Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 

• Table of contents
• First discussion
• End of page
• New post

The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bug reports and feature requests should be made in Phabricator (see how to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported differently (see how to report security bugs).

Newcomers to the technical village pump are encouraged to read these guidelines prior to posting here. If you want to report a JavaScript error, please follow this guideline. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk.

« Archives, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216

Suppress rendering of Template:Wikipedia books

As many are aware Wikipedia books has not worked in a few years and there's no light down the tunnel of any fixes coming...Reading/Web/PDF Functionality (no update on WikiBooks in a year). I am proposing suppressing the rendering capability of Template:Wikipedia books ( related =Template:Book bar & Template:Books-inline) and removal of the Book Creator in the sidebar. This is for our readers so they don't keep going to books that don't work and haven't worked in a few years..plus these types of lists exist in outlines already. I'm thinking suppression of the template(s) is better than outright deletion in case the WMF finally does come up with something...then poof...they can all appear when transclusion is implemented again. Currently PDF rendering per page has been implemented so the link seen at Wikipedia:Books about an external program is no longer needed as our in-house PDF system is running.--Moxy 🍁 22:57, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Discussion (Wikipedia books)

• Good idea and a future-proof solution. Support per nom. Wug·a·po·des​ 01:20, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• I think this is a good idea. Headbomb did some work with this stuff years ago and he might also have some comments about it. Killiondude (talk) 06:08, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Ruslik_Zero 08:42, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support, I didn't even know it's not working. Stryn (talk) 10:37, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Seems like phab:T224922 may be relevant here, as mw:Extension:Collection is the extension behind "books". Anomie⚔ 12:10, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Masum Reza^📞 14:22, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Book namespace entirely is dead. There'd be no harm in scrapping it completely. – Ammarpad (talk) 16:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Comment if outlines are more up to date and maintained and are basically redundant, get rid of books. But wait.... these things are for readers, right? Are readers more likely to look for "books" or "outlines"? Maybe we should migrate the excellent and maintained content from outline to "books" and then get rid of outlines. We still reduce fluff but combine maintenence with readership. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:58, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• If it's dead, it's dead. Can be suppressed until and if things come back online. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:04, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Hrodvarsson (talk) 04:52, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support per nom. SD0001 (talk) 20:11, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support No point offering something to users that can't be used.Nick Moyes (talk) 12:10, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

  Striking my !vote as I now realise the issue is more complex than I had initially thought. Nick Moyes (talk) 20:17, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

• Restored from archive......should we close this and move on to the technical part of the RfC.--Moxy 🍁 03:29, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Note: Votes below have been cast since the initial close was reverted — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 07:52, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

• Strong oppose: The Book Creator is still in use as a vital tool in preparing books for rendering by external services. See discussion below. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 05:43, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Seems the original premise above is incorrect, so oppose this strongly per Steelpillow. P. I. Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there 00:50, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
• The external tool doesn't really seem particularly usable, so I think it's reasonable to suppress the links and templates. Support. --Yair rand (talk) 04:56, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support The book program is not working and there is really no point in lead us to a pay site for info that is free. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:8d80:540:6525:d552:87b7:e57c:c4d8 (talk • contribs) 21:41, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

  There is every point if the WMF have an agreement with the provider concerned. The payment is not for the information, it is for the bookbinding and postage. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:32, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

This discussion has been notified at mw:Talk:Reading/Web/PDF Functionality. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:32, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

• Strong oppose: As per Steelpillow. The original proposal and essentially all the supports (so far as I can see) are based on a misunderstanding of the status of the book creator. I had been following the very long and ongoing discussion about the work related to the PediaPress and the mediawiki2latex solutions, because having a properly functioning pdf book creator is a valuable part of wikipedia so far as I'm concerned. It is clear that people here who want to kill this function don't understand what they are killing off. Gpc62 (talk) 19:11, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

  @Gpc62: Would you consider mediawiki2latex to be a properly functioning/usable tool? --Yair rand (talk) 04:24, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

• Strong oppose I think that PDF creation of books is important and should be kept. I see that not everyone is happy with my mediawiki2latex solution. Possibly users should raise their voice asking wmf to allocate funds for the development of a better in-house solution, but this should be done in an other discussion. Dirk Hünniger (talk) 08:29, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose The loss of the rendering system for books certainly made Wikipedia less useful from my point of view. Even without it the Book Creator interface is something I find useful. It allows the rapid and interactive collection of topical pages into useful order/format. Doing that by hand is a pain. Killing the function has a very small marginal benefit to the people who do not use it and a high cost to those of us who do. Jbh ^Talk 18:55, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support per Dirk below: since I got quite some anarchistic thoughts, I kind of enjoy business models explode in huge fireballs. People make money off these books, but they do not serve our readers well. Time to explode in huge fireballs, or at least hide the template. – Levivich 04:36, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

  In what way does the PediaPress print-on-demand-service (the only pay-for bit) not serve our readers well? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:03, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support per above. Old/buggy, and no longer being developed. Leaving this out in the open begets opportunities for an exceptionally poor reader/user experience -FASTILY 00:53, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  @Fastily: Factually you are wholly incorrect. The PediaPress PoD service is not buggy, the MediaWiki2 LaTeX softcopy service is not old but new and under continued bug-squishing. Have you not read the discussion below? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:05, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  Right, and that's your opinion. Obviously I disagree, hence my support !vote. -FASTILY 01:13, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Discussion after reverted closure

Reverted close: WP:SNOW close with consensus for proposal. I am fully aware that RfC's usually should run for 30 days and willing to re-open if there are any concerns. (non-admin closure) --Trialpears (talk) 23:26, 31 August 2019 (UTC)}}

I have reverted my close due to concerns raised on my talk page about insufficient notifications to the book making community and insufficient discussion about working external tools. I have posted notifications to WT:BOOKS and Help talk:Books. --Trialpears (talk) 20:24, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

• Need help in removing the book creator from the side bar--Moxy 🍁 15:49, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

  That can only be done by requesting a site change on Phabricator. I am not sure the above demonstrates the necessary consensus for that change. --Izno (talk) 16:44, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

  @Moxy: That would require an interface admin to add #coll-create_a_book { display: none; } to Mediawiki:Common.css. --Yair rand (talk) 18:11, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Note: the following two-part post was made before the initial close was reverted — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 07:52, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

YIKES! STOP EVERYBODY! The Book Creator tool remains an essential feature in order to create and edit Wikipedia books for external services such as PediaPress print-on-demand and the MediaWiki2LaTex independent PDF rendering service. It is only our in-house rendering that has gone (and may yet come back, as PediaPress have undertaken to provide a replacement). Please roll back all these stakes through its heart! — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:08, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Specifically, the OP's rationale that "Currently PDF rendering per page has been implemented so the link seen at Wikipedia:Books about an external program is no longer needed as our in-house PDF system is running," is wholly wrong-headed. Yes we have a new article renderer, but it is a totally unrelated function from book rendering. That needs entirely different software in two parts - the book creator/designer which lists articles for inclusion and the book renderer which pulls all the articles together. We have only lost the book rendering, the old book creator/editor is still functional and still in use. The linked external book rendering service is still also operational. It has absolutely not been withdrawn or overtaken by the new article renderer. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:16, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Removed {{warning}} from your comment. Hope that's okay. --Yair rand (talk) 03:47, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Yep, it's done its job. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:03, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

• Close reverted I have reverted my close due to concerns raised on my talk page about insufficient notifications to the book making community and insufficient discussion about working external tools. I have posted notifications to WT:BOOKS and Help talk:Books. --Trialpears (talk) 20:24, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

  Good call ....best wait till the concerns raised on your talk are brought here for discussion.--Moxy 🍁 23:59, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

  What else needs to be brought here besides what I already said just above? The Book Creator is still in use. End of. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 02:39, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  So leave the link in the side bar and leave all the books so we can lead our readers to a third party? Is the main purpose going to be fixed? --Moxy 🍁 18:48, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  Depends what you regard as the "main purpose". The PediaPress PoD pay-for service has always been an integral part of Wikipedia Book delivery. The WMF have accepted an offer from PediaPress to write a new Mediawiki PDF book renderer for us too and they have made an alpha build available at https://pediapress.com/collector , however there is no timeframe for completion/rollout. You can find out a little more at mw:Reading/Web/PDF Functionality and the associated talk page and archives. As far as I know their software is not tracked on phabricator. Meanwhile Dirk Hünniger has made his own MediaWiki2LaTeX open-source PDF book renderer pull service available to fill the gap. In that sense the "main purpose" of having both PDF and PoD WikiBooks available is currently fulfilled. As long as the Book Creator (aka the Collection Extension) delivers its part of that functionality, as required by the WMF, it will stay in the MediaWiki build and we need to support it with UI widgets to the best of our ability. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:50, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  Pppery, should the change to Module:Subject bar be reverted in light of the change to this RFC outcome? – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:19, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  I personally consider the reversion of the closure to itself be improper, so I won't revert the change to Module:Subject bar myself, but another template editor could of course do so. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:23, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  It was perfectly proper. The closer did not wait the required 30 days, noting in their closing statement that if anybody objected the discussion could be reopened. I objected both here and on their talk page so they reopened. Nothing whatsoever improper about that. What was improper was the OP's failure to place any notification on the affected template's talk page or the Book project's talk page, until after the closure. Paine Ellsworth and I were actually discussing and updating the template while this discussion was going on, but without ever being informed of its existence. That is a gross breach of procedure on the part of the OP. I don't know anything about Module:Subject bar but any change to it has arisen as a result of this failure to consult properly. I would be most grateful if somebody could see their way to reverting it. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:35, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

  Yes, thought it best to remove the commenting, at least until we sort all this out. P. I. Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there 15:09, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

• I'm confused. Is there a working system for converting books to PDF or not, on-wiki or off-? It looks like MediaWiki2LaTeX is for converting individual pages, just like the built-in converter? --Yair rand (talk) 03:05, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

  Yes, it is working. To convert a book, you give its page location to MediaWiki2LaTex. The service then pulls all the articles linked in its contents and builds the entire book. Or, you can give it a single article and it will render that alone. I see that various options for conversion mode and output format have been added since I last used it. So it provides either book or single-page conversion, depending on what you give it. Either way, you need only give it a single page location, tell it what you want and it figures out the rest, that may be what is puzzling you. (By contrast, if you use the built-in converter on a Book page, it will just convert the page to PDF, which is seldom very helpful) — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:35, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi,

I am the maintainer of mediawiki2latex. Maybe it is a bit off topic, but I got two views on this point. Firstly mediawiki2latex currently provides a way to get PDFs from books hosted on Wikipedia and keeping this possibility might be an advantage for some users of the content, particularly those with small financial resources, which is a good thing as such. The resources on the web interface to mediawiki2atex (which is hosted by wmf) are quite limited so that book may a most contain a few dozens of articles. mediawiki2latex is also provided as a binary package for Debian Linux without any limits on the number of articles per books.

Removing the books from Wikipedia would not cause any financial consequences to me since I am only doing this as an unpayed hobby project in me spare time. Still pediapress financially relies on the book feature on wikipedia. So closing the book feature might cause pediapress to stop all business activities in this field, which causes me to have a monopoly, which is the greatest thing you can get in capitalism. So the choice is yours. Dirk Hünniger (talk) 14:37, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Do you have any stats in how often it's used? We know that people don't order Wiki books as most are 9,000 pageso plus and hus simply not feasible. The question real is do we keep books to simply link them to a third party site?--Moxy 🍁 03:36, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

The web interface is roughly used once an hour, so about 20 times a day. It cannot be used much more since there is a time limit of one hour and at most one process may run at a time due to the limited resources. The statistics of the Debian package are given here . Still it is quite hard to infer anything from the Debian statistics since only very few Debian users take part in the statistics survey at all. Dirk Hünniger (talk) 06:31, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

You need to understand that this is a dynamic situation. When the original in-house service became progressively more and more unmaintainable - both hardware and software stacks - the quality of output got left behind as the rest of MediaWiki and user templates got more sophisticated. Usage consequently also fell away until that low usage began to be used as a "reason" why fixing the system was an equally low priority. Here we see the same fallacy again. MediaWiki2LaTeX is under active development. Compared to its launch state its hardware and software have both improved substantially, allowing the maximum book size to be increased. This is still only a small, low-resource system by Wikipedia standards but usage has picked up accordingly, as Dirk says it is near maximum for the WMF hosted instance, and this upward trend will continue. The priority for this facility is not reflected in where it is now but where usage will/would be when further developed and deployed. "Do we keep books so we can link to 3rd party sites?" is the wrong question, not the real one as you suggest. The real question is, "Do we want Wikipedia Books in any form?" Once we answer that, we can make decisions about in-house vs. third-party. As already pointed out, the involvement of PediaPress in the Wikipedia Books project and its UI upload link to PediaPress goes back a decade or more to day one. The Books project has always linked to a third party because this is inherent in the pay-for model of print-on-demand and the WMF does not do pay-for services. Any decision to pull the plug on the PediaPress upload would have to be agreed in consultation with the highest levels within the WMF; our local village pump is quite the wrong venue to bandy about such far-reaching consequences. I would suggest that, since PediaPress have volunteered out of the goodness of their hearts to try and develop a replacement in-house renderer for us, then stuffing them where it hurts would not be either wise or ethical. We have two competing pdf renderers and a third, commercial PoD service here, all supported in different ways by the WMF due to the current dynamics of the situation - and you suggest we kill the whole deal. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 07:38, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I raised some issues with the lead developer of MediaWiki2LaTeX through their official Requests page. I found these with my usual test case Book:Wings of Hamburg. He did a quick update to one of the config files for template processing. Compared to the quality when this discussion was opened, the book is no longer bloated by over-expanded infoboxes and navboxes, but comes in at almost half the previous file size and page count and is far more readable. Some other issues I realised will take longer to fix, but this does underline the dynamics of the situation and the active and ongoing support.— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:13, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

I think it's high time we invited the WMF over to participate in this discussion. I am not sure of the best way to do that, but I have tried what I can. If anybody knows the correct place to post an advisory over there, please do so. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:13, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Well, the majority seems to have a clear opinion. Many contributors have brought forward their arguments, currently there seem to be no new arguments. I am really looking forward to a decision being taken. In my impish mind I will be really pleased to see these fireworks go off. Especially when imagining that these relaxed well paid, socially secured people, well assured that there is never any problem, will suddenly have to work quite a lot. My systems will keep running. But possibly I should better change my telephone number. Good Luck Dirk Hünniger (talk) 14:36, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

I do not understand this comment. I feel like I'm missing some context? --Yair rand (talk) 04:26, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Well, Pediapress earns money from selling the printed copies of wikipedia books. If we remove the template their sales will drop by (lets guess) 80%. Futhermore pediapress pays parts of money the earn from selling each book directly to wmf. So also wmf will have a considerable decrease in income. So in this case there will be a meeting between wmf and pediapress very soon, and this will be quite a stormy affair. But since I got quite some anarchistic thoughts, I kind of enjoy business models explode in huge fireballs. But yeah, I thinks it is better for the users to keep these option available for the users, so I voted for keeping the template. Dirk Hünniger (talk) 08:31, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Got an email from the boss...found stats Book Tool sales data.--Moxy 🍁 21:15, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

So, €341,776 in revenue over 40 months. Even if we assumed that the books cost nothing to produce (unlikely), and that 100% of income is donated, that would be about €100,000 per year, compared to the WMF's $100,000,000+ in donations per year. I don't think it can be considered "a considerable decrease in income". --Yair rand (talk) 04:26, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Contrary to your "half-empty" pessimism, I see these stats as "Wow! Real $$$!" It does seem grossly unfair that the Book project generates five-figure sales year on year and receives zero inward investment in return. If say half the WMF income from books was reinvested in the Books project, even €2,000 a year would be a hugely significant increase in the project's resources. It would allow the project to improve quality, boost uptake, increase income and make everybody's life better in a nice, socialistic upward spiral. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:50, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Those stats are unfortunately a bit out of date. – Levivich 04:31, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Since the usability of mediawiki2latex is discussed. I provide to examples of the output of the large document server http://mediawiki2latex-large.wmflabs.org/

• Book:Wings of Hamburg (a few minutes, 280 pages) -> output https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FkBLlLBKw3feLGI5mYoJvjS1dRUB_LL3/view?usp=sharing
• Book:Canada (2 hours, 1700 pages) -> output https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J0t5kb3NsZwSE0i0ClDELHzKpaznXiy7/view?usp=sharing

I choose these two examples since I think to remeber to have seen them in this discussion. So everyone can now look at them and find his / her own opinion. Everyone is also wellcome to add examples and of you to send me bug reports on what he / she wants changed.Dirk Hünniger (talk) 12:34, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

So we get an error because they are to big.......how small do they have to be?--Moxy 🍁 10:59, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

There are two servers:

• The normal one https://mediawiki2latex.wmflabs.org/ with a limit one hour.
• The large one http://mediawiki2latex-large.wmflabs.org/ with a limit six hours.

I used the big one in both cases. But I think the normal one should do a well for the Wings of Hamburg Book, but not for Canada Book. Furthermore the server only processes one document at a time, and an error message will be displayed if an other user request a conversion while a conversion is already running ("Not enough resources availiable to process your request!"). The software can basically run requests in parallel, but the maximum number of parallel requests was set to one in order to account for the limited hardware resources. The limits on the hardware resources, were set by wmf, and you should contact them directly if you feel they need to be increased. But if you want to find out if mediawiki2latex serves your needs I strongly recommend to install the Debian package and test with that since there are no limit in the package at all. The main limiting resources is random access memory. You need roughly 5 MByte per page. Dirk Hünniger (talk) 11:23, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Moxy, thank you for highlighting what is essentially an issue with the user documentation. I have now updated the user manual accordingly. Note also that the maximum size of around 800 pages on the large-book server is larger (ISTR about 200 pages more) than the old OCG could manage. Since the template config has been tweaked this has reduced the time my own test books run for, meaning that if a document is accepted for processing then even more pages can likely be processed before timeout. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Complex citations

The citations at Ancestry.com can get very complex. For example:

Webpage name: "Joe Blow in the 1930 United States Federal Census".

Source Citation: Year: 1930; Census Place: Buffalo, Erie, New York; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 0242; FHL microfilm: 2341165

Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002.

Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930. T626, 2,667 rolls.

I can't figure out how to fit all this information into a standard citation template, can anybody assist? Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 12:46, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. You got it from Ancestry.com, so you cite Ancestry.com. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:15, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Sort of...the problem is that Ancestry.Com is considered a user-edited source so when an original reliable source - US Census or whatnot - is cited by an Ancestry.Com user then that original source should somehow be clearly delineated within the cite.

I like the example posted within SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT:

John Smith (2009). Name of Book I Haven't Seen, Cambridge University Press, p. 99, cited in Paul Jones (2010). Name of Encyclopedia I Have Seen, Oxford University Press, p. 29.

but confess I don't know how that particular cite style is supposed to fit within one of the existing/pre-loaded templates (cite web/cite news/cite book/cite journal)... Shearonink (talk) 17:40, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

You still should should cite it as Ancestry.com because that's where you got your information, and you didn't check the sources Ancestry.com based itself on. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:10, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

... Unless you really did check that book, obviously. And yeah, Ancestry.com is user-submitted and generally considered unreliable, and that extends to material it cites as a reference (i.e. users also fill in citations, there are no guarantees they actually checked those sources). AFAIK U.S. census data is easy to find online, you should just verify and cite it directly. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:15, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1930 -- RoySmith (talk) 15:47, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Ivanvector, the user-submitted pages at Ancestry.com are unreliable, obviously, but the site incorporates scans of the original census pages and other government documents and there is nothing unreliable about those. RoySmith, thank you for the link, I will take a closer look at that, though I doubt it provides the ease of access to a host of government records that Ancestry does (though it would be preferable to use the government site where possible as the latter requires a subscription). Gatoclass (talk) 16:50, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh absolutely, I don't doubt the reliability of the census. I do doubt the reliability of some transcriptions, and some conclusions that are drawn on census data from different years, but that's besides the point. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:54, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

My personal take on this (i.e. may not even be correct) is that if all ancestry.com is doing is hosting a mechanical reproduction of the census data (i.e. a scan of the microfilm), then what you want to do is cite the census data directly, with some sort of "archived at" or "via" entry which points to the ancestory.com repository. In much the same way I would cite something I found in newspapers.com, or JSTOR. It's like if I went to my local library and looked at their collection of New York Times on microfilm. If I found something I wanted to use, I would cite the NY Times, I wouldn't cite the library. I would only cite ancestory.com if they provided some editorial input. I stand willing to be corrected by people who actually know what they're talking about, however. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:00, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Well I guess if one thing can be gleaned from this discussion it's that there is no obvious solution, so it looks as if I will have to find one of my own. Thank you RoySmith and everybody else for your input. Gatoclass (talk) 12:50, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: I'd like to help with this one but I'm a bit busy. Maybe you can work out how it would be cited in CS1/2. --Izno (talk) 18:40, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I can answer this without details about what is really being cited. I get the sense that ancestry.com is not a reliable source so shouldn't be cited unless it can be shown that whatever it is that OP wants to cite is clearly a faithful copy of a source that meets WP:RS. Without knowing what that is and the necessary details, it is difficult to suggest how cs1|2 should be used.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:53, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

As I stated above Trappist the monk, Ancestry.com is definitely a reliable source, as it provides scans of the original documents - much like hathitrust or archive.org. However, it also allows the public to create family trees, individual life histories and so on, on its website, using those documents. The documents themselves are obviously reliable, the user-created content is not. Gatoclass (talk) 15:17, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

@Gatoclass:, remember that the <ref> tag is one thing, and the various {{cite}} templates are another. You can embed between <ref> tags, whatever you need to properly establish verifiability, including more than one {{cite}} tag. For something this complex, it might be advantageous to use two {{cite}} templates, where the first one cites Ancestry, as Headbomb and others have pointed out, followed by some connecting text, such as, "citing:", or, "taken from:", or whatever makes sense, followed by a second {{cite}} template for the source that Ancestry (or their editors) got it from. Even if there is a way to combine everything in one, huge, complex template, there's no need to knock yourself out. If you just keep your eyes on the prize (WP:V), and do it whatever way makes sense to you, that's the main thing. Heck, if it's that complicated, just write the citation in plain text if you want, and embed the plain text between <ref> tags. That's a perfectly acceptable solution. Best of luck, Mathglot (talk) 23:38, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Help needed to track parameter usage

I want to add a tracking category to {{Grading scheme}} to track any uses where A-Class has been disabled.

The template displays A-Class by default or with |A=yes (case sensitive); if any other value is used, or if |A= is defined but left blank, A-Class is removed from the table.

I tried using the following code:

{{#ifeq:{{{A|}}}|yes||[[Category:Grading schemes without A-Class]]}}

How do I get it to ignore the default usage (i.e. where |A= is not used at all)? PC78 (talk) 12:46, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Just to add, I did come up with a solution in the sandbox but that alters the behaviour of the template somewhat (for the better I think, but still); if possible I'm keen not to break any transclusions where a blank |A= might be used intentionally to disable A-Class. PC78 (talk) 12:46, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

{{{A|}}} evaluates to empty both if A is set to empty and not set at all so you cannot use that alone. You need {{{A}}} which evaluates to the value of A if it's set (empty if A is set to empty), but evaluates to the same seven characters {{{A}}} if A is not set. You could nest if and ifeq, or combine the cases in a switch: {{#switch:{{{A}}}||yes=|#default=[[Category:Grading schemes without A-Class]]}}. This code only uses that {{{A}}} evaluates to something non-empty when A is not set. It says: If A is set to empty or yes then return empty, otherwise the category. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:26, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

I tried your switch but it doesn't work as intended: the category is added by default if |A= is not set at all (it shouldn't be) but is not added if |A= is set to empty (it should be). See test example at User:PC78/grading scheme. Tried a few other things but still can't nail it. PC78 (talk) 14:29, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread the goal and coded what I described: "If A is set to empty or yes then return empty, otherwise the category." This should do what you actually requested: {{#ifeq:{{{A}}}|{{{A|}}}|{{#ifeq:{{{A}}}|yes||[[Category:Grading schemes without A-Class]]}}}}. "If A is set but A is not set to yes then return the category." PrimeHunter (talk) 15:32, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Gotcha, thanks for the help! PC78 (talk) 15:37, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

@PC78: It works but I made it more complicated than necessary. We don't have to test whether A is set, only whether it's set to something other than yes, so your original code can just use yes as default in the comparison: {{#ifeq:{{{A|yes}}}|yes||[[Category:Grading schemes without A-Class]]}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:15, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Problem with Template:Graph:Population history

I think the specific template does not work right during the last weeks. Graphs do not show up and look like broken images. But when previewing in editing mode they do appear working actually. Examples can be found on the template itself or here. Any suggestions? --Αρκάς (talk) 20:21, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Αρκάς, changes are being made to the version in the German wikipedia and imported here. Pinging @Yurik, Yair rand, and IagoQnsi: who have been working on the graph template and Module:Graph, though the problem seems to have started before the most recent changes here. It is very strange that the graphs appear in preview just beautifully, but vanish when reading the articles. StarryGrandma (talk) 03:18, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Then i guess we will have to wait for them.--Αρκάς (talk) 06:38, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

I ended up reverting all my changes right after I made them, so it wasn't something I did. When you are previewing the articles, the images are rendered on your machine with JavaScript, but when you save the article, the images are rendered by MediaWiki's servers. So the issue must be with the server-side renderer if it's only broken on the saved pages and not the previews. --IagoQnsi (talk) 22:49, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

IagoQnsi, Αρκάς recorded the problem at the template talk page Aug 8, before your changes. I was hoping one of you would know where we could go from here. Someone reported this at mw:Template talk:Graph:Population history two months ago on July 4 (where it is also not working) and got no response. Is there anything about this in Phabricator? StarryGrandma (talk) 23:27, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, actually it is definitely been going on for some months now. When i mentioned "weeks" i was not precise, but since we are trying to timestamp it...--Αρκάς (talk) 00:18, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

It is a known problem, T226250 at Phabricator, "Graph not displayed if linked to a wikidata query". The uses of the template you gave, both in the template documention and at the Bogotá article in question, are going to wikidata for their information. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:22, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Ok thanks. Also pinging @Geraki:, as i'm guessing he would be interested as well. --Αρκάς (talk) 00:25, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Any possibilities that this gets fixed? Thanks. --Αρκάς (talk) 12:11, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Validating facts from emails

hi

I have forgotten the process for using emails to validate refs.

Can someone please remind me where to go to find the info to start the process of getting an email sent in to Wiki?

Thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 19:03, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Should this be @ help desk instead of here? Chaosdruid (talk) 19:06, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Possibly. For starters, I am unsure of what you're asking. Could you more clearly give us an example scenario? Killiondude (talk) 03:25, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

@Chaosdruid: Is it possible that you're thinking of OTRS? I'm not sure if they handle exactly the type of request you're talking about, but OTRS is the main place that emails to Wikipedia are handled. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:20, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

@This, that and the other: & @Killiondude: It was a process where something to be used in an article/as a ref had to be proven to be from the person in question, rather than Joe Bloggs with a made up email address ... In this case I need to get the names of band members out of an email from their management team, but need to be able to say "this is where it came from" Chaosdruid (talk) 17:34, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Emails are private communications, and so will not satisfy WP:V because other people can't check what the source is claimed to state. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:15, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

There is a process for verifying them, that is the whole point of my query. I used it years ago to get email validation on a source, and I believe it DID involve OTRS. Chaosdruid (talk) 17:00, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

No. OTRS can be used to verify the identity of someone. That might be used, for example, to demonstrate that the author of a blog was in fact a recognized expert on the subject, and that might make the blog a reliable source. There is no other kind of email verification of an assertion. What is certain is that an unpublished email is not a reliable source, and nothing can make it reliable. Johnuniq (talk) 00:32, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Which is exactly what I wanted, to prove that the source of the information is who they say they are ... thanks, well, not really, but at least you gave me the OTRS info which got me there in the end ... Chaosdruid (talk) 21:59, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

reflist error: using a named group with multiple nested refn −results in error msg. using [refs=] or a multiple backlink error if [refs=] is omitted.

See: Old revision of Wikipedia:Sandbox —this shows the result of omitting refs= for named group reflist. whereas using the refs= results in an error msg.

Decomposing the templates to: {{#tag:references||group=}} and {{#tag:ref||group=|name=}} —produces the same error msg. as "using the refs=", as noted above. --2db (talk) 00:09, 3 September 2019 (UTC) && 13:56, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

2db, the parser doesn't seem to be able to deal with list-defined references that are nested. When you leave out "refs=" it tries but is generating an extra backlink, maybe because it has to go through everything twice. This may have once worked. A few years ago a change to the MediaWiki software broke nested footnotes completely - the parsing order of the page had changed significantly. This was repaired but still does not operate in quite the same way. StarryGrandma (talk) 15:04, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

However moving the nested refn out of the named reflist to the article space works perfectly (see: Old revision of Wikipedia:Sandbox). --2db (talk) 18:24, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1 at line 802: Argument map not defined for this variable.

Resolved

This may be related to the above somehow. At David_M._Bennett and Dennis_Relojo-Howell I am seeing this error in place of every reference. Clicking on it gives: Backtrace:

1. [C]: in function "eror"
2. Module:Citation/CS1:802: ?
3. Module:Citation/CS1:2276: in function "citation0"
4. Module:Citation/CS1:3765: in function "chunk"
5. mw.lua:511: ?
6. [C]: ?

Replacing {{reflist}} with <references /> fixes it. SmartSE (talk) 13:16, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

This has been fixed: this was due to an unfortunate edit (discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Is_there_a_semi-automated_tool_that_could_fix_these_annoying_"Cite_Web"_errors?). It has been reverted now, but in case Lua errors are still visible anywhere, you can just make a null edit to the article to force reparsing. – Uanfala (talk) 13:23, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

@Uanfala: Thanks. Just came across that myself. SmartSE (talk) 13:26, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

link rot issue

(disclaimer: yeah, I'm a super experienced Wikipedian, but I have never taken the time to learn how to cite webpages the "new" way and still do it the way it was done over a decade ago, which is probably why this is happening) The page in question is Swan Lake fire. I recently added a reference to an article on TIME's website. It got tagged as a dead link only a day later, and sure enough when I click on it it goes to a 404. So, I searched the article title "About 2.5 Million Acres in Alaska Have Burned. The State's Wildfire Seasons Are Getting Worse, Experts Say" and found the article again. When I copied the URL it was...the same as the one that led to the 404 error. I don't get it. Lil help? Beeblebrox (talk) 18:51, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

The URL you want is https://time.com/5657188/alaska-fires-long-climate-change/ -- GreenC 19:05, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There should be a space where the url ends and the title begins, otherwise the link is malformed. SD0001 (talk) 19:07, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Now that, I actually did know but for some reason just didn't see it as the problem. How silly of me. Thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:24, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Cite web deprecated params causing CS1 redlinks everywhere

Although I don't see a change in the history of {{cite web}}, every article I checked that uses the template, is getting red CS1 errors. See for example, World War II#Citations, as well as the documentation in the Examples section of Template:Cite web itself. This applies to params |website= (now required, apparently), and |deadurl= (now deprecated, apparently). What's going on? Mathglot (talk) 19:36, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Being discussed at WP:AN. They are separate issues but performed in the same update of the CS1 template base. Discussion is now based how to resolve it, but its affecting the bulk of en.wiki. --Masem (t) 19:38, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

I just saw that "cite news" requires newspaper. I use TV stations, radio stations and magazines all the time, but this just looks sloppy until someone fixes it. Is this related?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:40, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

:(edit conflict)(edit conflict) Oh, must be this change to the module. Mathglot (talk) 19:42, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Here is a link to the AN discussion about this mess Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Is there a semi-automated tool that could fix these annoying "Cite Web" errors?. MarnetteD|Talk 19:43, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, which is part of this discussion at AN. Mathglot (talk) 19:47, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

This stinks. Possibly every one of the almost 500 articles I've ever created or contributed to in the last decade or so, now have these ugly red tags all over the References section. Probably the same thing with tens of thousands edits of mine. Not cool, and it makes Wikipedia unsightly. — Maile (talk) 20:06, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

It's a well known fact that Trappist the monk (talk · contribs) WP:OWNs the modules underlying the {{cite web}} etc. templates. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:38, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Proposing we close this discussion, and/or add a {{Discussion moved to}} template, targeting WP:AN. Mathglot (talk) 20:15, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Parameter name changes should be widely advertized for discussion before being implemented. People should stop complaining about the red links. Some time ago most of these warnings were turned off by default because it was precieved to be better for readers of Wikipedia. That is a HUGE mistake. All the warnings should be displayed. They are all errors to be fixed and errors to fix is how Wikipedia attracts new editors. Yes they are "ugly" and it is exactly that that annoys some people enough to figure out how to fix it. Turning them off simply sweeps dirt under the rug but worse it helps exacerabate our low editorship rate. Jason Quinn (talk) 08:25, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Block edits that contain a VisualEditor bug

RFC notice: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RFC: Block edits that contain a VisualEditor bug -- GreenC 00:01, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Search and replace altered?

Hi, I gnome a lot of foreign translated articles. The French leave a space before their colon : like that, often on every line in long lists. It's been so easy to fix until now, using the search–replace function at the top of the edit box: search for space+colon, replace with colon (spelled out here for clarity). But today I find the search function will not pick up space+colon. Any ideas? Tony (talk) 00:11, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

It works for me. There are different editors. Are you referring to the default editor where the search and replace icon is to the far right but only displayed when "Advanced" is selected? If "Match whole word" is checked then uncheck it. Please link a page where it fails and specify a location in the page. Maybe it has special characters. What is your browser? PrimeHunter (talk) 00:27, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

PH, thanks. Yes, it does work now (in my sandbox). That's odd. Safari for the Mac. Tony (talk) 08:57, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Template:Boxboxtop causing weird visual errors in Safari?

Hello all, I have been dealing with this visual error for a while now and find it quite annoying. Whenever I hover over the "show" boxes in my infobox on my userpage, it continually "drifts" downwards the more you hover over the "show" buttons. I have also experienced this problem on Chrome using my desktop, however, Chrome on my Mac appears to like it now. Does anyone have any ideas? (Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 60#Template:Boxboxtop not working correctly in Firefox or Chrome might be related?) --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 02:52, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

TheSandDoctor, iv seen this before. The caption of the table wrapping your user boxes gets pushed below the table for some reason. I suspect this is a CSS or html validity error or something, but I've never been able to figure out a cause completely. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:42, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, TheDJ. Huh. The issue appears to now just be on my mac, but I have removed the offending boxes and re-done my userpage over the past few days for a number of reasons (badly needed update, to get rid of that stupid visual error, etc). Hopefully the cause and fix is found eventually. Have you experienced it yourself or just heard others complaining of it ()? --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 15:20, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Mobile editor

Has something changed of late, as to editing from mobile skin? Whenever I intend to edit from my mobile, a top-bar (which used to be not there) displays 'Loading Editor' for an extraordinarily long time .... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Winged Blades of Godric (talk • contribs) 04:59, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric: Are you editing in the app, the mobile domain (en.m.wikipedia.org), or the desktop domain on mobile (en.wikipedia.org)? --Izno (talk) 04:43, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric: This new style was deployed as part of the new project, mw:VisualEditor_on_mobile. It may take more time to load, depending on your internet connection. Masum Reza^📞 05:15, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-36

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

Recent changes

• You can use the new termbox interface if you edit Wikidata on a mobile device. This is to edit labels, descriptions and aliases easier on the mobile pages. [1]
• The new version of MediaWiki has been deployed during the last week.
• The previously announced change of positions of the "Wikidata item" link on all wikis has been rollbacked due to unexpected cache issues. [2]
• The limit for rollbacks has been increased from 10 to 100 rollbacks per minute. [3]
• The advanced version of the edit review pages (Recent Changes, Watchlist, and Related Changes) now include two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces. However the "All discussions" filter does not include pseudo talk pages, like discussions that are in the Project: or Wikipedia: namespaces. But it will include changes happening on Project talk: or the Wikipedia talk:. [4]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 September. It will be on all wikis from 5 September (calendar).
• When you log in, the software checks your password to see if it follows the Password policy. From this week, it will also complain if your password is one of the most common passwords in the world. If your password is not strong enough, please consider to change your password for a stronger password. [5]

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikidata for up to 30 minutes on September 10 at 05:00 (UTC). [6]
• You will be able to read but not to edit some mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes September 17 at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [7]
• You will be able to read but not to edit some mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes September 24 at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [8]
• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for up to 30 minutes on September 26 at 05:00 (UTC). [9]

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

09:07, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Languagetool wikicheck

Is somebody running this? This is how it looks like, seems useful to me. Apparently the author ran out of resources. He did try hosting it on Wikimedia Tool Labs but had some issues. The source is available at https://github.com/languagetool-org/languagetool-wikicheck (GNU LGPL) 2001:14BA:984A:F200:0:0:0:8EA (talk) 12:41, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Admin highlighter script

seems to have stopped. Or perhaps all the admins have gone undergound. Anyone else got the same issue? ——SerialNumber54129 16:12, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: just checked, it works for me. What specific page are you looking at, and what admin isn't highlighted? DannyS712 (talk) 04:34, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

All pages incl watchlist, none of them. But it's back now. ——SerialNumber54129 06:04, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm on mobile right now, and it occurs to me that ^^^was on desktop. Will check that soonish. ——SerialNumber54129 06:05, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

New editor's contributions page not working

For some reason, when I click on "New editors' contribs" at Special:RecentChanges, I get a page with no contributions. Did something change on WP's end or am I out of the loop on something? shoy (reactions) 14:23, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

That is in MediaWiki:Recentchangestext - and was referenced in Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_174#A_"special"_page_is_taking_a_very_long_time_to_load - I think I saw this was recently deprecated? (If so we can remove it from that box). — xaosflux ^Talk 15:03, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

See also phab:T220447. I can't look in to this right now, but that may be enough for someone else to start. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:04, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

You can now filter on RC by newcomers, learners and experienced. This should make things easier and, imo, removes the need for the new editor's contribs page. Agent00x (talk) 16:51, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

@Agent00x: @Xaosflux: Thanks, I must have missed that new feature. shoy (reactions) 18:14, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

@Shoy: I've removed that link from that header, as it was deprecated. If you have some other link you'd like to see up there, you can drop an edit request at MediaWiki talk:Recentchangestext. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:24, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T232173

The radio button for selecting new editor contribution mode is still present beside the User field. Can this be removed as well? --Trialpears (talk) 19:23, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

@Trialpears: do you mean the checkbox in Special:RecentChanges for "Newcomers"? that one works, if it is somewhere else can you provide a link to the page you see it on? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:51, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Xaosflux no the lonley radio button beside the user field at Special:Contributions. It's now useless since the other choice, the new editor contributions mode, has been removed. I can add a screenshot if necessary --Trialpears (talk) 15:50, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

@Trialpears: OK, someone is working on that already, I subscribed you to phab:T232173 for progress. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:10, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Template overflow on right side - Basque conflict

Greetings, Recently User:PrimeHunter helped me with titleclass = wraplinks to solve a template spilling beyond the right margins. A more complicated template is {{Basque conflict}} where it looks like the two right-most columns should be stacked underneath the first "Participants in the Basque сonflict" column. The template is linked from article Marian Beitialarrangoitia. I tried several templates updates, and this is way beyond my ability. So I'm asking for expert help here. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 15:06, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Five columns with long nowraplinks is a lot. A simple solution would be changing listclass = plainlist to listclass = plainlist wraplinks. A narrow window would get many wrapped links which doesn't look good so a more complicated redesign with fewer columns is also an option. I'm not doing that. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:55, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

You could also consider a complete rewrite to rotate it 90 degrees, as is often done with complex topics that have many articles. See Template:Mammals and Template:Queen for examples. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:15, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

 Done - @Jonesey95 and PrimeHunter: - Thanks for your suggestions. Being a "cloner" I copied {{Pre-Roman peoples in Spain}} into my sandbox to rewrite. Hoping not to repeat, but at least I have some experience. Cheers! JoeHebda (talk) 19:37, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Breaking change in image inclusions?

This morning I noticed that many of my articles with thumbed-images have large amounts of whitespace in the text they are part of. As of the time I'm writing this, examples can be seen in AMES Type 80, and formerly in Dowding system. There appear to be no related edits to the articles that would have caused this. Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:58, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

They look normal to me. Does it happen if you log out? Try to bypass your cache, using Ctrl+F5 in many browsers, not just F5 alone. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:05, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Desperately seeking M*A*S*H (TV series)

Why is the article so hard to find? Is it the asterisks? There should be some check, e.g., before treating the asterisks as wild cards, try taking them literally and see if there's a match there.

Here's why I ask:
Lieutenant Kijé contains the paragraph

Parody

The story is often parodied in fictional works making fun of bureaucracies, most famously in the form of the M*A*S*H episode "Tuttle", featuring a fictional captain of similar provenance.

After several diversions, I searched Wikipedia for [[M*A*S*H (TV series)]]. This is what I got:

Search results Results 1 – 20 of 11,140

(Each of these entries was followed by a paragraph of description and, I think, a line of datestamp.)

• Macintosh
• Maschinenmensch
• Mash
• Manoush
• MacLeish
• Manish Makhija
• Manish Paul
• Macintosh TV
• Groundling Marsh
• Tammy MacIntosh
• Mahesh Thakur
• Gavin MacIntosh
• Jodie Marsh
• Michelle Marsh
• Steven Mackintosh
• Mahesh Bhatt
• Kym Marsh
• Mahesh Manjrekar
• Rodney Marsh
• Heinie Manush

Results from sister projects

• television show
• show (plural television shows) A live or recorded broadcast or program, or series of broadcasts or programs, meant to be viewed on television. 1995, Margaret.

  Word definitions from Wiktionary

... (And finally)

Wikipedia has an article about: M*A*S*H (TV series)

Quotes from Wikiquote

...

Results 1 – 20 of 11,140

Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 17:02, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Thnidu, one thing I have learned about searching the web is "don't overthink it". If you search for "mash" or "MASH", you will be taken to a disambiguation page that has the link you will be looking for (no matter what kind of mash, MASH, or M*A*S*H you seek). If you search for "mash tv series", you will be taken directly to the correct page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:29, 6 September 2019 (UTC):

@Jonesey95: I believe Thnidu is referring to our internal search engine's (CirrusSearch) limitations. Compare searches for M*A*S*H (TV series) and "M*A*S*H (TV series)". Nardog (talk) 17:34, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

@Thnidu: If I enter M*A*S*H or M*A*S*H (TV series) in the search box at top of all pages then I'm taken directly to the page with that title. It's also suggested as soon as I type M*. You only get search results if you use Special:Search or do something to avoid the default Go feature of the normal search box. I think it's acceptable that those search results assume that search syntax is not the literal page name. How many would even search on M*A*S*H instead of just MASH or mash? PrimeHunter (talk) 17:44, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter, Jonesey95, and Nardog: PrimeHunter, you have a good point, as emphasized by your last sentence. But I should have mentioned that I am using the mobile interface, on my smartphone. That can make a lot of difference; see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#serious format issue on this page.

--Thnidu (talk) 18:54, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

It's roughly the same for me in mobile and in the regular interface. If I open en.WP in Safari for iPhone (in the mobile view) and search for "mash", the first search result is the disambiguation page. If I search for "mash tv series", the first search result is the page for the TV series. The plausibility of someone searching for "M*A*S*H" on a mobile keyboard, requiring an absurd number of keypresses on my iPhone, is something I am not going to lose sleep over. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:46, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

@Thnidu: You could also surround the search term in quotation marks i.e. "M*A*S*H", which will prevent the * from being treated as wildcards. the wub "?!" 23:17, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Jonesey95 and the wub. It makes sense. --Thnidu (talk) 03:10, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Help with WP tools

Hi all. Perhaps someone can help me out. 2-3 months ago, several of the tools I use in my gnomish activities stopped working. It has to do with signing in to WP on that tool, and the OATH script. I keep getting the message: "There was a script error --> --> A problem occurred in a Python script. /home/dispenser/public_html/cgi-bin/tracebacks/connect_OAuthException_120_SjBvb1.html contains the description of this error." Anyone know I can fix this? Thanks in advance. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 17:40, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

@Onel5969: For the start, sharing a full link where to find/use "WP tools" would be welcome so someone else could try reproducing without having to guess. --Malyacko (talk) 18:42, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

My apologies, Malyacko. The two main areas I use are Reflinks and DabSolver. If you notice, there is a down arrow in the upper right corner, which says "sign in". When I click on the option to "Connect to Wikipedia", that's when I receive the error message. I hope that's enough detail.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 20:11, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Onel5969 Thanks! Confirming: "A problem occurred in a Python script. /home/dispenser/public_html/cgi-bin/tracebacks/connect_OAuthException_120_49JvV7.html contains the description of this error." I assume that Dispenser could look up the exact error and check the code. --Malyacko (talk) 13:37, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Talkpage banner question

I have a technical question related to the template code that generates WikiProject banners on talkpages. Any experienced editor knowledgeable in that area willing to spend some time helping me out? UnitedStatesian (talk) 17:44, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

@UnitedStatesian: think you are looking for: Template:WPBannerMeta. @WOSlinker and Happy-melon: have done a lot of work on it. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:13, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

I also know quite a lot about how it works. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:37, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedia down

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T232224

For all those that are wondering, yes Wikimedia did go down and may still be down for some, Wikimedia Operations is aware and is working hard to fix that issue. There is a phabricator task, located here. Thank you!

(English Wikipedia Tech Ambassador) Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ _Talk 20:32, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Slightly more info: https://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/wikipedia-down-after-malicious-attack-19686646 and https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/1170133355901251585 Kaldari (talk) 04:08, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

The perps are broadcasting their activity on twitter [10] looks like they have now moved from targetting Wikipedia to attacking Twitch servers. --Salix alba (talk): 04:31, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Problems loading pages, logging-in?

Problems logging in, also often just reading or trying to edit - last eight hours - no notices on Wikipedia or Wikimedia... how does one report such problems, how are they notified to the community? And how is progress in fixing them? Thanks2A00:1370:8117:4B0D:C4ED:E9B:7451:EB70 (talk) 07:06, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

It's a known problem: See T232224 and above comments. Also people are working to get things right. – Ammarpad (talk) 07:42, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Downtime information and links

I this the goto place for information on downtime? What links are there to downtime information? Could/should there be a link or info on Downtime (disambiguation)? Just asking, had some trouble finding here. Anyway, thanks for the info. Rakeroot (talk) 22:26, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

IRC (specifically #wikimedia-tech) is generally the best place to get information on ongoing downtime. This page usually has reports too if it's reachable. After the event technical reports are posted at https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incident_documentation, although it can take some time for the relevant information to be gathered. the wub "?!" 00:02, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia use Cloudflare?

There are some concerns. [11] Benjamin (talk) 11:45, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• Katherine (WMF) stated in Twitter that WMF had made a decision not to use any commercial CDN at all: "this has been a deliberate choice to preserve privacy and maintain independence". IMHO, "A massive IOT botnet attack is a new challenge, we’ll adapt" is not an assuring answer, and neither I can see how an own custom CDN could be a safer and more effective feature than a professional one. However, I don't know where it is an appropriate place to discuss advantages, disadvantages and possible change of this policy. Ain92 (talk) 11:19, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

  Is there no existing open-source/libre CDN that we could use and/or adapt? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:42, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

  Ain92, it should be noted that there is a big difference between a CDN and DDoS mitigation systems. I know that people are very used to buy the whole cloudflare package and think everything is one and the same but that's not exactly the case. We don't need a CDN per se, but we do require DDoS mitigation. But this too is complicated within our privacy limitations. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:30, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Nina Helou

I am not even sure if this is where I should be posting this issue and though I did try to search for it, I couldn't find the conversation the last time this happened. I know that the problem has to do with the use of both left-right and right-left text, but have no idea how to solve it so that the original titles to articles in the references section (and her name variants) are in the proper order without doing weird flipping things. Can someone please wave a magic wand and fix this technical problem for this article or tell me where to go to get it fixed? It is highly unlikely that I will comprehend an explanation of coding. Thank you. SusunW (talk) 20:33, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Start by using |script-title= in the cs1|2 templates. That will isolate the Arabic (?) script (rtl) from the Latin script (ltr). Read abot this parameter in the cs1|2 template documentation.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:42, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Trappist the monk Thank you, that fixed most of the issue and surprisingly, I was able to do it myself. Appreciate your pointing me in the right direction. SusunW (talk) 21:12, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Hat note question

Is it allowable to use a hat note (see also, further, or other) in the lede of a political candidate's bio page to link to their separate 'political positions' page? Humanengr (talk) 19:16, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Humanengr is talking about this Special:Diff/914471844 I removed it because the template document says: "This template is used to create hatnotes to point to a small number of other related titlesat the top of article sections (excluding the lead). It also looks weird in a BLP article. From what I know, see also template shouldn't be used in the lead. I think "see also" section does the job.--SharabSalam (talk) 19:27, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Aah — was double-checking; I had missed the explicit instruction on Template:See also re "excluding the lead". (my bad) Are there any other allowable mechanisms to use near the top of an article to link to the 'political positions' page? Humanengr (talk) 19:35, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Humanengr, I guess you can use the template Template:for but I feel it wouldn't look like a normal biography of living person article.--SharabSalam (talk) 19:41, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Thx so much — agree it's awkward but {{For|details on Gabbard's political positions|Political positions of Tulsi Gabbard}} might resolve the Google issue. OK if I try that? Humanengr (talk) 19:44, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

​Yea sure!.--SharabSalam (talk) 19:51, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't know which Google issue you refer to but we don't use hatnotes at the top to link to other articles about the subject of the article. Hatnotes are for other subjects which could be confused with the article subject, e.g. another person or thing with the same name. Besides, we have three other articles about her: Tulsi Gabbard 2020 presidential campaign, Political positions of Tulsi Gabbard, Electoral history of Tulsi Gabbard. They are all linked in the box "This article is part of a series about Tulsi Gabbard" below the infobox. It's not displayed in the mobile version but there is also an appropriate hatnote at Tulsi Gabbard#Political positions. "Political positions" is in the table of contents so it shouldn't be hard to find. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:07, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Thx, I should have closed this. Humanengr (talk) 21:32, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Can I not see notices for discussions in which I have already participated?

I received a notice on top of my watchlist for an ongoing RfA. The thing is, it turns out that I have already participated in this RfA. Can the notification system be set up so that it passes on notifying people who have already participated in the discussion, and do not need to be notified? I ask because I have no way of knowing that this isn't an entirely new RfA without visiting the page, which is not the best use of time. The same might apply for any kind of noticed discussion. bd2412 T 02:37, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't know of a proper solution, sorry. I don't know if you typically find your way to RfAs using that notice, but if you do then you could open the RfA in a new tab when you see it and dismiss the notice. It's just a workaround, but it might work for you. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 02:49, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. bd2412 T 04:07, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

The watchlist message can be discussed at MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-messages but I doubt an automatic system can work efficiently. Naming the candidates was opposed at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 254#Usernames in watchlist notices and other discussions linked there. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:46, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Provelt?

Whenever I contribute in Wikipedia articles, an icon called "Provelt" appears at the bottom-right of the window. What is this? —Yours sincerely, Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 06:11, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

@Soumya-8974: Do you have the ProveIt gadget checked at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets? If so, that's probably it. --Yair rand (talk) 06:27, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, I have unmarked the gadget. —Yours sincerely, Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 06:35, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

cannot save edits 404 error

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slab_pull?action=edit

On that page, attempting to save edits, I get "Something went wrong" "HTTP 404". I cleared all caches as documented in WP but did not help. BrucePL (talk) 19:43, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Ammarpad saved an edit after your post. I had no problems saving an edit now. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: thanks. I saved a few edits but it bombed again. Cannot switch to source editor and cannot save in VE. BrucePL (talk) 22:11, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

"Error loading data from server: apierror-visualeditor-docserver-http." BrucePL (talk) 22:19, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I tried VisualEditor this time and it also worked fine for me. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:21, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't know what to do. I can save eidts on other pages not this one. BrucePL (talk) 22:33, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I openned the article in a new tab and editors worked. BrucePL (talk) 22:51, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

There's something going on. I saw something like this twice, a couple of days ago. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:45, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, getting this again. I edited Draft:Morse Robb using visual editor, and when I went to save it, got the 404 error. I'm now at a point where if I try to switch to source editing, I get, "Error loading data from server: apierror-visualeditor-docserver-http." If I select "Visual editing" from the drop-down menu (even though I'm already in visual), I get in the javascript console:

load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:116 Uncaught TypeError: Illegal invocation
    at add (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:116)
    at buildParams (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115)
    at buildParams (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115)
    at buildParams (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115)
    at Function.jQuery.param (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:116)
    at Function.jQuery.param (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:150)
    at Function.ajax (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:123)
    at Function.jQuery.ajax (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:144)
    at Object.requestParsoidData (<anonymous>:461:31)
    at VeInitMwDesktopArticleTarget.ve.init.mw.ArticleTarget.switchToVisualEditor (<anonymous>:787:643)
add @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:116
buildParams @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115
buildParams @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115
buildParams @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115
jQuery.param @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:116
jQuery.param @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:150
ajax @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:123
jQuery.ajax @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:144
requestParsoidData @ VM206:461
ve.init.mw.ArticleTarget.switchToVisualEditor @ VM218:787
ve.init.mw.DesktopArticleTarget.switchToVisualEditor @ VM218:1238
ve.ui.MWEditModeVisualTool.switch @ VM218:798
mw.libs.ve.MWEditModeTool.onSelect @ VM218:320
OO.ui.ToolGroup.onMouseKeyUp @ VM218:11
OO.ui.PopupToolGroup.onMouseKeyUp @ VM218:20
OO.ui.ListToolGroup.onMouseKeyUp @ VM218:25
OO.ui.ToolGroup.onDocumentMouseKeyUp @ VM218:11
load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:116 Uncaught TypeError: Illegal invocation
    at add (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:116)
    at buildParams (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115)
    at buildParams (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115)
    at buildParams (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115)
    at Function.jQuery.param (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:116)
    at Function.jQuery.param (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:150)
    at Function.ajax (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:123)
    at Function.jQuery.ajax (load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:144)
    at Object.requestParsoidData (<anonymous>:461:31)
    at VeInitMwDesktopArticleTarget.ve.init.mw.ArticleTarget.switchToVisualEditor (<anonymous>:787:643)
add @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:116
buildParams @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115
buildParams @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115
buildParams @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:115
jQuery.param @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:116
jQuery.param @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:150
ajax @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:123
jQuery.ajax @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:144
requestParsoidData @ VM206:461
ve.init.mw.ArticleTarget.switchToVisualEditor @ VM218:787
ve.init.mw.DesktopArticleTarget.switchToVisualEditor @ VM218:1238
ve.ui.MWEditModeVisualTool.switch @ VM218:798
mw.libs.ve.MWEditModeTool.onSelect @ VM218:320
OO.ui.ToolGroup.onMouseKeyUp @ VM218:11
OO.ui.PopupToolGroup.onMouseKeyUp @ VM218:20
OO.ui.ListToolGroup.onMouseKeyUp @ VM218:25
dispatch @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:69
elemData.handle @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core&skin=vector&version=0ymep1p:65

I'm not sure, but I think a common theme is that the page I'm editing was recently moved. It certainly was in this case, and in one of the previous ones that I saw a few days ago. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:32, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

phab:T230272 possibly? There's some others in the backlog also. --Izno (talk) 17:54, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Watchlist - highlight certain editors names

I mostly edit political and climate articles, both very contentious areas subject to DS. Sometimes upset editors tell me to stay off their user talk page. Is there a way to customize my watch list so their user names appear differently than those of other editors? I'm just looking for a way to help me remember so I can respect such wishes. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:43, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I bet a modification to the admin highlighter script could manage that for you.--Jorm (talk) 20:50, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

You don't need scripts, just one CSS rule will do it. Each row of a watchlist has the user name several times, so if you want to make edits by User:Example1 and User:Example2 to have a red background, you can highlight all of the links by using

/* make it easier to skip past edits by Example1 and Example2 */
li.mw-changeslist-line a[href="/wiki/User:Example1"],
li.mw-changeslist-line a[href="/wiki/User_talk:Example1"],
li.mw-changeslist-line a[href="/wiki/Special:Contributions/Example1"],
li.mw-changeslist-line a[href="/wiki/User:Example2"],
li.mw-changeslist-line a[href="/wiki/User_talk:Example2"],
li.mw-changeslist-line a[href="/wiki/Special:Contributions/Example2"] {
  background: red;
}

This goes in Special:MyPage/common.css or Special:MyPage/skin.css, whichever one you normally use for custom CSS. You can replace the keyword red with any valid web colour. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:01, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

This will prevent you from editing their user/user_talk pages (if that's the real problem) whilst still seeing what goes on:

var myEnemies = ["Cobaltcigs", "Tom", "Dick", "Harry"];
var iAmEditingUserspace = (wgAction == "edit") && [2,3].includes(wgNamespaceNumber);
var thisGuyHatesMe = myEnemies.includes(wgRelevantUserName);
if(iAmEditingUserspace && thisGuyHatesMe) $("#editform :input").prop('disabled', true);

Configure the first line as appropriate but please keep my name on it. ―cobaltcigs 21:19, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the tech answer and the laugh. If I use this, I think I'll tweak the variable names a bit to reflect the optimistic hope that despite todays bumps one day we might be friends. Still, that was funny. And thank you everyone else for the alternative answers to this problem, also!! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:23, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Ein Karem

Please fix:

• The broken syntax on "elevation" in the infobox
• Reference 10

Thank you!

2607:FEA8:1DE0:7B4:7811:3461:7039:276 (talk) 21:40, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Fixed by other editors. – Ammarpad (talk) 22:22, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Zhaofeng Li/reFill

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump (technical) § Zhaofeng Li/reFill

 – Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:21, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

The Zhaofeng Li/reFill tool does not add Retrieved (date) data anymore. I can not get into contact with Zhaofeng Li as he seem to have left the project. But if someone could take a look at the tool I would appreciate it. [12] --BabbaQ (talk) 21:43, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

It seems he made it now you have to explicitly request for the date to be added (i.e disabaled by default). If you use the new (beta) interface directly, there's a "Preferences" link by your right. You've to enable it from there. If you use, the old interface (which redirects to the new in background) you'll notice that an option "Do not add access dates" is checked by default. You've to uncheck it. – Ammarpad (talk) 07:55, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

The problem with the old beta is that I do uncheck it but it still does not add the data I want. I will try the new one. --BabbaQ (talk) 08:47, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

One more thing, right now when I click on View History and then Fix dead links I get the old beta. Perhaps a change to the new and improved version would benefit the project. Thanks.BabbaQ (talk) 10:11, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

The tool that fixes dead links is a different tool. I don't know where its new version is, but you can suggest changing the link at MediaWiki talk:Histlegend. – Ammarpad (talk) 10:25, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I have been through a cold and is a bit off. Thanks for your help anyway.BabbaQ (talk) 17:40, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Estranged preloadtitle=

In en.Wikipedia, some links creating a new report via section=new don’t specify the heading in preloadtitle=, pushing it into the body-text form instead. It usually leads to empty edit summary, which is despicable. Moreover, a proposed fix in Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring/Example is ignored. Opinions? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 06:13, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

You're the only one who looked at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring/Example in the last 30 days, so your comment was not ignored, it was just not seen. There's little reason to watch that page. The code for that new section link comes from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring/Header, you can edit it yourself. – Ammarpad (talk) 07:03, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Did I ask how to do? Expectedly such questions form 90% of threads here, but pay please some attention to who posts stuff and how. As for “little reason to watch that page”, in the shoes of an en.Wikipedia technician I certainly would watch thousands such pages. Even having denied promotion to template editors I watch hundreds templates and similar things. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:38, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

If you were not asking how to do it, what are you asking? You already know the fix you want to apply, so you can either apply it and see if someone disagrees, or ask whoever will be affected. In the latter case, it likely means a post at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring - the people here might have no idea of the technical details (i.e. not be "en-wp technicians"), but they are the ones you need to convince (assuming you want to get a consensus in the first place, IMO you should go for the BOLD route). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 08:35, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Edit-conflicting with self

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T28821

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T59264

Hello everyone, has anyone else had an issue where the "Publish changes" button saves your edit but then the editing interface says that there was an edit conflict? I have had it happen rather frequently as of late, yet when I check the page history my edit was saved correctly. It appears to quite literally be either an error in the interface or for some reason trying to publish the same edit twice (consecutively) and causing me to self-conflict. It doesn't happen every time, but does occur a lot. It is rather annoying.... --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 15:16, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I have the exact same problem. See also Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_176#False_edit_conflict_problem_when_saving. Thue (talk) 18:41, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

There are many bug reports for this issue, two of them are: phab:T28821 and phab:T59264. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:41, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, @Thue and Ammarpad:. I have subscribed and commented on both. I'm glad I'm not the only one experiencing this . --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 15:11, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Tool for locating pages that have been removed from categories.

I don’t know if this has been brought up as a topic previously, but if not, is there a tool that can locate/search for pages that have been removed from categories? If not, I feel like this kind of tool would be useful, as it’s very difficult to keep track of this type of thing.Dohvahkiin (talk) 18:21, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

It has serious limitations and you may want to use an alternative account with a tiny watchlist but see "Category membership" at Help:Watchlist#Limitations. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:58, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Cannot save edit on pages when using cellular network with mobile device

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T232491

For the past few days, probably since after the Wikipedia outage that happened a few days ago, I have not been able to save edits while on and using the cellular network on my mobile device. I am able to save edits when my mobile device is connect to WiFi, but not on cellular. I’ve tried...

• ...On my iPhone...
  1. ...Multiple internet browsing apps (Safari, Chrome, and Firefox)
  2. ...tried editing from both "mobile" and "desktop" view
  3. ...tried clearing my browsers' cookies and history
  4. ...resetting the network settings on my mobile device
  5. ...resetting my entire phone and attempting to use the internet before restoring my phone

...And none of this worked.

What happens is when I click the "save" button after creating an edit, the next page doesn’t load, and I get an error that says the server is not responding. In the past 5–6 years I have been editing primarily from a cellular network, this has never happened, and it's a bit alarming. Either way, I hope there is a fix for this issue since I really enjoy volunteering on Wikipedia, but may now have long periods of not editing due to these issues (since I primarily edit using a cellular network connection.) Steel1943 (talk) 20:36, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

@Steel1943: T232491. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:48, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

@Ahecht: I’m unfortunately glad to see I’m not the only one experiencing this issue. I went ahead and added a {{Tracked}} to the top of this section since I didn't see this discussed anywhere else. Steel1943 (talk) 21:05, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

@Ahecht: @Steel1943: - Can you try again (possibly with a browser or phone restart if necessary). I've made some experimental changes on the Wikimedia side of things which may (hopefully) fix this for you. BBlack (WMF) (talk) 01:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@BBlack (WMF): I made this edit on my cellular network (as well as this one), so that may have resolved it. Steel1943 (talk) 02:30, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@BBlack (WMF): It's working for me too. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:39, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Apparently incorrect interlanguage link

On the Usufruct article, the interlanguage link for Romanian links to ro:Drept de uz and, apparently, ought to link to ro:Drept de uzufruct; see talk:Usufruct#Incorrect link to Romanian Wikipedia article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:50, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

You'll want to edit wikidata:Q160474 in the lower left area. ―cobaltcigs 20:57, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

There's a conflicting Wikidata item preventing it from being corrected. I requested its deletion and posted a note on the article talk page for the concerned editor. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 22:02, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Recent class=sortkey changes?

Resolved

Were there any recent changes in class="sortkey" area? Template:Track_gauge#List_of_defined_track_gauges now shows (in 1st row for example):

00003 mm0.118 in

Expected, as it was until ~some weeks ago:

0.118 in

What shows extra is the sortkey, with source code being (unchanged):

<span class="sortkey">00003 mm</span>0.118 in

Any ideas? -DePiep (talk) 12:45, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Has to do with this in {{Convert}}? @TheDJ and Johnuniq:. -DePiep (talk) 12:49, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Nothing to do with convert. If you edit Template:Track gauge/doc/input options, you will see that there are no convert transclsions, but does have something to do with an edit to common.css. You'll need to update Module:Track gauge/autodocument to use the data-sort-value method for sorting. -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:54, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

OK. I only mentioend {{Convert}} becasue the class change was announced there. -DePiep (talk) 13:00, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• So instead of

<span class="sortkey">00003 mm</span>0.118 in

write

<span data-sort-value="00003 mm">0.118 in

Solved. -DePiep (talk) 14:23, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

DePiep, actually, I'd say: <span data-sort-value="00003">0.118 in</span>. You 'mask' the content of the cell, with the numerical value 00003. And of course this assumes that you use the same sort of numerical values in all the other rows. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:42, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

I get it, thanx. However, I don't have time to refine & test that in the detail template. -DePiep (talk) 20:57, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Help with LUA and shoving a string into a template

In Module:JCW, I have in this version, the following,

function p.pattern (frame)
	local n = mArguments.getArgs(frame, {parentOnly = true})
	local length = TableTools.length(n)
	local text = string.format ('*%s', n[1] or '')
	n[1] = nil --make next loop only target arguments >=2
	for i, j in ipairs(TableTools.compressSparseArray(n)) do
		text = text..string.format("\n** {{replace|%s|.*|<code>.*</code>}}", j)
	end
	return text

The line text = text..string.format("\n** %s", j) is apparently shorthand for 'dumbass that can't code LUA', because if if you have a string like '*Bibcode*', you don't get, as I'd expect

• • .*Bibcode.*

but rather an un-parsed

• • {{replace|.*Bibcode.*|.*|.*}}

If someone could de-dumbassify my code, that would be peachy. The goal is if the substring '.*' is present in a string like '.*Bibcode.*', I want those to become wrapped in code tags, like so <code>.*</code>Bibcode<code>.*</code>.

@Galobtter: maybe? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:59, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

I think you need to escape the special characters (. and *) in your search. See this tutorial and this manual. I think you need something like %.%* to find '.*'. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:18, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

I'll double check, but it would be a bit weird since {{replace|.*Bibcode.*|.*|<code>.*</code>}} works fine. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:47, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Nope, throws off a bunch of errors if I do that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:51, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Templates won't be expanded from lua output. To use a template, you'd need to use frame:expandTemplate. However, in this case, there's no reason to use lua to call {{replace}}, since that template is just going to call back to a lua module anyway. Just do:

 text = text .. "\n** " .. mw.ustring.gsub(j, "%.%*", "<code>.*</code>")

mw.ustring.gsub is just the unicode-compatible version of string.gsub. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:01, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah that works. Thanks. Still got other issues, but less pressing ones. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:13, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Plain string.gsub works fine in Ahecht's code because there is no search for Unicode characters: it's just searching for dot and asterisk. Johnuniq (talk) 23:44, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank button changing into rollback

I have noticed that on Win10 using Chrome that upon loading a page history that the page is reformatted after a couple of seconds, I guess because of CSS or script mods. When this happens the rollback button moved exactly to where the thanks button was. Not, in itself a big problem but, embarrassingly, if I click thanks before this change occurs (from ~0.5 to ~3 seconds) the interface reads it as a rollback. Anyone have any ideas? I use the script that should hide rollback on my watchlist - sometimes it does some times not - but it is useful from page history.

As an aside, is there a way to add a thanks button to the watchlist? Jbh ^Talk 14:37, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-37

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

Changes later this week

• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikidata for up to 30 minutes on 10 September at 05:00 (UTC). [13]
• When you log in, the software checks your password to see if it follows the Password policy. From this week, it will also complain if you are a "privileged user" and your password is too short. If your password is not strong enough, please consider to change your password for a stronger password. [14]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 September. It will be on all wikis from 12 September (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 11 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Soon, the AbuseFilter will recognize new syntax errors. Specifically, it will recognize errors about empty operands. You can see a list of examples in phab:T156096. Any active filter with such an error will stop working; hence, please take a look at the list of affected filters, and fix the ones that you can fix. Note that there is also an ongoing RFC on meta-wiki about the creation of a new abusefilter-manager global group.

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

(manually posting due to problems with MassMessage this week.) 19:22, 11 September 2019 (UTC)