is that he was blocked as sock and wanted to appeal for unblock in #wikipedia-en-unblock he was told that he can access his talk page and appeal block there but he made a screenshot http://www.flickr.com/photos/magdalena_b/5263664781/ where you can see that he can't access it, although admins say he is not flagged as blocked from talk, isn't it bug? He already sent a mail but perhaps you should know about it Petrb (talk) 19:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The account is blocked with TP access off, but it's not showing in the block log. It may be a bug, but I don't know. /ƒETCH COMMS / 16:37, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I remember this happening not too long ago with another editor. Not sure if a bugzilla was ever filed. –xeno^talk 16:46, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit summary and minor edit help links

I'm wondering if there's some way in which the Edit summary and minor edit help links shown in the edit window (via MediaWiki:Summary and MediaWiki:Minoredit) can be made so that when clicked, the relevant help page appears in a new window? I've occasionally clicked it by accident, and for newcomers it might be less confusing for this help to not make the edit window disappear (besides reducing the risk of lost work). Rd232 ^talk 01:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Certain MediaWiki pages allow for HTML code to be used; I'm not sure if these do. You can see from the page histories that HTML's been used in the past, but from the edit summaries it appears that the HTML formats didn't work out. Killiondude (talk) 06:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

We could also make the "warn me if I am leaving the page in the middle of an edit" option on by default. /ƒETCH COMMS / 17:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

parser/tidying far too smart for own good

wikitext	HTML	appearance
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;"> Foo Bar Baz </div>	<div style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> <p>Foo Bar Baz</p> </div>	Foo Bar Baz

See what happens when you input the wikitext seen in the first column above. A  tag appears out of nowhere to block (i.e. fail to inherit) the css properties specified in the div surrounding the desired three lines of text—surely this is a bug rather than a feature…

The one way I found to get the normal previously expected result (and suppress the unwanted paragraph tags) was quite circuitous and undesirable:

wikitext

HTML

appearance

<pre style="background:none; border:none; margin:0px !important; padding:0px !important; font-family:sans-serif !important;">
Foo
Bar
Baz
</pre>

<pre style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; border: medium none; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important; font-family: sans-serif ! important;">Foo
Bar
Baz
</pre>

Foo
Bar
Baz

What can we do to fix this? Also, the third column of the first row has extra top-margin/padding of unknown origin and which I can’t seem to make go away. ―cobaltcigs 01:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

In wikitext, single linebreaks are ignored, because wikitext is not treated as HTML. So the result is to be expected. The extra top and bottom margin is because of the inserted  tags, on which pre-wrap again has its intended effect. I see no bugs here. — Edokter • Talk • 01:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

For wiki-text which resembles actual html not to be treated as actual html is a bug in itself, I’d argue.

Even ignoring that, why are tags being generated at all (in the absence of a double line-break \n\n where one might expect tags)? ―cobaltcigs 01:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I just tested something, same problem with way too many p tags in there. Definitely needs fixing as it bloats the HTML. access_denied (talk) 02:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

That's just how wiki markup works; it encloses each paragraph with a ... set, seperating them where two linebreaks occur, or after a header. Remember that wiki markup is quite a different beast then HTML, and people often confuse the two, expecting similair behaviour. — Edokter • Talk • 02:11, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Neither of those cases describe the situation above. In any case I’d like some reliable way to prevent this from happening. ―cobaltcigs 02:37, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

There isn't. Wikitext != HTML. — Edokter • Talk • 13:59, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The issue is a red herring, it's only inserted there because <div> is supposed to have block content. If you replace it with a , no is generated, but it still does not work:

Foo Bar Baz

The reason is that the wiki parser has no idea that the content of the is supposed to have pre-formatted line breaks, and normalizes these line breaks to ordinary spaces. No amount of CSS/HTML trickery can undo that. As Edokter says, it's wikitext, not HTML, and it can't be expected to behave like HTML.—Emil J. 14:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that, but surely leaving these line-breaks for the browser to normalize into spaces (if and only if appropriate) would create fewer problems.

I find it unfortunate that the only way to get the desired result (without manipulating each line) to use a <pre> tag whilst remembering to counteract site-wide default CSS properties of same. Also it has the effect of disabling (i.e. nowiki-fying) any markup inside the tag, which cannot be avoided even using the optional {{#tag:pre|…|style=…}} syntax. Example:

wikitext

HTML

appearance

{{#tag:pre|[[Foo]]
'''Bar'''
<span style="color:red;">Baz</span>| style=border:none; background:none; margin:0px !important; padding:0px !important; font-family:sans-serif !important;}}

<pre style="border: medium none; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important; font-family: sans-serif ! important;">[[Foo]]
'''Bar'''
<span style="color:red;">Baz</span>
</pre>

[[Foo]]
'''Bar'''
<span style="color:red;">Baz</span>

I guess I could wrap each line in an appropriately styled <div> tag in some cases as seen below:

wikitext

HTML

appearance (pretty damn good)

<div style="line-height:1.1em;">[[Foo]]</div>
<div style="line-height:1.1em;">'''Bar'''</div>
<div style="line-height:1.1em;"><span style="color:red;">Baz</span></div>

<div style="line-height: 1.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo" title="Foo" class="mw-redirect">Foo</a></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.1em;"><b>Bar</b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.1em;"><span style="color: red;">Baz</span></div>

Foo

Bar

Baz

I noticed using ’s is sloppier still because the parser again wants to inject a bunch of tags (even with only single line-breaks) which are bad because the over-rides the specified line-height, among other things.

And unfortunately none of these strategies will work if the lines to be formatted are input from a single template parameter. I suppose some kind of .split('\n') string-function could address that if it existed, but it would be nice if we had a generally feasible work-around. Thanks for being patient whilst I explain this more clearly. ―cobaltcigs 21:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I just read this entire thread and have no idea what you're actually trying to do. You're giving lots of test cases, but unless you explain what it is that you're trying to accomplish, we can't tell you how to accomplish it. If you want a line break, just leave an empty line. Also, unless MW has some really weird sitewide CSS, p tags cannot block CSS inheritance because CSS doesn't work that way. The only way to block CSS is to override it with more specific CSS. Unless the site has some sort of CSS rule applying to all paragraphs (which would be very odd but might be the case here, I haven't checked), those p tags are completely irrelevant. Someone else already said to use span instead of div if you don't want p tags anyway. --NYKevin @202, i.e. 03:51, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

IRC channels lagging?

Hello, all. I am currently watching #wikipedia-en-spam on irc.freenode.net. The latest revisions being reported on in the IRC channel are around RID 402556034. At the same time, Recent Changes has RIDs in the 402629855 range. Thus, it would seem the IRC channel is some 70,000 revisions behind. This can't mean good things for the bots (XLinkBot) listening in on this channel. I planned to use it for a similar purpose -- but this delay is a quite large one. Is it normally like this, or is this a technical error that needs to be investigated? Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 02:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

You should just directly use the Wikimedia irc RC channels, at irc.wikimedia.org. /ƒETCH COMMS / 17:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course there are the general/official project feeds. However, the link-specific one I mentioned is not hosted on irc.wikimedia.org, is it? Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 18:19, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

User ID

Can someone please tell me what the purpose/significance is of the "User ID" number found in 'My preferences'? -- œ ^™ 04:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

It's the primary key for the user table in MediaWiki. It doesn't have any practical uses for normal users these days except for bragging rights, but IIRC it was needed to log in to Wikipedia in 2002. Graham87 05:42, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 3#User ID number. Apparently it can also be used by stewards when changing usernames, rather than typing the name out in full. Graham87 05:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Works a bit like revision IDs and attributes edits to a certain username in Special:Contributions for MediaWiki. Mainly for developer use, though. (And see the Steward handbook for renaming users via their user ID info, per above.) :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 05:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

So by "bragging rights" you mean if they have a lower number that means they've been around longer? Is it assigned in order of user account creation? where User ID #1 would be the very first account created? -- œ ^™ 06:56, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, to all of your questions directly above. Killiondude (talk) 07:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

With the caveat that the person with the user ID of 1 was the first user to create an account under the Phase II software, not in Wikipedia overall. As for the system used under UseModWiki, see this comment by Jimbo Wales. Graham87 08:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, in the UseModWiki era, the procedure for logging in did require the user ID number. See the Wikipedia FAQ on the Nostalgia Wikipedia, under the question "How do I keep from getting new user numbers every time I use a different machine? ...". Graham87 08:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

So who was user number 1 then? number 2? 3? How do we look up a user by User ID number? -- œ ^™ 08:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The earliest one I've found so far was User:JimboWales and he was #479, you'd think that one out of all users would be closer to #1 .. -- œ ^™ 08:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

See the archived discussion that I linked; the user with ID #1 is Damian Yerrick,. I don't know of a way to look up a user by user ID number; you'd need a Toolserver account for that. Graham87 09:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks, œ ^™ 13:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Oddly enough, I was browsing through archive.org's copies of the earliest pages on Wikipedia, and found this page which talks about User IDs from a tech standpoint (not too in-depth, but perhaps enough to gain some insight as to how it previously worked). Killiondude (talk) 08:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Deprecated HTML in editing toolbar

<b> --> <span style="font-weight:bold;">

<i> --> <span style="font-style:italic;">

<s> --> <span style="text-decoration:line-through;">

<small> --> <span style="font-size:(I do not know the exact percentage value);">

The Media-wiki parser will need an update to fix the conversion of bold and italic wikimarkup. The others will need updating in the toolbar. Anyway, it is important to get these updated before HTML5 is rolled out fully in the major broswers to avoid serious HTML compatibility issues. A bot, maybe? access_denied (talk) 03:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

None of those elements are deprecated in HTML5, they're all included in the working draft as they all have semantic value that isn't conveyed by CSS. <big>, <center>, , and <tt> are deprecated. Regardless, browsers are likely to continue to support these indefinitely. Mr.Z-man 03:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

From the HTML elements article,

<strike>…</strike> (deprecated) and <s>…</s> (deprecated)

    Strike-through text (Strikethrough), (Equivalent CSS: {text-decoration: line-through})
    STRIKE was standardised in HTML 3.2; deprecated in HTML 4.0 Transitional; invalid in HTML 4.0 Strict.
    S is deprecated in HTML 4.0 Transitional (having not appeared in any previous standard), and is invalid in HTML 4.0 Strict.

access_denied (talk) 03:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't trust everything you read on Wikipedia! /ƒETCH COMMS / 17:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It looks as if it was just recently re-added to the HTML5 spec. Mr.Z-man 06:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

"Deprecated" does not mean "this won't work in future" - it means "there are better ways of doing this, use those instead, because we'll put enhancements/bugfixes into the new methods but not the deprecated ones". --Redrose64 (talk) 00:39, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

From the same: "deprecation may indicate that the feature will be removed in the future". OrangeDog (τ • ε) 17:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

In any case, the editing toolbar produces Wikitext, not HTML; if there is deprecated HTML there, the parser can handle it. Ucucha 20:37, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Overbite redirects to Talk:Overbite (disambiguation)

Overbite and Overbite (disambiguation) both exist, but I'm unable to edit Talk:Overbite without it redirecting me to Talk:Overbite (disambiguation). What up with that? Maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but I feel like there's some sort of redirect muddle. Thank you. I always look forward to hearing from the Wikipedia gods/intelligentsia! :) Mrtea (talk) 20:25, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Deleted the redirect at Talk:Overbite; feel free to recreate it with more useful content. Ucucha 20:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I've restored the edit, because there's no reason for it to be deleted now. In the future, if you need to edit a redirect, click the link in the "redirected from ..." notice at the top of the page. Graham87 04:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

External links not indicated

Resolved

Is this a glitch, or should the external links in the following templates be indicated? I haven't really looked to see why they're not (probably class/css "mbox-text"), but is this the expected behavior...it seems it could cause some security issues?

^[10]^[1] Main Page Main Page Goog l e M i crosoft

^[11]^[2] Main Page Main Page Goog l e M i crosoft

^ 1
^ 1

Smallman12q (talk) 23:33, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

{{dmbox}} and {{imbox}} both have the plainlinks class on them, which suppresses external link icons. So yes, this is expected behaviour. Happy‑melon 00:04, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know that they could be suppressed. Thanks!Smallman12q (talk) 12:28, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Twinkle not recognising user talk page redirects

See this diff. Twinkle ignored the redirect, adding the message to the wrong page. Can Twinkle be fixed to stop this happening? DuncanHill (talk) 14:51, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Template help (dabbing)

{{Infobox minister office}} is causing problems when the jurisdiction field has an ambiguous value entered. I've noticed it with Victoria, which I am trying to disambiguate to Victoria (Australia). Now, while entering Victoria (Australia) in the jurisdiction field produces the correct link, it displays in the infobox as Victoria (Australia), which is not ideal. Adding wikilinks and a pipe looks even worse (the square brackets shew up in bold in the infobox). Can anyone help fix the template? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 15:36, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

You can see what I mean at User:DuncanHill/sandbox. DuncanHill (talk) 15:50, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) How about this:

|jurisdiction=Victoria (Australia}{{!}}Victoria

Make sure you set |minister=prime, and leave |border= blank (or at least, anything other than |border=parliamentary). --Redrose64 (talk) 16:00, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Have put it in your sandbox. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:14, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I wasn't planning on doing anything to the minister or border fields, just trying to fix dablinks. DuncanHill (talk) 16:20, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

PDF Crop

Health insurance coverage type in US
Poverty demographic in US

Why do the thumbnails for the cropped pdfs in Commons:Category:P60-238 appear like this? When you click on the pdf, the crop appears fine. (I tried converting in inkscape to svg, but it kept giving me a malformed xml file so I just cropped the graphs out of the pdf.)Smallman12q (talk) 12:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Bug filed Template:Bug.Smallman12q (talk) 16:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

My editnotice

I recently modified my editnotice, and it displays correctly on that page. But when I go to edit my talk page, the entire page is displayed in Mistral. Is there anything wrong code-wise, or is it a bug? I'm using the latest version of Firefox with the latest version of Mac OS X Snow Leopard. ~Nerdy Science Dude 18:48, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

It has a similar behavior with MobileSafari on iOS version 3.1.3. It probably isn't a browser problem. ~Nerdy Science Dude 19:29, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Not a MediaWiki or browser bug: it's an imbalance in the HTML markup. For every opening tag, there must be a matching closing tag (except for certain self-closing tags, the only one of which you have used is  ). Further, they must nest and not overlap: that is,  is permitted, but  is not. Disregarding these overlaps (of which there are, I think, three or four), I count the following imbalances:

<div> exceeds </div> by 1
 exceeds  by 1 (what might have confused you is that there is an additional  hidden inside a comment tag )
<big> exceeds </big> by 1
</code> exceeds <code> by 1

The last one won't show up: closing a tag that was never opened has a do-nothing effect, but it's not clean HTML. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

With the help of the W3C HTML Validator, I was able to fix it. Yes, the problem was the nesting, and it seems that HTML Tidy (that tries to "clean up" the invalid HTML) is run after the editnotice is inserted into its proper place on the edit screen rather than before. Am I correct? PleaseStand ^(talk) 19:40, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Cleaned it up a bit more, the HTML was hurting me physically. :D —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:18, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

{{W3C validation}} can be handy for this. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:46, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Much better. Thanks for fixing it! ~Nerdy Science Dude 00:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

While we're here, could someone take a look at the Christmas message on my talk page and figure out why it's breaking my colored background? ~Nerdy Science Dude 16:57, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Done... - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Books Ngram Viewer

The dataset compilations backing Google's Ngram Viewer are freely downloadable into Wikipedia and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.[12] Ngram Viewer's output phrase over time graphs and phrase comparisons over time graphs would make great additional to many Wikipedia articles. For example, if I were to add the template {{Ngramviewer}} to the Macedonia (terminology) article, the graph now at here would appear in the article by using Wikipedia's dataset. Wiktionary probably could use such graphs as well. Would someone please download the datasets backing Google's Ngram Viewer into Wikipedia and write a script that mines the data to output a graph for display in an article? Thanks. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 11:53, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

There doesn't seem much point, as we can link to the graphs just as you have done and take screenshots if necessary. It's also not of much encyclopedic value, as the corpus is only those books that are on Google Books, rather than any standardised set. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 16:48, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Talk pages redlinks and actual content

See also: WP:BOTREQ#Deleting old Wildbot pages Yobot blanked

You know what would be great? It would be great if it could be made so that a link to a talk page remained red if the only content was those wikiproject banners. Then you could tell at a glance when looking at, say, an npov template, whether actual discussion was going on or not. It would be more accurate, more helpful, and in general great. I'm not sure whether this could even be implemented, but if it could, that would be great. ☻☻☻Sithman VIII !!☻☻☻ 02:41, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Or perhaps even something else, as red would probably get people to check if there IS a banner... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:07, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

You could write a Javascript gadget to do that I guess. It would double your pageviews, but if you have the article assessment script running, then that does a similar thing, so perhaps build it into that. The Mediawiki software itself cannot do this. It is content agnostic. A banner is content, wether or not we agree with that. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:23, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Best if we could show the total number of section and their average size. Unfortunately, all section features in MediaWiki are hackish. — Dispenser 19:26, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Even if it couldn't be implemented into MediaWiki, it would still be nice if there was a script for it that could be copied and pasted. Or even better, a gadget that could be disabled if, say, one was working on bannering talk pages. ☻☻☻Sithman VIII !!☻☻☻ 20:38, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

One method (that is hackish, not reliable and has side-effects) would be to set the stub threshold in your preferences (on the Appearance tab). This causes all links to pages with less than

x

bytes to appear differently. Svick (talk) 19:44, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Chemistry template

I have discovered a serious problem with Template:Chem, it is providing the WRONG chemical formulas to those using IE6. This is not just a simple "doesn't look nice". For instance

{{chem|SO|4|2-}}

should render to show the "2-" as a superscript, but instead does not show it at all.

SO²⁻
₄ - how the template renders in your browser

SO₄^2- - what it should show

SO₄ - what it shows in IE6

Thus, wikipedia is showing the wrong chemical formulas to a large number of readers. Of course, I have reported this on the template's talk page, but this was originally reported April 2010 and it is still not fixed. In my opinion, this is a major error affecting hundreds (if not thousands) of pages and must be fixed.

Apparently, this was broken in Template_talk:Su in 2008 and never fixed.Q Science (talk) 22:19, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I have worked on {Convert}, so I was able to decode the multi-nested, hash-named subtemplates under Template:chem (without lapsing into "template-psychosis"). The superscript output for parameter {3} is supposed to occur in Template:Su as parameter {p}, but only the subscript output for parameter {2} as {b} is appearing as "₄". As a quick fix, I can edit Template:Su to display parameter {p} as a superscript in typical wiki-format:

{{{p|super}}}

Using the font-size as 98% will match the font size of the subscript "4" which seems like a logical fix. The result will appear as: SO
₄^2-. Does that seem reasonable? WAIT, see below. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:06, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Someone else has devised a way to get vertically-aligned superscripts & subscripts, in all browsers, as developed in Template:SubSup, using a line-break with up-down vertical alignment:

{SubSup|x |4|2-} → x 2-
4 -or- {SubSup||4|2-} → 2-
4

The markup coding for up-down alignment is the following:

{{{3}}} {{{2}}}}}

I can change Template:Su to use that type of logic, and provide support for both IE6 and the newer browsers. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

You have my support, but just be sure it works everywhere :) (It does work in my IE6) Q Science (talk) 05:44, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Tested OK in IE6 & Firefox - I was able to confirm that the superscript "2-" from {su} appears in both browsers, but IE6 does not shift the text for options to align at right or center, while Firefox handled all options. Within 45 minutes, Template:Su was hacked by inserting newlines and incorrect parameter names, but some re-hack fixes were made. This is a danger in changing a Wikipedia page: (let sleeping dogs lie) a page can be left unchanged for 4 months with errors, but when someone corrects it for a 2-year error, then others might decide to start hacking and cause numerous other problems. Typically, we wait to see how many people will hack a changed page, and then wait for activity to settle, when we might perhaps start a consensus debate (with other active editors) if the latest changes are incompatible with expected results. Hopefully, the hacking will soon subside, and the template can be tested further in the illusion of being a "stable" template. If disputes arise, then we could stop using that template and just hard-code the superscript logic where the template had been used. Trying to create a variation of a template to allow major improvements can awaken a dreadful "forked-template-deletion" debate, where the forkers typically win the argument and get the massively-improved template exterminated in favor of preventing changes to the original erroneous template, and hence, the hard-coding of results (where the template was formerly used) is typically the best option. It is easier to hard-code results into 500 pages, than trying to explain how another template (even used for 10 months) has better features to survive a deletion debate: WP:TfD discussions are too nebulous and cannot focus on each sub-decision which proves the better overall decision. This inability to weigh the rational benefits of new templates could escalate to all related templates, so in the end, you might need to just hard-code the correct chemical formulas (like "SO₄^2-") and bypass formula templates which cannot be fixed in the wiki-bureaucracy. Hopefully, disputes will not reach that level, but that is a plan to get the formulas corrected (which was your original concern). -Wikid77 (talk) 11:45, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The current version of the template is broken in Konqueror. X^b
_a shows as Xa (with almost no shifting of the subscript) with b displayed way above them (it's roughly as if b was on the previous line).—Emil J. 14:41, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for checking the results. Let's continue this at Template_talk:Su to modify the template with a solution which looks balanced in more browsers. Perhaps we just need to slightly shift the alignment now. -Wikid77 15:46, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

What's going on with this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Quantumor&oldid=403342350 I ran into this while dealing with an SPI I have no idea why this was caused, shouldn't it only deal with the wikitext area. Anybody else have ideas as to how this kind of disruptive page could be stopped? I had to edit it by manually editing the url. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 23:52, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It's the fixed positioning combined with a high z-index, which allows divs to cover the entire screen. I don't know of any way to easily fix this (even the CSS div#bodyContent * { position: static !important; }, which breaks templates, can be overridden.) I suppose you are asking for position: fixed; to be blacklisted in MediaWiki? PleaseStand ^(talk) 00:20, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Nope. Just haven't ever dealt with position :fixed so I didn't know that was what was causing it. My css skills are lacking. I don't think there is an inherent way to fix it, but you really ought to be able to edit a page such as this by clicking a button... NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 00:24, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

That is not the solution; many templates rely on fixed positioning. It may be annoying, but it doesn't warrant blocking fixed positioning alltogether. — Edokter • Talk — 00:26, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Same thing I was thinking: that any such drastic change would break templates. So if one doesn't want to type in the edit or history page URL manually, there's always alt-shift-h (or its equivalent in browsers other than Firefox)... PleaseStand ^(talk) 00:47, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I was able to get around that just fine with accesskeys. I'm on Safari for Mac, so a simple control-option-E got me to the edit screen and control-option-V got me to the Show Changes screen. (the last step isn't necessary if you have the "Show preview on initial edit" preference turned off) Wasn't hard. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:32, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps an edit filter to detect instances of people adding divs with a large z-index and position:fixed? /ƒETCH COMMS / 13:55, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

If you want to edit the page like this, you should simply disable CSS in your browser. In FF it is View -> Page Style -> No Style. Ruslik_Zero 19:38, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

How do you delete your wikipedia account and images you have uploaded

I joined wikipedia in around 2004?

I made up a profile and made a couple of edits. But I made the mistake of using my email handle as my username on wiki. Now, when someone googles for my email id, my images and information comes up. How do I prevent this?

Thanks, Anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.106.225.50 (talk) 20:13, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

You can't have it deleted, but you can have it renamed to something else. Anomie ⚔ 21:10, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

See WP:CHU for that. And you can request your old userpage be deleted with {{db-u1}}. --T H F S W (T · C · E) 21:18, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that WP:RTV may also be relevant. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:23, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the only way to completely fix the problems with the images would be to delete them and re-upload them under a different username, AFAIK. Graham87 01:12, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Does a rename not take care of it there too? It seems to, judging by the fact that an arbitrary user was renamed on 2010-12-06, and a file uploaded 2010-05-17 is attributed to the new username. Or are you referring to something else? Anomie ⚔ 03:50, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

A rename would be sufficient to take care of the images. If they're on Commons, however, a separate request would need to be made. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:05, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

My apologies, you're both right. Graham87 07:14, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

So I think meta:Steward requests/Username changes would be your best bet if you simply want a rename, or WP:RTV if you want to disappear forever. --T H F S W (T · C · E) 18:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

That Meta page is only for renames on projects without bureaucrats. Assuming the IP editor is talking about enwiki (hence bringing it up here), the Meta page wouldn't apply. WP:CHU/S is the way to go, as renaming would be sufficient at RTV is overkill for the core idea of what they're asking for (just to not have their email address associated with the edits). EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:05, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Italics in ToC

Has anyone considered using italics in the table of contents, for cases when the section headings (or part of them) are titles which should be italicized? I note that we now allow italics for article titles, so perhaps we could do it for the table of contents as well. Unlike the article title, this should be possible to do automatically, by simply not stripping any italicization when generating the ToC. Thoughts? Has this been discussed before? I tried searching but couldn't find any previous discussions about this. --Mepolypse (talk) 17:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Thoughts? To clarify, I'm proposing that MediaWiki be changed to do this automatically. --Mepolypse (talk) 19:38, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

We apparently already have something to pass through the and tags. Anyway, you (or something else) should filing a bug in bugzilla. — Dispenser 21:09, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Go for it. I think it's a really annoying asthetical oversight, myself. --Dorsal Axe 21:20, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

and were passed through after bugzilla:8393. It could be reopened with an italics request. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:45, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't reopen bugs that are fixed. Open NEW bugs please. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:58, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, sounds like this should be filed as a new bug in Bugzilla. Apparently you need a different login for Bugzilla, and the account creation page warns that this will expose my e-mail address, which I don't want to do. Does anyone with an existing Bugzilla account mind filing a new bug with a link to this thread? Thanks in advance. --Mepolypse (talk) 22:09, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Despite this being a rather loud complaint there are no bugs for a Bugzilla SUL/CentralAuth/Unified login system. — Dispenser 22:45, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

So what we want now is for someone with a Bugzilla account to file two bugs. :-) --Mepolypse (talk) 01:06, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Ping. --Mepolypse (talk) 08:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Ping. --Mepolypse (talk) 21:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, see bugzilla:14487. ―cobaltcigs 09:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

(←) Bugzilla is, as the name suggests, a Mozilla product, not a Wikimedia project. It expects people to be registered via email, and I doubt any of these will happen:

The developers fork or patch bugzilla to avoid the email thing (unrealistic, effort required is way out of proportion)
Mozilla adds such capabilities itself (who else would use them?)
Wikipedia starts handing out @wikimedia.org email addresses (even just forwarding addresses) to users to conceal their privacy from bugzilla.

So unfortunately, I can see no way the developers will fix this. The other problem (italics in ToC) can be filed by anyone who is willing to (optionally) get a free email address and sign up for bugzilla. Gmail and Hotmail both hand out free email addresses, so why not get one? --NYKevin @974, i.e. 22:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Those services expect the user to provide their real name, forcing the user to either expose their identity, or lie and fill in bogus info. Couldn't we just create a single e-mail address like anon-bugzilla@wikimedia.org that can be used as a shared login? Users using that address wouldn't get the benefit of e-mail updates from Bugzilla, but they would be able to file bugs. Or even better, some sort of web front-end to Bugzilla that filed bugs using such a generic e-mail address but noted the Wikipedia username in the bug summary. --Mepolypse (talk) 23:17, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

No, submitters that cannot be contacted, are not available to additional questions from the developers. The email address is requested for a reason, many people don't know how to write understandable requests and thus need to be contacted. I'm personally totally against the whole idea of using italics in MediaWiki titles and headers, so I'm not personally filing this. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:42, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Before a feature request is made you should try using a template in combination with a style rule in MediaWiki:Common.css. Look for <table id="toc" class="toc"> when viewing the source code of this page. – Allen4names 03:36, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Using a template how exactly? To clarify, what I'm proposing is that MediaWiki would recognize the italicization in subheadings such as ==''Lost'' episodes== and automatically italicize that word in the ToC, making it say Lost episodes rather than Lost episodes (which has a different meaning). I don't see how a template could do that. --Mepolypse (talk) 22:59, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

AFAICT, this never did get done, now submitted as bugzilla:26375. GDonato (talk) 15:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Super, thanks! --Mepolypse (talk) 01:42, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

On wiki google book referencing tool

I've long wished for something this tool http://reftag.appspot.com/ in which you can paste the url of a google book source into it and it immediately provides you with a drawn up tag in whichh you can paste into the article. Given that the wikipedia designers change to vector was based on "useability" and the increasing discussion about the importance of adding more reliable sources to wikipedia I wonder why the wiki folk didn't think of that one. Yes they thought of the individual entry paramters but not an automatic one like this. Any editor newbie or advanced should be able to access this tool to increase the rate and efficiency in which they can improve wikipedia. I think this is an extrmeely important tool, but I'm used to getting my head buried in the sand by the people who have the power to makes things happen on here and my ideas pushed aside. I do hope somebody will see this and try to get it introduced.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe its in the wp:RefToolbar wp:gadget. I also wrote a similar tool for about a dozen sites called autowikicite. Nobody seems interested, so I'm not doing much with it atm.Smallman12q (talk) 23:31, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

There's also another such gadget called ProveIt, which has been recently added. But as for something automatic, I think the WMF developers would be reluctant to implement it because then we would be dependent on Google's servers. PleaseStand ^(talk) 00:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

There is also User:Citation bot which expands {{cite doi}}. This could be another interesting project for that bot, say changing a dummy {{cite isbn}} to a full book reference. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:47, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The thing is these tools could really go great lengths to improve wikipedia. I added much more sources than I'd normally have time for to expand Saukorem yesterday. It is a massive help to me and it may encourage people to add more references. But these tools wer enot even apparent to me let alone casual wikipedia users/newbies.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:55, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Limit sources or get a book: Try to list a small variety of sources per article, then edit the next article: few articles really need many sources. In fact, they are a grave danger: when the Amanda Knox case got "solved" with "200 sources" then the article attracted deletionists to hack the text. After checking numerous sources, our legal experts (now gone) found no credible forensic evidence against Knox, and no sober eyewitnesses, and also refuted 30 tabloid rumors of suspicion. Several sources even confirmed, due to lack of evidence, the case could not have gone to trial in the U.S. (all done, end of story?). Well, when people saw the huge article with massive sources, they were able to argue "article-too-big" as inspiration to a gang of deletionists, who began a massive year-long hatchet job removing sources and all related details until the article became mush: "Some claim there is no evidence, but several others disagree" as if it were a mere matter of opinion, rather than a true lack of evidence and zero eyewitnesses. Legal experts had thought if every phrase in the article had 3 sources, anyone could see there was no real evidence against Knox (or her boyfriend Sollecito), while 99.9% of evidence and witnesses pointed to the other guy, and hence that explained why some Americans are outraged she is still on trial in Perugia. To lawyers, it seemed the perfect article: all issues clarified, all rumors refuted. However, a huge list of sources inflames some people to hack an article down to a stub. Instead, perhaps collect a separate list of sources, then make it a subpage like Talk:Zzzz/sources. If people claim the article text cannot be verified, then point them into the "/sources" subpage, but keep the article limited to a fraction of the total sources.
For a Google Books entry, all a reader typically needs is 5 items: title, author, date, pages & weblink. Trim a URL to just id, pg (or lpg), as follows:

"Save the temples of the Nile - Apr 1961", 1961, p.95, web: http://books.google.com/books?id=et8DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95.

In the Books.Google link, the "PA95" refers to page 95. Also, beware those massive {Cite} templates which use the gigantic {Citation/core}: some articles code all references as {cite} templates with the result that the article content is 95% huge {citation} template coding and perhaps 5% real text! All those sources should instead be listed on an external talk-subpage, such as Talk:XX/sources, not bloating an article to be 10x-20x times larger than the actual text. One editor was even frustrated when I tried to reduce a source with 7 authors to 4. At some point, address the question: "Is this article so full of ultra-detailed sources that the readers should just get a book?" Think in terms of page-edit-logistics: all the conniptions about the sources often create massive overhead in Wikipedia, when a simple, separate page summarizing the key sources would provide answers to the minor few who care about sources. Don't just take my word for it: read template {{Citation/core}} and see all the 25kb of rabid, technical busy-work to merely list a title, authors, date and page. Meanwhile, many important articles have almost zero sources listed. -Wikid77 08:22, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Referencing is essential to verifying material in content disputes. References are the basis of Wikipedia.Smallman12q (talk) 14:20, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

It would be nice if we had a tool that would trim this stuff automatically. On a related note, we often cite search results on talk pages, and for some time, they are commonly broken in MediaWiki (see for example the broken links here). Any ideas how and when this can be fixed? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 14:25, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Problem with an SVG picture

See "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk#Problem_with_svg_picture". To my understanding this must be a WIKI software bug!

Stamcose (talk) 09:21, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Try bypassing your cache, then give us browser/OS details. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 10:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I fixed it about 15 min. ago, see the difference at File:Catenary 4.svg#filehistory. rsvg can’t handle trailing spaces in the fill/stroke color attributes, so they had defaulted to black. ―cobaltcigs 10:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, now it is fine. Thanks!

Stamcose (talk) 16:51, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Padleft problems with star/colon

I just noticed the {{padleft:}} parser function is treating a leading star ("*") or colon (":") in a string, as being bullet-indent and colon-indent markup triggers. A value of "*aabb" is interpreted as bullet-indent of "aabb". Does anyone know how to turn-off the indentation of star/colon within padleft (or in padright)? They are generating a newline before the output text ":*ddee". Examples:

1a. "{{padleft:|4|*aabb}}" → "

aab"

1b. "{{padleft:|5|:wwxx}}" → "

wwxx"

1c. "{{subst:padleft:|4|:*ddee}}" → "

dd"

1d. "{{padright:|5|:*mmnn}}" → "

mmn"

1e. {{nowrap|"{{padright:|5|:*mmnn}}"}} → "

mmn"

There's no hurry on answering this, just curious. -Wikid77 14:24, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

This is Template:Bug, which is directly caused by the "fix" for Template:Bug. There is no way to turn it off. It happens with basically every template or parser function. Anomie ⚔ 16:23, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This strikes me as worthy of a bug report, if there isn't one already. In the mean time, you can use * for * and : for : to prevent the indentation triggering. Dragons flight (talk) 16:29, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the ideas. I am thinking to prepend a space-code &#32, then increase the string length as n+5 (+" ") and return a string with the leading blank (prepended before "*" or ":"):

To extract 5 from "*abcde", {padleft:|10| *abcde} → *abcd

Using that logic, at least, it appears to handle stars/colons at the start of a string. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:46, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Change the style of the list in page history

I would like to change the list in "page history" from an unordered list (ul) to an ordered list (ol), by using javascript in my vector.js page. To be more specific, I want to replace <ul id="pagehistory"> and </ul> with <ol id="pagehistory"> and </ol>. Unfortunately I failed to do so after several trials. Can somebody who knows javascript help me?--Quest for Truth (talk) 14:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Use pure CSS:

#pagehistory { list-style-type:decimal; list-style-image: none; }

You also might add margin-left:2.75em; to allow space for 3–4 digit line-numbers. ―cobaltcigs 17:31, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! It does what I want.--Quest for Truth (talk) 01:02, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Alternatives to Template:Str find

I am looking for a better alternative to {{Str find}} which allows the search of the entire string and doesn't explode the post-expand include size and template argument size limits to kingdom come. Unfortunately, even using this template a to check for invalid infobox parameters is causing some pages to break, like Naruto. —Farix (t | c) 14:36, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Template:Bug. You're already looking at the best currently-available system for string examination. Happy‑melon 16:02, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I decided to eliminate 3 of the 7 checks. However, looking at the code for {{Str find}}, it makes repeated calls to a sub-template, which could be eliminated by incorporating the code directly into {{Str find}}. This will drop the post-expand include size and template argument size tremendously each time {{Str find}} is called. —Farix (t | c) 16:11, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

That sounds great. Each non-nested #if or #switch adds +1 towards the 40-depth limit. Using 95 lines of #if, each separately, is just +1; however, when 95 #ifeq's are redone as one #switch, with 95 branches, then that allows matching the most-likely case early, and the remainder of the 95 to be skipped. I think the total branches is less important than the number of them skipped. I've written a #switch with 1,450 branches. Otherwise, for 95 repeated #if's then they all get tediously checked.
HEY, allow validate=off - I just remembered, if you can spare one more of the tiny 40-depth limit, then allow the infobox to have "validate=off" to skip all the excess validation (perhaps keep some simple validations). Using that idea, 99% of those articles can default to validate=on, but handle rare nesting problems by setting validate=off. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:00, revised 18:17, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
- I think I found the primary problem. The fact was that one of the templates was passing a very long string though the parameter being checked (over 1,700 bytes before parsing and 10,000 bytes after). This just caused things to explode as {{Str find}} passes the string on to {{Str find/logic}} which then passes it on to {{Str left}} at least 100 times. It wouldn't take long before the 2,048,000 byte limit was reached. Perhaps the best way to handle this is to truncate the string to the first 50 characters before {{Str find}} passes it on to {{Str find/logic}}. Since the template can't check anything beyond that, there is no need to pass on anything else. The same technique should be apply to {{Str find long}} as well, but with 80 characters. —Farix (t | c) 03:03, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Database error at Help Desk

Could someone technical have a look at this thread at the Help Desk? Thanks. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:51, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Link Incorrect in Thank You, State Library of Queensland Notice

The "Thank You, State Library of Queensland" Site?? Notice links to the current Wikipedia page when I am not logged in (I can't see the notice when I am logged in, probably due to my preferences). It should be linked to the press release or something similar. I couldn't find the source page for the notice on Wikipedia. I am using Google Chrome 8.0.552.224. twilsonb (talk) 20:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it's only shown to Australian IP addresses. I assume it's deliberately linking to a donation page and not a PDF press release. I investigated what the notice was after a post at Wikipedia:Help desk#State Library of Queensland. For me, the notice at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?banner=20101216_SLQ1 links to http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/WMAU-SLQ1?utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=20101216WMAU&utm_source=20101216_SLQ1&country_code=DK. There I see a suitable donation page which explains what the State Library of Queensland is being thanked for. Which url does it link to for you and which url are you at when it happens? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:37, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Moving over a redirect

Lately it has been impossible to move pages over redirects with only one line of history. Was Trying to move User:Marcus Qwertyus/iPad (original) to iPad (original) but couldn't. I no longer want to move my userspace but that is not the only page I can't move. Marcus Qwertyus 03:16, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

You can't move User:Marcus Qwertyus/iPad (original) over the redirect iPad (original) because iPad (original) doesn't redirect to User:Marcus Qwertyus/iPad (original). Anomie ⚔ 03:55, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Right. SeeWikipedia:Move#Moving over a redirect and WP:CSD#G6. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:45, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Bot edit war at WikiLeaks

As if there wasn't enough controversy with the WikiLeaks article, I've just spotted that WikitanvirBot had been edit-warring with itself over translated article names: see history here. Since there seems to be at least one other bot involved with making changes, can I ask a botologist to take a look-see, and try to settle the virtual debate (or block WikitanvirBot for breaking the 3RR rule...) AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:45, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

This seems to reflect an edit war on the Marathi wikipedia where two editors are changing the article name from English to Marathi.[13] The bot is mearly trying to keep the interwiki links up to date. Also seems like a similar situation is happening on other wikis.--Salix (talk): 07:12, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Doh! So the poor bots are innocent pawns in the struggle, after all. I think we should take care, eventually they may rebel against this senseless trench-warfare and seize control themselves: "The proletarian Bots have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Robot workers of the world, unite!" AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:03, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Then we had better keep a close eye on the John Connor article, in case they attempt to delete it. Reminds me: we don't have an article on Boticide yet - is it spelt with one 't' or two?--Aspro (talk) 13:25, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

deleting .css pages

I want to delete a .css page (User:Breawycker/huggle.css) with {{db-blanked}}, but I don't want to mess up my wikipedia account or anything. What should I do? Breawycker (talk) 18:59, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Done -- Cobi^(t|c|b) 19:45, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Blank line above lead section

I found that the lead section of Leo Ku is one line lower than other articles, as if there is a blank line at the beginning. The {{Contains Chinese text}}, a foreign character warning box, is very likely the cause of the problem because it looks fine if the template is moved below the infobox template. However Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section)#Elements of the lead states that the warning box is "generally after short infoboxes, but before long ones", and obviously the infobox in the article is quite long. Can anyone please fix the locked {{Contains Chinese text}}? --Quest for Truth (talk) 20:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

When three (or more) templates are 'stacked' at the top of the pages, and seperated with linebreaks (as in Leo Ku), Meiawiki will see those linebreaks and insert a paragraph, causing the text to be forced down one line. Simplest solution is to remove one of the linebreaks from the article. — Edokter • Talk — 22:11, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Rick Fox

Why are there no [edit] links next to the sections of the Rick Fox article? I tried putting {{-}} in front of a couple of the sections, but the edit tags still didn't show up. Corvus cornix_talk 21:52, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I moved one of the images and that helped. Corvus cornix_talk 21:55, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm guessing this was the issue at WP:BUNCH. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:27, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

"Updating search index" out of order?

Every search result is dated to the 18 December 2010 or older. Is it possible, that somebody check the bot??? THX --Pitlane02 (talk) 14:38, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello, somebody have to check the search engine, please... The result are older than 7 days now. --Pitlane02 talk 12:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

The search indexer was down, things should get back to normal by tomorrow morning. --rainman (talk) 13:39, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Changing table sort order

Hi, I'm trying to fix the first table in Protestantism by country. The final column, a list of numbers, seems to sort alphabetically, so 80 comes after 800 and the feature is useless. According to Help:Sorting, this ought to sort numerically because it contains only numbers, spaces and a comma. Any help would be appreciated. --188.221.105.68 (talk) 19:52, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The question marks (e.g. in the row about Bahrain) are causing the problem. Either remove them or use {{Number table sorting}}. Graham87 01:24, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Use {{sort|080|80}}. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 10:55, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for those. That's given me a much better idea of how this works. The {{Number table sorting}} and {{sort|080|80}} templates don't seem to affect whether the top row is classed as alphabetical or numeric, only how the thing is sorted. The sort routine considers what's actually in the top row at any moment, which changes with every sort and isn't affected by those templates, so initially the table sorts numerically, but the Bahrain row comes to the top and it switches to alphabetical, then alphabetical again for "unknown" and finally numerical again. Doesn't seem ideal. Is there any way of simply inserting a hidden number before the question marks, which would be much simpler, otherwise I'll try the {{Number table sorting}} method? --188.221.105.68 (talk) 13:55, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Done it. I used ... to add an invisible row. --188.221.105.68 (talk) 14:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Surely it would be more practical to write better javascript which can ignore punctuation if so instructed (and apply other sensitivity rules corresponding to sub-classes of table.sortable). Or at least store the sort-key as some attribute of the table cell rather than as invisible text. ―cobaltcigs 09:47, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The idea is that in MediaWiki 1.18 we will start using the jQuery module from tablesorter.com that does exactly that. So just a few more months. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:11, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Website accessibility outside United States

An editor claimed that a particular website is accessible only to US servers. See discussion here (section CBS Express as a source). I'm in the U.S. Is there a way to verify this assertion?--Bbb23 (talk) 01:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Something like that seems to be true, at least. I get a 403 error when attempting to access http://www.cbspressexpress.com/ directly (with my UK IP address) or via a Canadian proxy, but can access the site via a US proxy. Algebraist 02:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Any idea how this works technically? In other words, what about the CBS server causes this problem?--Bbb23 (talk) 02:15, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been poking around the web on the issue, and it appears that many of the American entertainment sites prevent users from other countries access to certain content on their sites, in particular datastreaming. The website here, which is actually CBS PressExpress, not CBS Express, is apparently not intended to be viewed by anyone, even Americans. I looked at their Terms and Conditions (not something I usually do), and it says that the website is intended only for "authorized" users, apparently CBS employees and pre-authorized press. I guess they don't enforce the authorized part, at least for viewing some things, but they must block non-American IP addresses. Of course, I'm not sure why they do this, but at least I think I understand who's doing what to whom.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Being inaccessible from outside the US doesn't invalidate any web site as a source. We happily accept references to books or journals that are only held by libraries in one country. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:06, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the policy, but in this instance, there was an alternative source that copied the CBS press release verbatim. I felt that using the primary (CBS) source was better, but given the alternative and the fact that non-U.S. users apparently can't access the CBS site, I felt the change was appropriate.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed a source should be publicy available (and thus verifiable), if sought out (if needed by travelling), not necessary readily available. However a closed group (employees only) website would probably not count as publicy available of course. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:14, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

iOS edit toolbar issue

The old edit toolbar is displaying instead of the new one. I'm using an original iPhone with iOS 3.1.3. ~Nerdy Science Dude 16:51, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Happens to me as well on an iPod touch running 4.0 but not an iPad running 4.2. /ƒETCH COMMS / 18:21, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Is there a difference between trying to edit while logged in versus trying to edit while logged out? (directed at both NerdyScienceDude and Fetchcomms) EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:44, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no difference. The old toolbar appears both logged out and logged in. ~Nerdy Science Dude 00:05, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

No difference for me, either. /ƒETCH COMMS / 02:12, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Many of the vector enhancements are explicitely disabled on iOS, due to bugs. bugzilla:22524 seems to have been the most important reason that it was disabled. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:21, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Page title bug

The above displayed on User talk:Hell in a Bucket. ~Nerdy Science Dude 16:43, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

It's because the page contains transclusions of Special pages. That generally messes things up quite badly (I don't know why it isn't simply forbidden, since it's known not to work).--Kotniski (talk) 17:05, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Yep, this is a longstanding bug that has never been coompletely fixed. /ƒETCH COMMS / 18:17, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Off topic: Nice user info script you've got there. That will be useful. Svick (talk) 10:32, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Weird error on loading WP:VPT

I typed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:VPT into my address bar and I got:

Error message

Internal error
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

PPFrame_DOM::expand: Invalid parameter type

Backtrace:

#0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(2733): PPFrame_DOM->expand(Object(PPNode_DOM), 0)
#1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(935): Parser->replaceVariables('????(Redirected...')
#2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(335): Parser->internalParse('????(Redirected...')
#3 [internal function]: Parser->parse('????(Redirected...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions), true, true, NULL)
#4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/StubObject.php(58): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
#5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/StubObject.php(76): StubObject->_call('parse', Array)
#6 [internal function]: StubObject->__call('parse', Array)
#7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/OutputPage.php(1145): StubObject->parse('????(Redirected...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions), true, true, NULL)
#8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(884): OutputPage->parse('????(Redirected...', true, true)
#9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(1121): wfMsgExt('redirectedfrom', Array, '<a href="/enwiki/w/ind...')
#10 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(806): Article->showRedirectedFromHeader()
#11 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(493): Article->view()
#12 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(70): MediaWiki->performAction(Object(OutputPage), Object(Article), Object(Title), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#13 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/index.php(117): MediaWiki->performRequestForTitle(Object(Title), Object(Article), Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#14 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')
#15 {main}

I reloaded the page and it worked. I cannot reproduce this now. Any idea what happened? /ƒETCH COMMS / 19:06, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Uh, oh, I was saving the parking chair article and I got something similar:

Error 2

Internal error
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

PPFrame_DOM::expand: Invalid parameter type

Backtrace:

#0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(2733): PPFrame_DOM->expand(Object(PPNode_DOM), 0)
#1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(518): Parser->replaceVariables('{{editnotice lo...')
#2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(4194): Parser->preprocess('{{editnotice lo...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions))
#3 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/MessageCache.php(674): Parser->transformMsg('{{editnotice lo...', Object(ParserOptions))
#4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(744): MessageCache->transform('{{editnotice lo...')
#5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(707): wfMsgGetKey('editnotice-0', true, true, true)
#6 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(655): wfMsgReal('editnotice-0', Array, true, true)
#7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/EditPage.php(369): wfMsgForContent('editnotice-0')
#8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/EditPage.php(271): EditPage->edit()
#9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(553): EditPage->submit()
#10 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(70): MediaWiki->performAction(Object(OutputPage), Object(Article), Object(Title), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#11 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/index.php(117): MediaWiki->performRequestForTitle(Object(Title), Object(Article), Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#12 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')
#13 {main}

Not sure what's going on here. /ƒETCH COMMS / 19:06, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I got a similar error (I'm afraid I didn't save the backtrace) just now while editing Battle of Nanking. Submitting the identical text again succeeded, so it wasn't an issue with the edit. — Gavia immer (talk) 20:03, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I got a few more of these, randomly (sometimes upon previewing an edit or simply trying to read a page). Reloading always seems to work, though. /ƒETCH COMMS / 21:07, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I've seen this three times in the last half hour, the last a minute ago. The first time accessing my watchlist, the last an article. Reloading each time worked for me. The exact trace is slightly different to the above so here it is:

Error 3

#0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(2733): PPFrame_DOM->expand(Object(PPNode_DOM), 0)
#1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(935): Parser->replaceVariables('{{pp-semi-prote...')
#2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(335): Parser->internalParse('{{pp-semi-prote...')
#3 [internal function]: Parser->parse('{{pp-semi-prote...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions), true, true, 404184523)
#4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/StubObject.php(58): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
#5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/StubObject.php(76): StubObject->_call('parse', Array)
#6 [internal function]: StubObject->__call('parse', Array)
#7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(4024): StubObject->parse('{{pp-semi-prote...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions), true, true, 404184523)
#8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(4006): Article->getOutputFromWikitext('{{pp-semi-prote...', true, Object(ParserOptions))
#9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(1349): Article->outputWikiText('{{pp-semi-prote...', true, Object(ParserOptions))
#10 [internal function]: Article->doViewParse()
#11 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/PoolCounter.php(59): call_user_func(Array)
#12 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(904): PoolCounter_Stub->executeProtected(Array, Array)
#13 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(493): Article->view()
#14 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(70): MediaWiki->performAction(Object(OutputPage), Object(Article), Object(Title), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#15 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/index.php(117): MediaWiki->performRequestForTitle(Object(Title), Object(Article), Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#16 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')
#17 {main}

--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 00:38, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I've got a much bigger and nastier-looking screen of chars like the above while making this edit. I didn't save the error :( But I did notice that instead of Internal Error, its was something like Wikimedia Internal Error, with Wikimedia mentioned a few more times... I can also confirm that it happened on Wikimedia Commons too. Reh man 00:35, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I have had the same garbage as JohnBlackburne, three times in the last hour. In each case it has happened when I tried to save a page, so I have gone back, pressed save again, and all has been fine. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Someone on ANI says that per irc discussion, the devs know about this and are working on it. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 02:07, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I've had an Internal error with a message similar to the above twice in the last few hours. I was looking at turtle articles at the time not VPT or any other notice board. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 02:09, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

It's happened to me at least ten times today. Luckily, when it's happened during an edit, it seems that the edit still goes through regardless, so it's just more of an annoyance more than anything else. Silverseren^C 02:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

This has been filed in the bug tracker under bug 26429. Krinkle (talk) 02:15, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

This is also affecting my stub link colour gadget, and all links are showing up orange. I'm guessing this is because the stub gadget is trying to load these articles and being given one of these internal errors. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 02:38, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I have been getting a few of these errors today as well, but refreshing the page to get it to load worked every time. Maybe if it happens again I will save the error and post it here (like anyone needs yet another error posted here. ;-) X-D). [|Retro00064|☎talk|✍contribs|] 02:52, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I saw a similar error a few times in the last day; both loading pages and committing edits. When attempting to commit an edit, it failed with error message (no changes to history); I reattempted, and it worked. Same thing for attempting to read a page.

Error 4 (committing an edit failed)

Internal error
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
PPFrame_DOM::expand: Invalid parameter type
Backtrace:
#0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(2733): PPFrame_DOM->expand(Object(PPNode_DOM), 0)
#1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(518): Parser->replaceVariables('{{editnotice lo...')
#2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(4194): Parser->preprocess('{{editnotice lo...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions))
#3 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/MessageCache.php(674): Parser->transformMsg('{{editnotice lo...', Object(ParserOptions))
#4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(744): MessageCache->transform('{{editnotice lo...')
#5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(707): wfMsgGetKey('editnotice-0', true, true, true)
#6 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(655): wfMsgReal('editnotice-0', Array, true, true)
#7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/EditPage.php(369): wfMsgForContent('editnotice-0')
#8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/EditPage.php(271): EditPage->edit()
#9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(553): EditPage->submit()
#10 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(70): MediaWiki->performAction(Object(OutputPage), Object(Article), Object(Title), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#11 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/index.php(117): MediaWiki->performRequestForTitle(Object(Title), Object(Article), Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#12 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')
#13 {main}

Error 5 (loading a page failed)

Internal error
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
PPFrame_DOM::expand: Invalid parameter type
Backtrace:
#0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(2733): PPFrame_DOM->expand(Object(PPNode_DOM), 0)
#1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(935): Parser->replaceVariables('{{MedalTableTop...')
#2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(335): Parser->internalParse('{{MedalTableTop...')
#3 [internal function]: Parser->parse('{{MedalTableTop...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions), true, true, 397508042)
#4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/StubObject.php(58): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
#5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/StubObject.php(76): StubObject->_call('parse', Array)
#6 [internal function]: StubObject->__call('parse', Array)
#7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(4024): StubObject->parse('{{MedalTableTop...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions), true, true, 397508042)
#8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(4006): Article->getOutputFromWikitext('{{MedalTableTop...', true, Object(ParserOptions))
#9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(1349): Article->outputWikiText('{{MedalTableTop...', true, Object(ParserOptions))
#10 [internal function]: Article->doViewParse()
#11 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/PoolCounter.php(59): call_user_func(Array)
#12 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(904): PoolCounter_Stub->executeProtected(Array, Array)
#13 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(493): Article->view()
#14 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(70): MediaWiki->performAction(Object(OutputPage), Object(Article), Object(Title), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#15 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/index.php(117): MediaWiki->performRequestForTitle(Object(Title), Object(Article), Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#16 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')
#17 {main}

TheFeds 04:59, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I just got an other one of these error messages when refreshing my watch-list (the first error I have had in a while today). I copied the error messsage, and it is contained below.

Error message 6 (when attempting to refresh my watch-list. Clicking the refresh button in I.E. to try again worked and the watch-list loaded successfully).

Internal error
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
PPFrame_DOM::expand: Invalid parameter type

Backtrace:

#0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(2733): PPFrame_DOM->expand(Object(PPNode_DOM), 0)
#1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(935): Parser->replaceVariables('(for '''Retro00...')
#2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(335): Parser->internalParse('(for '''Retro00...')
#3 [internal function]: Parser->parse('(for '''Retro00...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions), true, true, NULL)
#4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/StubObject.php(58): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
#5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/StubObject.php(76): StubObject->_call('parse', Array)
#6 [internal function]: StubObject->__call('parse', Array)
#7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/OutputPage.php(1145): StubObject->parse('(for '''Retro00...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions), true, true, NULL)
#8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(884): OutputPage->parse('(for '''Retro00...', true, true)
#9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/specials/SpecialWatchlist.php(54): wfMsgExt('watchlistfor', 'parseinline', 'Retro00064')
#10 [internal function]: wfSpecialWatchlist(NULL, Object(SpecialPage))
#11 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/SpecialPage.php(793): call_user_func('wfSpecialWatchl...', NULL, Object(SpecialPage))
#12 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/SpecialPage.php(561): SpecialPage->execute(NULL)
#13 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(254): SpecialPage::executePath(Object(Title))
#14 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(64): MediaWiki->handleSpecialCases(Object(Title), Object(OutputPage), Object(WebRequest))
#15 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/index.php(117): MediaWiki->performRequestForTitle(Object(Title), NULL, Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#16 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')
#17 {main}

--[|Retro00064|☎talk|✍contribs|] 06:30, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Received an internal error while creating a new page

On User_talk:75.210.113.12

PPFrame_DOM::expand: Invalid parameter type

Backtrace:

#0 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(2733): PPFrame_DOM->expand(Object(PPNode_DOM), 0)
#1 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(935): Parser->replaceVariables('{{#switch: {{{c...')
#2 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/parser/Parser.php(335): Parser->internalParse('{{#switch: {{{c...')
#3 [internal function]: Parser->parse('{{#switch: {{{c...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions), true, true, 404269001)
#4 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/StubObject.php(58): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
#5 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/StubObject.php(76): StubObject->_call('parse', Array)
#6 [internal function]: StubObject->__call('parse', Array)
#7 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/OutputPage.php(1145): StubObject->parse('{{#switch: {{{c...', Object(Title), Object(ParserOptions), true, true, 404269001)
#8 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/GlobalFunctions.php(882): OutputPage->parse('{{#switch: {{{c...', true, true)
#9 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/OutputPage.php(2522): wfMsgExt('anontalkpagetex...', Array, Array)
#10 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/OutputPage.php(2510): OutputPage->addWikiMsgArray('anontalkpagetex...', Array)
#11 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(1170): OutputPage->addWikiMsg('anontalkpagetex...')
#12 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Article.php(945): Article->showViewFooter()
#13 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(493): Article->view()
#14 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/includes/Wiki.php(70): MediaWiki->performAction(Object(OutputPage), Object(Article), Object(Title), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#15 /usr/local/apache/common-local/wmf-deployment/index.php(117): MediaWiki->performRequestForTitle(Object(Title), Object(Article), Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
#16 /usr/local/apache/common-local/live-1.5/index.php(3): require('/usr/local/apac...')
#17 {main}

Nakon 08:39, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I have moved this new section here, as it is related to the errors above. Regards. --[|Retro00064|☎talk|✍contribs|] 08:46, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Should be fixed now, according to the tech channel. If anyone still gets a similar error screen, please note it here. Cheers. Bugzilla:26429. Chzz ► 17:57, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Mathematics

The quality of Wikipedia's mathematics is dwindling. Not the content, but the presentation. It is becoming more and more inconsistent in displayed style, which ideally should be entirely consistent. Let me give a rough example of mathematics I see.

Let x∈C be a value such that x²+2x+1 = 0. Let

K=\mathbb {Q} [x]

where

\mathbb {Q}

is the set of rationals. Note that

x

serves as a field extension to ℚ where only linear combinations of numbers of the form

\scriptstyle a{\sqrt {pr+q}}\pm b

exist. We want an δ>0 such that for each ε>0 one has

0<\vert f(x)-L\vert <\delta

.

This example above was just made up on the spot, so ignore the actual math. It should appear, in my opinion, as

Let

x\in \mathbb {C}

be a value such that

x^{2}+2x+1=0

. Let

K=\mathbb {Q} [x]

where

\mathbb {Q}

is the set of rationals. Note that

x

serves as a field extension to

\mathbb {Q}

where only linear combinations of numbers of the form

a{\sqrt {pr+q}}\pm b

exist. We want an

\delta >0

such that for each

\varepsilon >0

one has

0<\vert f(x)-L\vert <\delta

.

The second one might appear uglier, but is far more consistent than the first one. Let me be clear about what the consistencies are. We have...

the use of italic variables (x),
the use of emboldened sets (C),
the use of the math environment ( $x$ ),
the use of Unicode (ℚ), and
the use of \scriptstyle (compare ${\sqrt {ax+b}}$ to $\scriptstyle {\sqrt {ax+b}}$ ).

I am not proclaiming articles are like the first example above with that much inconsistency, but especially from a global point of view on Wikipedia, there is an enormous amount of inconsistency.

Why is consistency important?

Text-based browsers can uniformly deal with tagged data. So can good ol' normal browsers. Wikipedia contributors are blurring the line between style and content — syntax and semantics — which I find to be a grave mistake, especially as an avid LaTeX user. For some things I'm sure it's appropriate, like using quoted markup to indicate emphasized content.
Using a single, consistent notation for mathematics allows for changes to be made to the mathematics easily. Mathematics' style can be scraped, parsed, processed, all that.
It makes reading Wikipedia articles much more pleasing, than seeing 10 different styles for something.

I do my best to try to increase the consistency of pages if I have the time, but I can't alone.

Consistency also helps with this next point: that Wikipedia should start moving away from generating images. Wikipedia probably uses enough processing power on constantly rendering LaTeX markup. At the moment, Wikipedia wants some 16 million USD for server duties and all that. If money is an issue, which it clearly is a concern, then here's a way to decrease server load: don't render the mathematics server-side. Some people don't even like the PNGs and it makes for absolutely awful printing. The book-making feature of Wikipedia is great, until you start having mathematics, in which case you get sloppy, low-resolution output.

MathML is a flop. I don't want to get into any debate about it, but it was designed not by mathematicians nor by typographers. I think, at the moment, the best answer is to use something like MathJax, which does one of two things:

Uses pre-rendered images to typeset mathematics using JavaScript, or
uses native STIX fonts from one's computer to render the mathematics (again, using JavaScript).

MathJax produces absolutely beautiful mathematics by using LaTeX's rendering algorithms, and if one has STIX fonts installed, then one has scalable/vectorized mathematical typesetting suitable for printing. The STIX fonts were designed by mathematicians and typographers, and were designed for the web. Moreover, it is context sensitive. If the color of the font around it changes, so does the color of the mathematics. Same with size and all that. Best of all, it requires about 2 lines of JS at the header of each page, and doesn't require any special mathematics notation; >math< is compatible.

If you want to see an example of MathJax, perhaps see this post on my blog: [14]

—quadrescence 23:52, 25 December 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quadrescence (talk • contribs)

Anything that requires JavaScript is a non-starter for me. Having to install more fonts (STIX) is a non-starter for me. Anything that requires images to render and read is a non-starter for me. I think you need to concentrate more on compatibility and accessibility. HumphreyW (talk) 23:59, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

JavaScript is optional for the user. STIX is optional. Wikipedia requires images right now to render, though surely you can disable it. I think compatibility has been in mind, and the goal is to actually increase accessibility, instead of this hodgepodge of styles we have right now. I hope you actually read what MathJax is. —quadrescence 00:52, 26 December 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quadrescence (talk • contribs)

Someone's got this working on WP. See e.g. Help talk:Displaying a formula#Formulas as SVG?. I had it enabled for a while but disabled it as it was just too slow. It needs to be done server-side to offer acceptable performance with our formulae heavy maths articles, but right now it uses Javascript client-side. There were also problems rendering a few formulae, very few and obscure but the sort of problems that would likely not get fixed until MathJax is officially supported.

And you should not have an external link in your signature, as per WP:SIG#EL. Please stop using it, one link on your user page is enough.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 00:56, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course there will be errors in rendering. People are writing pretty hacky LaTeX on Wikipedia to begin with, precisely to avoid the problems images give. As for performance, one can disable JavaScript if they so wish (or use crappy images as a fallback option). Also, Wikipedia's bot keeps claiming that I'm not signing. Dumb bot. ~~~~ —quadrescence 01:09, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

<offtopic> "Also, Wikipedia's bot keeps claiming that I'm not signing. Dumb bot." That is probably because you are not linking to your user page and talk page. HumphreyW (talk) 01:43, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The bot says you're not signing because you're not doing it correctly. Your signature must include a wikilink to either your userpage or your talk page. Anomie ⚔ 01:44, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Please take the discussion about my signature to the appropriate place. —quadrescence 03:00, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not a server performance thing, it's more about the tension between getting reasonable-looking complicated math (LaTeX) and not wanting to spew PNG's into the browser when the math is simple enough that HTML and Unicode hacks (X_n) are good enough to get it across. I think it would take a pretty big cultural shift to do much different than this. The current mixed approaches is ok for our purposes (communicating content to the reader) even if it's not so elegant for fans of semantic markup. The same thing happens on Mathoverflow, which uses Mathjax. I'm personally not much of a believer in semantic markup for Wikipedia anyway, since Wikipedia is supposed to be a reference work edited by humans for a direct readership of humans. We're not here to be unpaid labor for data miners. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 01:46, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, for reading by humans, on this device called a computer, which happens to vary from place to place, and which happens to not be equivalent for everyone. Semantic markup is what allows everyone to see the same thing modulo their style or accomodations. If it didn't, we wouldn't use HTML, we'd use RTFs or something. And yes, the current approaches "work ok for getting a point across", but so would Wikipedia entirely in plaintext or whatever. When I think of encyclopedia, I think authoritative and professional, the latter which MathJax enables. —quadrescence 03:00, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Just a few words, as I was pointed to this discussion. MathJax is fine and great, and you may want to test it yourself on Wikipedia using my experimental MathJax user extension. However, two issues will probably prevent MathJax from ever being the default rendering method on Wikipedia: users have reported it to be quite slow for the moment, and the extent of LaTeX and additional non-LaTeX "texvc" (including all its bugs) that MediaWiki supports will never be fully supported by MathJax. So the best we can hope for is good, optional support for MathJax, similar to what my user extension provides. Good means support of most TeX features used on Wikipedia, and fast enough to not deter most users. There is definitely process going on in regards to the latter, and I'm looking forward to it. Regarding server-side rendering, this comes down to generating images, and the only thing we can do better than now is switching to SVG images – something that is pretty unlikely to happen in the near future, in part because of poor support by some browsers (IE). Nageh (talk) 09:24, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Try supporting a wider range of math styles, I like: x^2 + 2*x + 1 = 0, where the caret "^" denotes the exponent and star "*" means to multiply. Using that style, variables can have multi-letter mnemonic names, such as "max" and "min" or "width", rather than every equation having: x, x', y, y', etc. There is an oriental revelation which advises: "When something seems very difficult to do, then try doing it more, not less (in case a lack of familiarity or some minor issue was the reason for the difficulty)". I had several math professors who wrote equations, by hand, up on the board, and get this: they all had different handwriting (OMG, yes, inconsistent, not-the-same handwriting, even using different hands: some left, some right, some both hands). Can you even imagine the psychological horror of seeing formulas written by hand by professional mathematicians, like Albert Einstein did all the time? Well, wanting to actually learn what other people know, rather just my same style all day long, I opened my mind to reading what other people wrote, and guess what? I was able to read complex math formulas, even written by hand! Yes, despite all the initial horror, it did not warp my little mind, and I went further to learn computer technology which made the math formulas seem like petty special cases of a vastly diverse world using numerous, fascinating styles. Now, even in music, we have electronic keyboards with hundreds of options, using a myriad of special buttons, but the oriental proverb was the secret: "When something seems very difficult to do, then try doing it more, not less". Embrace diversity. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:32, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

MathJax is ridiculously slow. Even on Google Chrome, which has one of the fastest JavaScript engines, the math examples on your blog take nearly 2 seconds to load, on top of the page load time. On IE8, its more like 5 seconds. It takes about 10 seconds on my iPod touch. The fallback for JS disabled or an unsupported browser is just the LaTeX text, which is hardly a graceful fallback. Its also massive, its 16 MB and more than 30,000 files. Most of the files are images/fonts where only a few will be loaded on any given page, but on the mathjax demo page, there's still 174 kB of minified and gzipped JS/fonts loaded to render it. Mr.Z-man 16:26, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Mnemonic shortcut WP:PUMPTECH

I have created a more mnemonic shortcut as "WP:PUMPTECH" for use around general readers, following the original format of "WP:PUMP" where WP:VPT might be misread as "WP:VTP" in the wiki-alphabet soup. The other shortcuts are still there, such as: WP:VP/T with the slash. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:54, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. Incidentally, I also made WP:VTP - I've mistyped as that myself. Redirecteds are cheap. Chzz ► 17:12, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Blue links show brown on some servers

I have noticed that, sometimes, the wikilinks to large articles are showing as brown (tiny-article) color, as if one of the wiki-servers doesn't do blue links today. I wonder if this is a temporary issue, or something that will keep recurring, such as those months when GIF images did not auto-thumbnail and had to be stored as the exact size to show clear resolution. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:02, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Something weird

(Probably posting this in the wrong place, but here goes anyway.) So I'm looking through some historical contributions and come across 195.93.21.38 (talk · contribs). Apparently, that IP was blocked for 24 hours on 15 November 2006, edited again two days later and hasn't been blocked since - but the contribs page shows the 15 November 2006 block as active, which makes no sense. Anyone able to work out why? Alzarian16 (talk) 18:22, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe it's a known bug, it's displaying the wrong block information. If you check Special:BlockList/195.93.21.38, it's blocked by two different range blocks. See also Special:Contributions/195.93.21.0, which isn't showing any indication that it is covered by the same range blocks. Anomie ⚔ 18:39, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

That would explain it. Thanks. Alzarian16 (talk) 18:46, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Cannot access WikiBlame?

"403 Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /wikiblame.php on this server. Apache/2.2 Server at wikipedia.ramselehof.de Port 80"

Is it me?

Firefox/3.6.13  — Preceding unsigned comment added by SalineBrain (talk • contribs) 03:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

What were you doing when that happened? Someguy1221 (talk) 03:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Happens to me as well. I did, however, find that http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame_inverse.php works. Or there's http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/blame. PleaseStand ^(talk) 04:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems to be working fine for me.Sumsum2010·T·C 19:21, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I had the same problem until about 12 hours ago. Dougweller (talk) 19:36, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

That's because of this change to MediaWiki:Histlegend, which changed the link to wikiblame_inverse.php. The http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php URL still does not work. PleaseStand ^(talk) 21:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Wikipedia server locations and legal issues

Could someone take a look at this thread, and comment regarding the issues raised? Thanks in advance! ---My Core Competency is Competency (talk) 18:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

[1] 1

[2] 1

[1]

[2]

@@ Line 1,192: / Line 1,192: @@
 : I believe it's a known bug, it's displaying the wrong block information. If you check [[Special:BlockList/195.93.21.38]], it's blocked by two different [[WP:Range block|range blocks]]. See also [[Special:Contributions/195.93.21.0]], which isn't showing any indication that it is covered by the same range blocks. [[User:Anomie|Anomie]][[User talk:Anomie|⚔]] 18:39, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 ::That would explain it. Thanks. [[User:Alzarian16|Alzarian16]] ([[User talk:Alzarian16|talk]]) 18:46, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
+== Cannot access WikiBlame? ==
+"403 Forbidden
+You don't have permission to access /wikiblame.php on this server.
+Apache/2.2 Server at wikipedia.ramselehof.de Port 80"
+Is it me?
+ Firefox/3.6.13  <small><span class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:SalineBrain|SalineBrain]] ([[User talk:SalineBrain|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/SalineBrain|contribs]]) 03:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
+:What were you doing when that happened? [[User:Someguy1221|Someguy1221]] ([[User talk:Someguy1221|talk]]) 03:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
+::Happens to me as well. I did, however, find that http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame_inverse.php works. Or there's http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/blame. [[User:PleaseStand|''Please'''''Stand''']] <sup>[[User talk:PleaseStand|(talk)]]</sup> 04:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
+:::Seems to be working fine for me.[[User:Sumsum2010|<font color="#FF0000" ><b>Sumsum2010</b></font>]]<b>·</b>[[User talk:Sumsum2010|<font color="#7FFF00" ><b>T</b></font>]]<b>·</b>[[Special:Contributions/Sumsum2010|<font color="#7FFF00" ><b>C</b></font>]] 19:21, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
+::::I had the same problem until about 12 hours ago. [[User:Dougweller|Dougweller]] ([[User talk:Dougweller|talk]]) 19:36, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
+::::That's because of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Histlegend&curid=388996&diff=404419453&oldid=385935600 change to MediaWiki:Histlegend], which changed the link to wikiblame_inverse.php. The http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php URL still does not work. [[User:PleaseStand|''Please'''''Stand''']] <sup>[[User talk:PleaseStand|(talk)]]</sup> 21:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
+== Regarding Wikipedia server locations and legal issues ==
+Could someone take a look at [[Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wording_in_WP:CENSORED|this thread]], and comment regarding the issues raised?  Thanks in advance! ---[[User:My Core Competency is Competency|My Core Competency is Competency]] ([[User talk:My Core Competency is Competency|talk]]) 18:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)