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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MiszaBot II (talk | contribs) at 06:44, 27 September 2010 (Archiving 3 thread(s) from Wikipedia:Village pump (technical).). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template /doc differs when the /doc-page is transcluded into main template-page

Resolved
 – Templates & functions too deep

Template:Unichar(edit talk links history). I created a quite elaborate template (using sub-templates and calculations). Workings are OK. Then I documented it with examples on the regular /doc subpage. Now the examples on the regular Template:unichar/doc page itself look OK, but when that same /doc page is transcluded into the main Template-page {{unichar}} (having the green Document background, etc., all regular), then the examples don't show up well. Diff: the first example reads OK:

  • U+00A9 © copyright sign. (OK)

On the main Template page, it says:

  • U+00A9 <control-0000> copyright sign. (Wrrong)

The 0000 indicates that a hex2dec calculation variable did not end up well in a subtemplate.
I tried purging every page I touched, waiting one whole hour (wow), and re-sandboxed the whole thing. The new sandbox ended up correct after a while, but I cannot reproduce it for real. This good sandbox is on my User:DePiep page, I'll put it on top. Anyone an idea? Need more sandboxes? -DePiep (talk) 19:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Template /doc does not transclude correct (reprhrase)

Template:Unichar(edit talk links history). The regular /doc page shows examples OK, but when transcluded onto main Template-page, the examples are broken. See /doc header with good/bad example. I did purge, sandbox (went ok, see my Userpage), checked newPP limits (serious, but under 50%). -DePiep (talk) 07:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

It looks like it is due to the expansion depth limit.--Patrick (talk) 08:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Good hint. Then shouldn't there be the red error message "Expansion depth limit exceeded", or some message in the page source HTML-code? -DePiep (talk) 08:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
That explained it. Still missed the error message. I moved the deep hex2decimal calculation {{hex2dec}} into the higher template, and that did it. Thanx, Patrick. -DePiep (talk) 09:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
You are welcome. Unfortunately the count or error message is not in the "NewPP limit report" or elsewhere in the html source. On expansion of a template etc. or substitution of a template parameter, if the limit has been exceeded, the name of the template etc. or template parameter is replaced by <span class="error">Expansion depth limit exceeded</span>, for example {{t|p|q}} is replaced by {{<span class="error">Expansion depth limit exceeded</span>|p|q}}. Often that shows up, but not if that wikitext is just used in a condition, or in the case of a template parameter with a default.--Patrick (talk) 10:01, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I get it. I added the m:-link to my own helps list, and it now is part of my intuition (rational suspicion), which is OK for now. -DePiep (talk) 10:08, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Edits

Need someone to move the user edits from User:Shannon1/usurped3 to User:Shannon1. Still facing a lot of problems with that. Brought it up a few times but never got any help as I am not an admin. Shannontalk contribs 05:23, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm guessing you mean Shannon1 (usurped3) (talk · contribs), that account has only three edits and those are only to your user/talk pages. Does this really need doing?--Salix (talk): 07:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Contributions histories cannot be merged. –xenotalk 18:23, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Job queue length and template transclusions

That old problem again. I created the category Category:Thai film stubs some days ago, after adding the relevant stub tag to 60+ film articles. However, the category only has two articles at the moment while the system refreshes. And there are some massive lags in some page moves I've done, where I've updated the navigation templates on the article with the new article title. Can anything be done about this? Lugnuts (talk) 08:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Next time create and add the category prior to tagging! =] –xenotalk 18:22, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Can't find desysopping dates

Several different times, I've tried to find logs for individuals being desysopped, but I don't remember ever being able to find any. For example, let's look at Herostratushis log shows him creating the account, becoming an admin, having offensive revisions being deleted, being blocked and unblocking himself, and having user rights added, but I can't find anything about him being desysopped. FYI, it happened after a successful request for de-adminship last June, but the log doesn't show anything. Any ideas how to find the exact date and time? Please note that I'm not in any conflict or anything like that with Herostratus; I'm using him strictly as an example. Nyttend (talk) 21:23, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

http://meta.wikimedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=rights&user=&page=User%3AHerostratus%40enwiki&year=&month=-1&tagfilter= Wknight94 talk 21:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
And in general, desysops have to be done by a steward at Meta, so that's where the logs will always be. It is unfortunate that there's no entry in the local log for such actions. Gavia immer (talk) 21:32, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't realise that such actions were logged at Meta; I assumed that a steward would log in here and perform the action here. Thanks for the pointer. Nyttend (talk) 00:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
It won't however pick up those who got desysopped by devs although thats a fairly small number.©Geni 01:12, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Technical side of being an IP address

Let me tell a short story: it will illuminate my question. Earlier today, I found a user talk page in CAT:CSD that had been tagged with {{db-band}}. If it had been in mainspace, I would have deleted it, because the page had only ever been used as userspace hosting for what looks to be a nonnotable band; I declined, but only because db-band isn't applicable in userspace. Just a minute ago, I got a note from the IP address that had tagged it, saying basically "I can't just blank the page, or it will be prevented by a filter or be reverted as vandalism, so I just tag it to get the attention of admins so that they'll blank it with nobody thinking that they're vandalising". Now to my question — is there some filter that would actively prevent IPs from blanking user talk pages in contexts such as this? Nyttend (talk) 02:40, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Special:AbuseFilter/33. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
That abuse filter doesn't actually prevent them from doing the edit, it just warns the user first and then lets them do the edit. Also, it doesn't apply to User talkpages at all. But when I tried to blank my talk page as an anon, I wasn't allowed to by Special:AbuseFilter/34, which isn't public. Svick (talk) 06:03, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Asking for help with Edits to the Template:infobox school district

I looking for help in editing Template:infobox school district. I want to add GeoLocation ({{coord}}) (for example the coord for the main office, in the case of where I added it in Buffalo Public Schools) and to move the {{country}} box on the Same Line direct line for {{location}} because it looks tacty when rendering. I would normally try to edit this myself, but it is beyond my knowledge.
Thank you for your help, and your opinions on the matter. (Also posted @ WP:SCH's WT:WPSPCH for xref) --WolfnixTalk01:15, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

well, looking at the problem, I'm actually going to go ahead and convert the entire template to {{infobox}} format. after that changes should be easy - and maybe we can make the template look a bit less dull, too. --Ludwigs2 05:38, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
mostly done. I'll have to update the docs and fix any errors tomorrow. --Ludwigs2 06:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks alot! Looks much better!! :D I went about updating Buffalo Public Schools after updating my old highschool's page Hutchinson Central Technical High School I used Template:infobox school instead of Template:infobox secondary_school because of looks and they just don't conform and is suggested for US schools. Thanks again! --WolfnixTalk16:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Toliño from Galician Wikipedia. Right there, I'm the user which controls and solves technical issues. But I haven't got any idea about solving the following. Another user asked me if I could fix somehow the code for this external link used as reference:

[http://www.ige.eu/igebdt/esq.jsp?ruta=verTabla.jsp?OP=1&B=1&M=&COD=147&R=2[1];9915[12:15:27:32:36]&C=1[all]&F=&S=0:0 Datos do IGE de poboación maior de 16 segundo o nivel de estudos] (2001).

which gives:

[1;9915[12:15:27:32:36]&C=1[all]&F=&S=0:0 Datos do IGE de poboación maior de 16 segundo o nivel de estudos] (2001).

The problem is due to the URL syntax, which uses "[" and especially "]" so that MediaWiki understands that this is the end of the link - but it isn't. Do you know any solution to this? Thanks in advance! --Toliño (talk) 13:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

URL-encode it: [1].—Emil J. 13:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

wikipedia vs. commons images - how to specify?

Ran into an odd problem - I was trying to change the lead image on the article UFO, found a nice image over at commons, but when I tried to add it in using the normal [[file:Ufo.gif]] syntax, I got the wrong image. apparently there's an image on wikipedia that has the same name. how can I bypass the Wikipedia image and get the commons image to load? sorry, I've never run itno this problem before, and I can't find any documentation on it. --Ludwigs2 19:12, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, but I moved the local image to File:Ufo barnstar.gif and updated the three uses. –xenotalk 19:20, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
lol - well, ok - that works. thanks. If you figure it out, though, let me know and I'll add it to Help:File. That seems like a problem that's bound to crop up every once in a while. --Ludwigs2 19:25, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
A simple repository conflict. When two images share a name, the local repository is preferred over the shared repository. Easiest is usually to move the local image to another name. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 19:30, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
P.s. - interesting. apparently animated gifs work fine for Wikipedia images but not when transferred from commons. is that a known problem/feature, or should I drop a note about that over at bugzilla? --Ludwigs2 19:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 76#GIF not animating. –xenotalk 19:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Documented here: Wikipedia:IMAGES#Consideration_of_image_download_size. Including them fullsize will work though (because then the thumbscaling isn't required and the limits are on the thumb scaler. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 19:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Got it. you guys are stars. I'll see what I can do to fix it. --Ludwigs2 19:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Image shows up in Internet Explorer, but not Firefox

This image showed up fine when I looked at it in school using Internet Explorer, but is not visible at home in Firefox. Is there a way to fix this? SharkD  Talk  04:57, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

The originally uploaded version (from July 21, 2005) is busted; I just get a MediaWiki error trying to view it. The current version (from July 22, 2005; not a recent change) shows up fine for me on Firefox 3.6.8. I've purged the image; is it still not showing up? Gavia immer (talk) 05:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Nope. All I see is the file name on top of a checkered background. It's not visible in either of the articles it's used in either. SharkD  Talk  08:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Ah ha! Do you have an ad blocker that is noticing the URL of the image is http:/upwiki/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ad/FinalFantasyVII-Combat.jpg/250px-FinalFantasyVII-Combat.jpg? Anomie 11:41, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes! That's exactly the problem! Thanks for figuring that out! This really should be fixed as it's highly undesirable behavior. SharkD  Talk  23:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Indeed - you should complain to whomever produces your adblocking software, as it is defective. -- Finlay McWalterTalk 23:23, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't say the ad blocking software is defective, just misconfigured. It needs a whitelist entry for upload.wikimedia.org. Anomie 00:08, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Login help

I need help logging in, I enter in my username and password and get this:

Login successful From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search

"You have successfully signed in to Wikipedia as "Knowledgekid87".

For help using Wikipedia, please see the help page.

Logging you in to Wikimedia's other projects: (what's this?)"

However as soon as I click on another link it shows me logged out again and says I need to log in, now I cleared my cookies and temps but still have trouble. Is there any way you can help me? None of the other websites I use are giving me this issue. My browser is Internet Explorer 7 ver. 7.0.5730.11 and OS is Windows XP. - 24.91.121.72 (talk) 23:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Is something at Help:Logging in of help? PrimeHunter (talk) 00:02, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I tried a secure log in and that did not work, I tried allowing third-party cookies (Which I had allowed anyways) and that was of no use. The date and time are all ok here, looking at the User rename log my account had also not been renamed. - 24.91.121.72 (talk) 00:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Try disabling javascript. Also try logging in at a different project (simple:Special:UserLogin, for example) and see if you can hop back to en. from there. Have you considered switching to an alternate browser? Perhaps Firefox? –xenotalk 00:19, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I have tried to disable Java, and logging into Wiki Japan with the same issue problem, I do not want firefox though is there any fix for this? - 24.91.121.72 (talk) 00:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Hopefully someone familiar with IE can help. At least test it with Firefox, Google Chrome, or another browser to see if it's a browser issue. –xenotalk 01:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Well I tried Firefox and it works under version 3.6.9. I do not know why IE7 is acting up. Thanks for your help, do you think a fix can be made? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't know. Upgrade IE maybe? Though Firefox has a number of advantages over IE in regards to editing Wikipedia. –xenotalk 03:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Not really I tried firefox and the pages load much slower as well as it not having as good of graphics, anyways though the problem has been fixed and Wiki under IE7 works again for me thanks again for all your and PrimeHunter's help =) - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Glad to hear it. What was the problem? What fixed it? –xenotalk 12:54, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I dont really know myself what happened. After I downloaded and ran firefox I noticed that abode reader needed updating so I did that but then noticed that my computer date had been altered (By the update I guess I checked before whe nthe problem started and it was fine) I also updated Java but I do not think that had an impact - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC).

If there was something screwy going on with your system clock, that might explain it. For example, if you log in, and then advance your system clock more than 30 days, you will be logged out (as your cookie expires). –xenotalk 14:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I did read that, when the problem with wiki started though I checked the time and date and it was fine. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:21, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

TOC suppressed somehow

Can anyone see where the code to suppress the table of content is at Talk:Muhammad? __meco (talk) 13:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't suppressed, but the transcluded FAQ page on the top of the talk page included headers, forcing the TOC inside the FAQ template. Fixed with a <noinclude> on the FAQ page. EdokterTalk 13:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Appreciated. __meco (talk) 14:00, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Announcement of Pending Changes poll result

Announcement about Pending Changes --Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Dear fellows!

I have added a request to Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals to announce a possible new gadget (already one on German wikipedia) which generates an interface to skip over and to individually requested revisions by one single click using a drop down menu. To avoid splitting up discussion, I'd recommend to discuss it there. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 23:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC) P.S.: Script, howto.

Nobody? :-( —DerHexer (Talk) 18:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
It sounds good to me. What url can I use to import from dewiki to try it out? My monobook fiddling was unsuccessful. :\ —DoRD (talk) 18:12, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
It sounds cool but I failed to import it as well [2]. –xenotalk 18:21, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
That's a relief! I don't feel quite so stupid now. :P —DoRD (talk) 18:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Xeno gets a JS error because of unmasked </script>; importScript works in another way. Why don't you try the code cited in User:DerHexer/testrevisionjumper.js or simply use importScript('User:DerHexer/testrevisionjumper.js');? ;o) Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 19:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm...Not sure how my current thingy with same code (VOA scripts) is working but ok!
Has the en.wiki version been fully tested for secure server? Because it is directing me to bad url: https://secure.wikimedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Thelmadatter&oldid=190936748&diff=cur . –xenotalk 19:46, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
WONTFIX; WORKSFORME xD Well, it really works for me. I correctly got that one. Did you clear your cache (best is Ctrl+F5 in Firefox)? Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 20:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
It only happens on the "Next to last editor" button. –xenotalk 20:08, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, fixed. —DerHexer (Talk) 20:31, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Suggestion: Allow jumping to revisions but not relative to the current diff - just jumping 10 old revisions backward for example. –xenotalk 20:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
    Do you mean directly jumping to revisions instead of generating differences? That would currently only work in permanent links with personal setting, see here. Of course both ways are useful but it's imho easier to go from a diff to a permanent revision instead of the other way round. So I decided to generate diffs instead or permanent links to keep the interface simple (it would of course be possible to add a button which allows you to decide whether you want to generate a diff or a permanent link; but the interface is already slow enough, imho). Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 20:31, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
    Well ... I kindof meant jumping to a single diff screen 10 revisions back. –xenotalk 20:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
    But you are right in that the relevant links are available from the consolidated diff, so don't worry about this request too much. –xenotalk 20:47, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
If nobody opposes that request, I consider adding that script to gadgets' list and “advertising” it on useful places. —DerHexer (Talk) 17:22, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Vector AJAX preview not working

At least, not for me. I assumed this was a transient problem, but for the last several edits I've made, clicking the "Show Preview" button does nothing but move focus to the "Show Preview" button. Anyone know what's going on? For the record: I'm on the Vector skin on Firefox 3.6.8 on Windows Vista, and I use a ton of custom Javascript but I haven't changed any of it recently. Gavia immer (talk) 04:38, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Preview is still not working for me. Am I the only one for who this issue has come up? Gavia immer (talk) 15:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

{{hex2dec}} is wrongly case sensitive

Resolved

--Ludwigs2 16:37, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

See Template talk:Hex2dec#Lowercase can give different result
In regular cases the template hexadecimal-to-decimal (say 0xA1==>161) is done by {{hex2dec}} correctly. But when "0x" is omitted, and the input value is in lowercose like "0f6a79" (correct a hexadecimal it is), the template might give the wrong result. It is a template bug. -DePiep (talk) 21:45, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Complex template that needs fixed

{{infobox road small}} needs fixed so that it only displays files if they exist. If you take a look at List of county routes in Erie County, New York (129–160) the template in question is spewing redlinked images. ΔT The only constant 15:59, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I suggest that you take the time to convert the template to {{infobox}} format. I've already done one of those this week - it's tawdry work, but the tempalte will look batter afterwards and be much easier to edit. --Ludwigs2 16:39, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Templates give me nightmares (as I am a programmer) template syntax is such a bastard language I cannot understand it, However I am attempting to cleanup redlinked images and this is a major source, which is why I brought it here. ΔT The only constant 16:42, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Done. Svick (talk) 16:52, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, :) now if your up for a challenge {{infobox football club}} also spews redlinked images. They are a little harder to see most of the time because the links are hidden behind other images a lot, but see FC Dornbirn 1913 and Swindon Spitfires Women's and Girls' Football Club for examples. ΔT The only constant 16:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I have fixed the two articles and a fix for the template is on its way. Svick (talk) 18:37, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Cologne blue

Hi. I wondered if there was something you could do to the Cologne blue setting to keep that format/colouring but to have the categories /interwiki links at the foot of the page, not the top. Any idea? Dr. Blofeld 17:56, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Try viewing Greta Garbo in cologne blue. What I want is the name Greta Garbo to appear directly underneath where it says "free encyclopedia" (about 3 inches higher up the screen) . Dr. Blofeld 17:58, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Add the code in [3] to your cologneblue.js. Svick (talk) 19:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Robina Muqimyar/ Robina Jalali confusion

Excuse me if this is not a tech issue; I don't know where else to post. I started an article on Robina Jalali a few hours ago, not knowing she was also known or formerly known as Robina Muqimyar. So after erroneously creating a Robina Jalali page, I patched the new information on her run for political office into the Robina Mugimyar page and changed the name in the text, mentioning Jalali first...it's easier just to look at my work, than to explain it. Can someone check over the two articles, and correct the name or remove the redirect or whatever in the proper way? Thanks! KeptSouth (talk) 00:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

POTD image template broken?

The "POTD image" template started rendering differently within the last day. Pages that transclude it are generally broken at the moment... what changed? SJ+ 02:33, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to have been a technical problem, rather the template was replaced with a different template format... hopefully fixed. SJ+ 02:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

VP's title box: Proposed view change

 Done from sandbox into live
In the Template:Village pump pages/sandbox is a proposed new view for this page's header box. There are demos before/after in Template:Village pump pages/testcases, and notes. Any support? -DePiep (talk) 17:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea to me. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 23:31, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Done-DePiep (talk) 09:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Usage of the table tag in message boxes

Currently, all message boxes like {{Ambox}}, {{Ombox}} and the like use tables for their formatting. However, per the W3C HTML 5 specification, it's not allowed to use tables for formatting and rather should CSS be used. Could this be switched to a div then? --The Evil IP address (talk) 10:38, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

This is not a law, but rather a specification. Wikipedia often uses deprecated forms because wikipedia readers come from all roads of life, and many may not have computers that are fully up to the most current specifications. There's no sense trying to be on the cutting edge if that means that pages render badly (or not at all) for viewers using outdated technology. --Ludwigs2 16:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
If you will dive into the discussion pages of ambox and friends, then you will see that we experimented for a few months with several formats, but unfortunately divs proved to be incredibly unreliable especially in the older browsers. This stemmed mostly out of float and clear issues, which with all the images and infoboxes we use is pretty common. It's not that we didn't WANT to use divs, but tables were the only solution producing correct and more importantly consistent results. Basically for this to be switched to divs, we need all browsers to support "display:table" (and friends). Because the table box flow is actually the page layout that we desire for these templates. This feature however is only just now supported in IE with IE8 for instance. So it's gonna be a while. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 20:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
P.S. The two problematic browsers were IE and Opera mostly. Safari 2 and Firefox 2 were also problematic, but those are not in use anymore. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 20:05, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Top-aligning with an infobox

Resolved
 – used class infobox for a table

Hi, the page Caron has an infobox and a local table next to each other. How can I top-align them? Of course, I expect the infobox to be leading. Just edit there and I'll see it. (When the infobox has class="infobox", am I still supposed to do a deeper RTFM?). -DePiep (talk) 07:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

If you want to align with an infobox, you should use the same style – class=infobox for the second table too. I did that and also moved the table to a template, so that it doesn't clutter the article code. Svick (talk) 15:32, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, quite clear. So there is no bad-practice note when mixing non-infobox with class="infobox"? And while we're here, is there a special reason you created a box-in-box? Looked like a single box could do. -DePiep (talk) 17:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Generally, you're right that using the infobox class for something that isn't an infobox is bad, but I think that in this case it was the best solution (copying the style from infobox would be another, but then there would be the issue of keeping them in sync, if the style of infoboxes changed).
I used a table inside a table, because the infobox class has set its margins in em, which means that when you change the size of the font, the size of the margins changes too. So the outer table has the same margins as an infobox and the inner table has bigger font. (Now that you mentioned it, I realized that the outer table doesn't have to be table at all, and that using <div> is a cleaner solution.) Svick (talk) 18:15, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm with you. And I'll put the green R above. -DePiep (talk) 20:45, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Small thinking error here; changing the font-size will not effect the margin, as the margin is based ion the parent-elements font-size. So there should be no need for nested tables. EdokterTalk 21:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Interesting. I'll take it to a sandbox some day. Another effect: I saw earlier that the background color changed when table-in-table. Which I would prefer not to do, because the more knowing editors (they are into typography there!) will have a reason for keeping the transparent background. Don't wait for me. -DePiep (talk) 21:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
9pt
20pt
Both the CSS2.1 and CSS3 specifications state that ems are computed based on the font-size of the element itself, only using the parent's font-size when ems are used for font-size itself, and I see nothing to the contrary in the sections about margins. And at least on Firefox 3.5.12 here, they don't actually line up with different font sizes. Anomie 23:26, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

CSS help needed.

Resolved

Can someone with CSS skills help at Template talk:Unbulleted list#Unbulleted list, please? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:58, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Replied there. EdokterTalk 22:23, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Tool to edit only the refs?

Is there a tool that I can use to view and edit only an article's references? I want to completely fill out an article's cite template parameters, but don't want to fish around the article for all the individual refs. Thanks! SharkD  Talk  04:34, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know of such a tool, but you could just use the "Find" feature in your browser (generally accessed by pressing "CTRL-F") and search for the phrase "<ref", clicking "Next" after you fix each one. If you are using Firefox, there is also a "Highlight all" button that will highlight each of these for you, so you can find them easily. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 20:01, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I need to be able to quickly compare refs side by side, so no the Find feature of my browser is not going to work. SharkD  Talk  01:00, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I recommend User:PleaseStand/References segregator. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 20:43, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Wow! The only problem I've noticed so far is that you can't change the name parameter of references using this tool. Otherwise it's basically exactly what I was looking for, or at least a big step in the right direction. SharkD  Talk  00:26, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
WP:REFLINKS parses out and lists references, and allows changes...I think.  Chzz  ►  13:44, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Viewing Main page for a certain day

Is there a way to see what the main page looked like for a certain day?Smallman12q (talk) 00:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

The Main Page transcludes different pages, such as Wikipedia:Today's featured article/[monthname] [day], [year], {{Did you know}}, {{In the News}}, Template:POTD protected/[monthname] [day], [year], and Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/[monthname] [day]. You can view each element as it appeared on a particular day by inserting the correct values for [monthname], [day], and [year], except for {{Did you know}}, {{In the News}}, whose archives are located at WP:DYKA and WP:ITN archives, respectively. You can create your sandbox with the same syntax of the main page and the desired values for the date. There might be an external tool that will do this more efficiently, for example the Wayback Machine. Intelligentsium 01:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
This has been asked for before. Could we not take snapshots of the appearance of the main page daily using a bot, so that this will be possible from now on? Fences&Windows 00:29, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
A more correct solution is to render the page as it appeared at that time with old templates. It would be beneficial to viewing all the older revisions. However, consider we don't have a proper blame tool yet... — Dispenser 01:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Getting Wikisource of an article

I'm starting to work on a script to validate usages of {{singlechart}}, and I've encountered a pretty basic obstacle: I can't figure out how to download the raw wikisource of an article. The basic PHP statement

$Wiki_source=file_get_contents("http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=California_Gurls&action=edit");

gets a HTTP 403 error, even though the exact same URL works fine in my browser. I've looked at Special:Export, and it seems dead-set on doing the process in XML. All I want is the raw wikisource of individual articles.—Kww(talk) 22:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=California_Gurls&action=raw . But you can also read the parsed template arguments directly using rvgeneratexml on api.php. Merlissimo 22:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Still get a 403 error on http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=California_Gurls&action=raw . Is it because the script hasn't logged in? I can get that to work, but I'll have to rebuild my PHP installation because it doesn't support HTTP POST methods natively, and that's required to log in.—Kww(talk) 23:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
You're most likely forgetting to set a User-Agent, and so falling afoul of the meta:User-Agent policy. For PHP's file_get_contents, you would use ini_set('user_agent', 'something unique');. Anomie 23:38, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, that did the trick. Thanks. That's about as obscure of a policy as we've got.—Kww(talk) 00:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Then again, writing bots is somewhat of an obscure task, so better not to fling it in the face of normal readers. :D It is documented at Wikipedia:Creating_a_bot#Bot_best_practices btw. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 13:50, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

AfD close script acting weird

User:Mr.Z-man/closeAFD.js seems to have been acting weird today; it adds extra sigs when someone is trying to close an AfD. I personally use User:Tim Song/closeAFD.js, which had been slightly customized (at least in the past, not sure if both are the same now), but it seems to have the same issue, so I'm not sure why this is happening now, as I was doing fine last week. Can anyone who knows more js than I do (AKA anything) figure out why this is happening (and fix it)? fetch·comms 03:56, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks like someone screwed around with {{at}}. Anomie 10:43, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Yep, s'been fixed now. Thanks for finding it for me. fetch·comms 15:00, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

No registration date

Resolved
 – ... I guess  7  00:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Has anyone encountered a user with no registration date? See here for an example with user:Ockron. Found this user while patrolling BLPs and can't figure out how the account was registered. It doesn't appear in any logs that I can see. I have blocked the user, mostly for the vandalism but also concerned about whether the interface was hacked to create the acct. If anyone feels the block is not needed feel free to override me without discussion.  7  09:37, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I've got a couple in my own ununified account; I always assumedthose were just accounts created before accurate registration, but I don't know where I got that idea either. sonia 09:51, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I would have thought so too, but I am having trouble believing that this user created an account that many years ago (before registration tracking on en.wp) and remembers the password and came back in 2010 to vandalize.  7  09:54, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
This might be a red herring, but was there a disc crash and a loss of some data, some number of years ago? I think someone mentioned that once on the ref desk. I don't know the specifics, though. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots10:01, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Now that's what I call a sleeper! –xenotalk 13:16, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
The registration date of a user was not logged until 2005 (see Special:Log/newusers, which starts in september 2005). Any account registered before 2005, does not have a registration date. For users that made an edit between the time of registration and 2005, the earliest edit was later used to "fabricate" a registration date. But if you only registered and never made an edit until after 2005 (or whenever they last ran the script to fill in registration dates based on first edit), then you will not have a registration date. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 13:47, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
So this user created an account prior to 2005, and made zero edits until today when they came here to vandalize?  7  13:49, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Occam's razor would say so =] The effort required to hack the database and create a user with no registration date would likely outweigh the (non-existent) benefit. –xenotalk 13:51, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Star Trek flashbacks... must sleep now.  7  13:53, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm suprised nobody else thinks this is wierd.  7  22:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Not really. Worst case, the account was compromised due to using a super easy password. Or a close friend or past girlfriend knew the password. something like that. It happens. I've seen plenty of accounts that have slept for a LONG time and then started editing. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 23:30, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I did once come across a recently-created account that did not show up in the logs due to a server glitch. That was three years ago, but I suppose something similar could have happened again. — jwillbur 01:21, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The account in question has a user ID indicating that it was registered in July 2005. -- Tim Starling (talk) 01:39, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. I'm going with TheDJ's hypothesis that this was an easily guessable PW.  7  01:57, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Needs categories to update fast

Category:1896 in Norway and a large number of similar categories have been nominated for speedy deletion because someone had made inappropriate edits to {{NorwayByYear}} to remove that and other categories from articles like 1896 in Norway which employ this template. I have now reverted the template changes so that the articles get categorized appropriately, but still the categories remain unpopulated. I made a post here at WP:VPT quite recently about another problem where the categories didn't update after very many hours. How can the updating be forced so that the categories do not get deleted in the meantime? __meco (talk) 18:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

You could go and perform a null edit on every page that should be in the category, but in general it's better to wait for the job queue to get it. Why not remove the speedy templates with an edit summary pointing out that the template changes have been reverted and the categories will be repopulated once the job queue catches up? Anomie 20:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Well, there are more than 80 categories. __meco (talk) 21:04, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Use AWB maybe? fetch·comms 05:25, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I can't on the computer I'm on at present, but luckily the categories have updated now. __meco (talk) 07:10, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
You have no such luck. The only ones that have updated were the ones that I failingly tried to get with null edits. A large number of the Norway categories are still empty, as well as all of those for Denmark. The full list is at Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion. --After Midnight 0001 02:55, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Writing articles off-line

My apologies in advance for naive question. Is there (where) a simple editor which allows previewing wikipedia-coded articles off-line? Simply put, I am coding a wiki article off-line and want roughly see how it will look (I mean basic formatting features, surely the wikimedia software is constantly updating). Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 07:11, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=offline+editor+wikipedia+preview seems to bring up some likely sounding tools. sonia 10:08, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I did Google it before posting. The solution is not that straightforward. Materialscientist (talk) 10:22, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting question. I couldn't find a good answer to a related question: A lightweight local wiki that is easy to set up and uses MediaWiki code. One problem in both cases is templates, but even without them there don't seem to be good solutions. Hans Adler 13:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Open a red-linked subpage under your user page, and do work there, but never save the page. Hit Preview to see what you are getting. Overnight, copy all the source into a local file on your computer. This doesn't give you any versioning (unless you have a system for that on your own machine). This method lets you use all the real Wikipedia templates. EdJohnston (talk) 23:55, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Preview requires internet connection. I meant off-line. Materialscientist (talk) 00:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
User:Pilaf/InstaView can do just that - but do not expect too much as it cannot support templates and such and has not been updated for several years. It comes bundled with wikEd (in the form of User:Pilaf/include/instaview.js). However, I have just checked the wikEd preview and it did not work there. I will try to fix it as soon as I find the time. Cacycle (talk) 07:08, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Great, but wait. It needs my clicking "edit" before "preview", which I can't, because I am offline. Materialscientist (talk) 07:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
I suppose this means you have to open an edit window before going off-line.--Patrick (talk) 13:25, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
No, it means that you would have to save a random edit page to you computer and use that as you editor :-) Cacycle (talk) 19:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
I tried the ordinary edit toolbar on a saved edit page, but it does not work.--Patrick (talk) 01:51, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Sort table by currency amount?

See here. Are there any helper scripts/templates to make it possible to sort by currency value? I know this is possible for dates. SharkD  Talk  02:43, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

That table shows numbers of copies, not values, but anyway, see Template:Ntss.--Patrick (talk) 06:40, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Oops, you're right! And, thanks for the link! SharkD  Talk  21:06, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Bad citation template usage

What have I done wrong at Cppcheck? One of the references shows up incorrectly User A1 (talk) 19:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. There was a carriage return in the title. —Ost (talk) 20:30, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Ah, righto, thanks -- would never have spotted that. I copied the title from the PDF - my bad. User A1 (talk) 20:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

ANI notices

I wonder if the devs can change the WP:ANI page to require a manual checking of a box that says "Yes, I understand I must alert any involved editors immediately after creating this thread" whenever "new section" is clicked? Basket of Puppies 20:19, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Defer: Start a new section using the {{editprotected}} on Template talk:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. An admin will come and fulfill or deny your request. — Dispenser 23:29, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
I am wondering if this is technically possible, not to decide the issue here. Trying to get my ducks in a row before pitching it formally for ANI. Basket of Puppies 04:16, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I misread your question. With the Abuse filter it would be possible to require some text (say <!-- I agree -->) to be present, but it's more hassle than it's worth. — Dispenser 04:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

CSS <span> troubles in IE

re {{Punctuation marks}}. Recently I changed the table into CSS using <span> . Now an IP reverted all that, because of "Formatting trashed (in IE at least). Reverting to last good version" (es). Could someone (using IE) take a look & tell what went wrong? (I use Firefox 3.6.8) -DePiep (talk) 15:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC) + section title-DePiep (talk) 15:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

When a floated span is in the middle of some other text, the top edge of the float should line up with the top edge of the line box the span is in (unless, of course, there isn't room). IE7 does not do this, instead it aligns the top of the float with the bottom of the line box. Reportedly, Firefox before 3.0 also has this bug, and IE8 supposedly fixes it (but probably not in "compatability" mode).
IE's rendering of HTML similar to that discussed here
IE's rendering of HTML similar to that discussed here
In your example, the left-floated bit is fine because it is at the start of the line. Then comes a &nbsp; before the right float, so in IE the right float lines up against the bottom of the &nbsp;. The image to the right shows IE7's rendering of some HTML quite similar to yours; the main difference is that I have added borders to the three elements so they can be better seen. Anomie 18:56, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
IE6 rendering is also similar to Anomie's description for your version, while the current version aligns horizontally.LeadSongDog come howl! 18:59, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Right. Is that triggered by the nbsp then? In the {{Punctuation marks/sandbox}} I put up the css version, and removed all nbsps between the spans, which should do (they were a bit superfluous anyway). Or, should I read Anomie's explanation that it happens in every linebox? -DePiep (talk) 20:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Maybe this one dies, but still Anomie thanx for clarifying. I got it. -DePiep (talk) 21:53, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

White space created by photo

The problem (for me, at least) is Butterball. I have run into the problem many times, and others surely have too.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:01, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that the {{multicol}} template forces a clear so that it won't start next to an image. I've gone ahead and placed the image inside the columns, which is better, but you light consider alternate ways of structuring the text. --Ludwigs2 22:46, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't working on that section, so I don't know what was done or how to fix that.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 13:39, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Move gadget-modernskin-thunks to modern.js

I believe skin compatibility fixes shouldn't have to be enabled by the users as gadgets. Does anyone have any objection to moving MediaWiki:Gadget-modernskin-thunks.js into MediaWiki:modern.js? --Waldir talk 15:35, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Might be a good idea. Support. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 01:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 Done. --Waldir talk 09:12, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Cite book url problem

Resolved
 – Thanks. --Bbb23 (talk) 19:36, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to use Template:cite book. I'm using the url parameter to point to the Google books website, but I'm having problems. The url doesn't show up properly in the reference list. I thought it might be the many equals signs in the url itself, so looking at Help:Template#URL_problems, and not fully understanding it, I tried adding braces before and after each equals sign - didn't help. Anyway, I've put the latest usage in my sandbox for someone to tell me what I'm doing wrong.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Try encoding the URL instead. OrangeDog (τε) 19:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Another editor went in and fixed it. Apparently, there was nothing wrong with the url. I had forgotten the title= parameter, which is required, and it screwed up everything else. I actually had the title= parameter in originally, but in some cut-and-paste operation it got cut. I wasn't even aware there was a required parameter.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:35, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Flagged revisions and high-risk templates

Is pending-changes level two protection effective with respect to high-risk templates, so that transclusions of templates protected in this manner would only display revisions accepted by a reviewer? If so, then it might provide a useful alternative to full protection, to increase the ease with which certain templates can be edited (obviously, some things, such as template:!, are so sensitive that allowing reviewers to change them isn't advisable.) Peter Karlsen (talk) 16:56, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

It appears that transclusion takes the most recent revision, reviewed or not. Anomie 19:32, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Flag icon linking to the wrong article

Resolved
 – Thanks. JohnCD (talk) 18:24, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

See Talk:British Mandate for Palestine#Wrong redirection - when clicking the flag of the British Mandate for Palestine. JohnCD (talk) 17:41, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, template:flagicon/core does not provide for variant country links at all. One would have to replace {{{alias}}} with {{{alias-{{{variant}}}|{{{alias}}}}}} there, and add "| alias-Mandate = British Mandate for Palestine" to template:country data Palestine, or something like that.—Emil J. 18:13, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Er, no. See solution at Template talk:Flagicon, but in general, requests like this ought to go to WT:WikiProject Flag Template. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:17, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Javascript broken?

Hi, is anyone elses javascript causing problems? I can't properly revert with Twinkle. Aiken (talk) 22:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Tampa API servers having issues. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 22:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I can't log onto Huggle or WikiCleaner, either. This must be related. --Funandtrvl (talk) 23:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
All better now? Mine seems to be working. These graphs may shed light on the issue (for those smarter than me).  7  01:05, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Yep, working now! --Funandtrvl (talk) 01:17, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi folks! I now installed the new gadget “revisionjumper” which allows you to easily navigate diffs, articles' histories and articles themselves. A feature-rich drop down menu offers various functions to jump to a certain revision which is situated before or after the selected revision. Besides default parameters, configurable requests can be done. Further, the default setting can be personalized. It was announced some days ago on this village pump where its functions were discribed. All features are explained on User:DerHexer/revisionjumper. Have fun using it! Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 22:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC) P. S.: Please note that scripts like that one atm do not work because of a slow connection to the database (API).

Unable to Access Wikipedia

About 11-12 hours ago I was unable to 'connect' to Wikipedia. Other sites such as Google were still accessible. I also note the earlier post about the 'Tampa API servers', Though this was hours earlier, about 15.00 UTC. Was the site down at that time? n.b. Internet Explorer Ver:7.0.5730.13. (Didn't know about the Wikipedia Status Dashboard !) - 220.101 talk\Contribs 03:25, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Question for techie admin

I just found a strange edit in my deleted contribs. Admin only - check here - I recall reviewing this CSD tag earlier so I definitely went to the page, but I didn't think it was promotional enough to delete it myself as spam, but similarly didn't want to decline the CSD because it was close. I recall leaving the page without touching anything at all. I definitely did not manually do any of what the diff shows (including the accurate edit summary) - so I am wondering if there is a link that I may have clicked that added this section including the edit summary. Any thoughts? Thanks  7  05:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The above message is tailored for page moves but is also the message provided when one moves files, to which its contents are variously nonsensical, inapplicable or provide bad advice. Is there a way, if I create, say, MediaWiki:Movefiletext, for us to switch all such file moves to that new mediawiki message?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

No, but you can use parser function like in templates to show different content depending on namespace. Merlissimo 01:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Aha, so it would be a parser function scheme in MediaWiki:Movepagetext that would propagate depending on namespace. Can you give me an example of an existing message where this has been done as an example to draw from (and if not, an explanation of the coding)?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:15, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Or maybe use something like {{Namespace detect}}?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:34, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
See MediaWiki:Newarticletext.--Patrick (talk) 06:44, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll try to figure out how to do this from that, though I may need some help. My initial look at it tells me it may be a difficult wheat from chaff separation coding exercise for me (that's probably child's play for many of those on this page).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:41, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Alternatively, you could post here roughly what you'd like it to say and kindly ask for somebody to code it in. :-) Killiondude (talk) 17:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Isn't moving article that are currently under {{afd}} discouraged, for technical reasons?

Adam C. Winfield was nominated for deletion. Another contributor moved the article to Adam Winfield. My recollection was that articles that are currently under {{afd}} shouldn't be moved, for technical reasons, and I moved it back. The other contributor moved it to Adam Winfield a second time. One of the side-effects of this move is that some links that are important, during the course of the {{afd}}, no longer work. Links, like the history link at the top of the {{afd}} no longer work.

I applied a {{rescue}} tag to the article, and, when instantiated, its link to the actual {{afd}} discussion was a redlink, until I created a redirect.

Am I correct that articles that are currently under {{afd}} shouldn't be renamed because of all the important administrative links this breaks?

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 14:55, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Articles may be moved during AFDs if there is a good reason to move them. You can add a little byline "since moved to" right under the nom line to provide the links for the new location. See how this was done at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of spoilers. Supplying the "page=" parameter to the rescue template will ensure the deletion discussion is linked properly. –xenotalk 17:41, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

An IP that managed to edit while blocked

Earlier 71.191.119.34 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) was blocked, at 17:22 GMT, but then went on to vandalize Tommy2010's talk page one minute later. I know that sometimes a queue can cause edits to be delayed, but can a queue problem cause an edit to be delayed by almost a full minute? (The vandalism was at 17:23:35, so it wasn't just on the cusp of the previous minute.) Soap 17:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I think if they had an edit token from before the block it will still go through. Or something. –xenotalk 17:41, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I may have something to do with Abuse Filter. Ruslik_Zero 17:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
What xeno said, I believe. I've seen it occasionally as well. --Izno (talk) 20:24, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Erroneous information coming from a filter

See this edit. The speedy deletion tag wasn't removed, it was the hangon tag, which had been put there by the user who removed it. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 23:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

That filter is designed to catch removals of {{hangon}}, so the tag is correct. There's probably a way to have it ignore removal if the same editor added it, but you'd have to talk to someone that has more clue in that department than I. But I went ahead and deleted that article, though, because WP is definitely not a warez hosting site. —DoRD (talk) 00:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Should the warning message be changed? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 00:57, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Automatic tool to copy articles/histories to Wikia?

In the Video Games WikiProject, a lot of articles tend to get deleted due to cruftyness and useful but non-notable gameguide content. My question is, is there a tool that can be used to move/copy articles to Wikia? As Wikia is usually the proper place for these sorts of articles. SharkD  Talk  21:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Special:Export. OrangeDog (τε) 21:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, though the 1000 revisions limit on edit histories kind of sucks. SharkD  Talk  02:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
If you want more, you'll have to download a database dump, which isn't a fun thing to do. OrangeDog (τε) 19:02, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Special:Export can export the full history of a page, even if it has more than 1000 revisions, it just requires more than one go (see mw:Manual:Parameters to Special:Export#Available parameters, parameter offset). Application that retrieves and combines them into one file would be fairly trivial to write, although I have no idea whether Special:Import has the same limit of 1000 revisions (or some other). wikia:Help:Exporting pages mentions a limit of 1.8 MB when importing, which could be a problem for long pages with lots of revisions. mw:Help:Import also mentions direct transwiki import, but that's probably not enabled on wikia. Svick (talk) 12:27, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Smaller Signature

The Robert Pattinson article has an infobox in which an editor inserted Pattinson's signature. I don't think the signature is even necessary for the article, but putting that aside, I'd like to make it smaller. How do I do that?--Bbb23 (talk) 23:58, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Template:Infobox person doesn't support a signature size paramater, but you can hack it in the following way: |signature=Image_name.svg{{!}}100px. — Dispenser 00:27, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
That works, thanks. Once I've made it smaller, is there a way to move the word Signature to the left and then have the picture next to it rather than have everything centered with the signature below the word?--Bbb23 (talk) 00:34, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
{{!}}left, {{!}} is the same as | except is skips the template parsing part. — Dispenser 00:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm having trouble figuring out precisely what I should insert. I tried several ways, and none worked. I tried this:
| signature = Robert Pattinson signature.svg{{!}}left{{!}}75px
and it put the signature to the left, but it left the word Signature centered. What am I doing wrong? Sorry for all the trouble.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:08, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
The header 'Signature' is a feature of the template; it will always be centred and in fact goes all the way back to the {{Infobox}} meta-template and perhaps further back to its sub-templates. It cannot be uncentred unless you decide to transclude infobox directly so that you can specify a headerstyle value (which obviously is inadvisable). Intelligentsium 02:03, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Ah, well, if it can't be done, it can't be done. I guess I'll just make it smaller for the moment and question the propriety of having it in the infobox in the first place.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Signature is a standard parameter in Template:Infobox person. Cresix (talk) 02:26, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

A question about the signature parameter that is not on (my) topic. Is there a way to search Wikipedia articles to see which ones use the parameter?--Bbb23 (talk) 14:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

m:Help:Template#Monitoring parameter usage is about this, but works best when the template has been prepared in advance for this.--Patrick (talk) 14:41, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm afraid I need a little more help understanding what to do. It looks like I need to use the Template:Voidd, but I don't get how to make the "call," nor what I specify as a parameter of the Voidd template to find out which articles using the template infobox person use the signature parameter.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:03, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
In Template:Infobox person we could put header50 = {{#if:{{{signature|}}}|Signature{{voidd|{{Infobox person/signature}}}}}}, with a non-existing Template:Infobox person/signature, then Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Infobox person/signature shows the pages that call the infobox with a non-empty signature parameter.--Patrick (talk) 00:30, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
If we actually change the template infobox person, don't we affect every article that uses it? Or would we make the change, collect the information (quickly), and then put it back the way it was? And, in any event, I can't edit infobox person. I assume, as an admin, you can?? I'd rather you did it anyway (a) because you know what you're doing and (b) because if Wikipedia collapses, it's all your fault. :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 00:48, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Would it not be preferable to simply add a tracking category for usage of the parameter? Either way, what is to be the purpose of such a listing? PC78 (talk) 01:51, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, a tracking category is also possible, see also m:Help:Category#Comparison with "What links here". m:Help:Template#Monitoring parameter usage mentions some applications, they apply for both methods. The article is not visibly affected: not with Template:Voidd because it expands to the empty string, and not with a tracking category if it is a hidden category. Either way it is not very common, so to gain more experience it would be wise to start applying it to a template used in less pages.--Patrick (talk) 08:30, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I see now that you (PC78) already use the tracking category method for Template:Infobox aviator, with Category:Aviator articles using full name parameter, and there are some more like this in Category:Tracking categories, so, at least for uniformity, this seems the preferred method.--Patrick (talk) 09:07, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Uh, so are we going to do something for the signature parameter? You both seem to know what you're doing, but I'm lost. However, answering PC78's question, the purpose is to find out how common it is for the signature parameter to be used and when. Ultimately, the issue is whether it belongs in the Pattinson article. If I'm going to argue it doesn't, then I'd like to back it up with what the practice is, given that there don't seem to be any guidelines on its usage.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:15, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
It depends what you want to do about the parameter. :) {{Infobox person}} is used for a wide variety of biography articles, so I suspect there is no convention other than to include a signature where one is available to use. If your concern is specific to the Robert Pattinson article, then you're best raising the issue on the talk page. If you're concerned about actor articles in general, then WT:ACTOR would be the best place for discussion. I've only skimmed over the discussion on your own talk page, but perhaps the copyright issue is worth pursuing for this signature. Personally I don't see a problem including it in the Pattinson article; he's a well known celebrity who no doubt signs many autographs, so I don't think it's irrelevant (just my 2¢, I have no real interest in pursuing this line of discussion). As for {{Infobox person}}, I think it would be wise to add a |signature_size= parameter, as a single default is unlikely to be suitable in all cases. PC78 (talk) 00:43, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I intend to raise it on the Pattinson Talk page, but finding out more about its inclusion was in preparation for that. I'd already thought about the issue of autographs and their availability, but I still think it's kind of silly to include it. If you decide to add a size parameter (an idea I endorse regardless of Pattinson), please add an alignment parameter, so it can be placed flush left instead of centered.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't object to having a tracking category for the parameter if that's what you want, but I'm not convinced that you'll be able to draw any conclusions from it. Regarding alignment, I presume you mean to display the signature as it is at Oscar Wilde? A parameter to control this wouldn't really be feasible; what you'd want is to make a fixed change to the infobox (which you are welcome to suggest at Template talk:Infobox person). I don't really see the benefit in such a change, though it's probably just a matter of personal preference either way. PC78 (talk) 01:13, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the Wilde page is what I mean. Don't know enough about the programming to know why it wouldn't be feasible. I'm not going to suggest a change to the infobox if that's the only way to achieve the possibility of left alignment. Anyway, assuming it doesn't hurt anything, I'd like to collect the data on the use of the signature parameter. After I collect the data, I personally don't need changes that were made to remain. As you can probably tell, I still don't really understand what you propose. In any event, please let me know what happens next.--Bbb23 (talk) 07:04, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
OK, a change has been made to {{Infobox person}}. |signature_size= is now supported, and pages with signatures will be added to Category:Biography with signature (it will take a while for the category to fill, though). PC78 (talk) 12:05, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Great, I will watch the category, thanks!--Bbb23 (talk) 16:11, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Test wiki admin access

Can somebody point me to the right place to ask for admin access at the test wiki (I am an en-admin). I have a weird bug - the upcoming version of wikEd does not load only if loaded as a gadget. I need to do some on-site gadget debugging but I do not want to do this on Wikipedia. Thanks for your help, Cacycle (talk) 19:15, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

These are the bureaucrats there. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 01:00, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I have emailed Tim. Cacycle (talk) 06:25, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 Done - Cheers, Tiptoety talk 06:38, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Finally, it turned out that the right place to ask for admin access at the test wiki is at http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests. Cacycle (talk) 13:12, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

wrap with indent

Is there a way to get text to wrap and

indent when it does but without inserting
breaks into it? (So that it only wraps if
it wont fit on a given users screen)
Just granpa (talk) 21:13, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
You mean you just want a whole line-wrapped paragraph indented (shifted margin), and rely on normal screen layout size to control the wrapping? So the text would break automatically as necessary but maintain the same indent on each line? Isn't that what the leading colon does?
DMacks (talk) 21:18, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
No I dont want the first line to be indented. I often find myself wanting some line of text to behave this way.
Just granpa (talk) 21:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, a "hanging indent"? That's the kind often used in bibliographies, where the first line is not indented, but all the rest (in the wrapped paragraph) are. I don't think there is a wiki-markup for it, but it's doable in plain html. Just wrap the paragraph in <p style="text-indent:-.5in"> ... </p>. It's completely non-standard for any use in Wikipedia so you might want to get second opinion about whether it's a good idea to do...whatever you're trying to do.

DMacks (talk) 21:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you so much
Just granpa (talk) 21:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

<p style="text-indent:-.5in">{{lorem}}<p>

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Just granpa (talk) 21:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

To avoid what you (may) see above where the first line goes off the left margin, do something like this:
<p style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">{{lorem}}<p>

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Anomie 00:02, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I love it. :-) Thank you.
Just granpa (talk) 04:10, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
If you really have to have it in a bibliography, you can use {{refbegin}}. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 18:27, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Email address

Hello guys! Okay, so I want to send a message to the email of an IP, because I tracked their email. I don't really want to use my personal email, and I was wondering, how would I get an email at Wikipedia.org? Thanks! Endofskull (talk) 23:19, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I think only staff and 'official' volunteers get @wikimedia.org email addresses. Would it not be a simple matter to create an email account exclusively for Wikipedia use (for example, mine at intelligentsiumwp-AT-googlemail-DOT-org)? Intelligentsium 23:24, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Quite. There are lots of free email services out there (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! etc). By the way, IP addresses don't have email accounts on here. Aiken (talk) 23:27, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I guess so, but my only problem with that is it just doesn't really look "real". If I can't get a Wikipedia one, I will make one at gmail, or Yahoo. So what do you think? Oh yeah, and Aiken, I tracked their email for WHOIS. Endofskull (talk) 23:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Unless you know otherwise, the address in the whois database is in all likelihood not the person that edited here. —DoRD (talk) 23:32, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I think we should consider that Wikipedia is primarily an encyclopedia, and setting up email addresses for every person who wants one seems a bit excessive, when there are so many other options. If you're going to choose one, go for Gmail. Aiken (talk) 23:32, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Alright. I think I'll go to Conflict of Interest if someone doubts that I'm from Wikipedia. Thanks for all the help! Endofskull (talk) 23:36, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Why exactly are you wanting someone to think you are "from" Wikipedia? Anomie 03:29, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Oh yeah, that probably sounds "fishy". Like I said, I'm contacting IPs, that vandalize, email addresses from WHOIS, and then I contact them. Endofskull (talk) 15:04, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
If you're trying to contact the vandal, do be aware (as DoRD mentioned already) that the email address you find in whois is not the address of the person using the address except in the most unusual of circumstances. If you're trying to contact the vandal's ISP, you should go check out Wikipedia:Abuse response. Anomie 20:21, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

"150 intermediate versions"

As can be seen in this diff, it says that "150 intermediate versions are not shown". Is this true, or is it simply a bug in the MediaWiki software, due to the lost page history? Also, why isn't it possible to use diff=prev in the very oldest edits? For me, it directs to the latest edit. HeyMid (contributions) 15:18, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a known bug that occurs when importing revisions from another wiki - since they receive a sequentially "new" revision number. –xenotalk 15:23, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, Graham claims that the edit he imported was the only missing edit, so all revisions at that page are now visible. HeyMid (contributions) 15:28, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
The function that finds out the number of intermediate revisions between two edits uses the revision ID's, not the dates, to determine that number. The previous/next edit feature and the "diff=prev"/"diff=next" parameters work the same way. Out-of-order revision ID numbers can occur with page imports (like the above example) and a few other cases that I've described here. Graham87 06:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

"Possible self promotion in userspace" tag

Hi, my latest edit to my own talk page got tagged like this - would anybody please tell me what triggered this? I'm aware that there are filters in place to catch such behavior, but since there's nothing promoting me or my employer on that page (and I wouldn't want that, anyway, I prefer to remain anonymous), nor any external web link, I wonder why it triggered that filter? Is there anyone who can remove this tag after verifying that there's no self-promotion on that page? -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 16:22, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit filter tags are not removed. The edit is [4]. It tripped Special:AbuseFilter/354 which is hidden from public view but let me just say the problem here was "We offer your solution". This is something a company would typically say to promote itself which was ironically the point of your post. An automated filter cannot be expected to distinguish this from real promotion. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
In that case, I guess I can only shrug, LOL, and go about my business. ;-) -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 19:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Search for special character

Hi. Apparently, in July, the browser I was using would convert the Miscrosoft smart backquote character into this: "�?". Here's an example. Hoping to find and fix any remaining instances of this character, I've tried to search for the character using mediawiki search and google, but had no luck. Any suggestions? Thanks. HausTalk 18:22, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I've played around with MW-search for a couple of hours, and the most promising search I tried doesn't seem to work. HausTalk 20:12, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
You'll probably have to use a tool like AWB's database scanner to search for instances of that character. Graham87 06:30, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

mid speed internet conn.

how can i store video information to view at one time,when incoming picture stops to catch up? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chanse209 (talkcontribs) 21:45, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

The Village Pump is for asking questions/reporting bugs about Wikipedia. I recommend you go to the Computing Reference Desk for answers.  A p3rson  00:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Editing Anomaly Vandalised Page

A few days ago I added a comment to the bottom of a talk page (it was Talk:Proof (truth)), and apparently when I saved the page it wiped everything except the section the comment was in. There may have been an additional anomaly in displaying the page afterward, since I failed to notice the problem at the time. I suspect, but am not certain, that I had used the <edit> link for that section rather than the one for the whole page, and I think there was a browser crash during that edit. I am using Firefox 3.6.9 under Ubuntu, with the Session Manager add-on (as well as numerous others, but I'm guessing that one might be relevant; it retained the text I had typed and restored it after the crash, so perhaps it mangled the page somehow). False vacuum (talk) 22:31, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

When I edit a section (also under Ubuntu/FF), there's a section= variable in the URL. As long as that value remains intact, the contents should be taken as the new text for that section only. If it was somehow mangled (to secion= for example), the section variable would then be undefined and your bad result would be expected. That's one possibility, not meant to exclude others. Thundermaker (talk) 18:01, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for this. It looks as though the 'section' variable disappeared altogether: I found what appears to be the session, and the URL is just
http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Talk:Proof_%28truth%29&action=submit
Perhaps I should file a bug report with Session Manager.
False vacuum (talk) 12:35, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I think you started editing a section, then clicked Show preview (which removes the section parameter from the URL, but it stays on the page in a hidden field). After that, your browser crashed and then the page was restored with the correct URL and text, but the hidden field wasn't restored, so at that point, you were editing the whole page. Svick (talk) 12:40, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Checking browser dependent effects

Resolved
 – There's a website that does it

Do we have a page or procedure to have a check on browser dependent presentations? Tried: WP:BROWSER (no) HELP:BROWSER (red): don't work for this. I can not (or my sysadmin won't allow me to -- that's the same) do a check on IE. So I am restrained by IE's effects. The restrain is not too rational. How to? -DePiep (talk) 21:13, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand you correctly, but if you want to check how a particular page looks in IE, try http://browsershots.org/. Svick (talk) 14:49, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that's it. I'll save the link. I meant to say that being insecure on untestable browser effects is biting me as an editor. -DePiep (talk) 15:07, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Is there any reason that the "yellow highlight" in the top template at Special:NewPages is a different shade of yellow to the actual highlight colour used in the body of the page? matt (talk) 10:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

It was added in this edit, my guess is the user who added it didn't notice the color was different. I don't see any indication the color has changed at any point. Fix it at MediaWiki:Newpages-summary—the correct color is #ffa, or you could just use <span class="not-patrolled"> directly like this. Anomie 13:52, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. matt (talk) 19:09, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 Done by User:Edokter. matt (talk) 19:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I forgot to mention it here, sorry. EdokterTalk 20:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Combinate?

Is there a tool who can combinate 'what links here' and categories. For example the topics who links to The Netherlands and which topics also are have a place in the category Education I hope so! Dutchf (talk) 13:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The list builder in WP:AWB would do it, certainly. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 13:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Is this a mediawiki bug?

You'll notice when viewing this old version of a page, it's displaying an old version of File:Te.jpg from Wikimedia Commons near the top. It does not display this error on the current version of the page. I checked on another browser without signing in and I'm having the same issue. Why is this not updating? I'm reluctant to purge the commons page because I want an expert (on here) to see it. Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the problem. Could it just be one of those things that takes a while for the server to update? If so, I don't think there's much we can do. — Capt'n Earwig (arr! • talk) 00:14, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
More likely an issue with caching of images in the browser. I move that file btw. such 2 letter names is asking for trouble. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 21:14, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Re: Earwig: it's gone now. Re: TheDJ, again, I tried it in a different browser, and I'd never seen that page before anyway. I think it was mediawiki taking too long to properly cache an image. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

New York Times pdfs not opening properly

I'm having a problem with pdf files from the New York Times news archives. Basically, the files are opening in a tiny window at the top of the screen that shows only a few lines and cannot be resized. Anyone know what the problem might be? Gatoclass (talk) 09:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the cause, but I did experience the same problem myself a few days ago. If you save the PDF locally and re-open it in Acrobat Reader, it works just fine. So the problem seems to be with their website, not the PDFs themselves. --RL0919 (talk) 10:20, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that does work, but I can go through hundreds of archive stories at times looking for relevant info, and it's just not practical to save every one. I guess if it's a problem with the NYT, I can email them, but the problem has been there at least a week and I would have thought they would have fixed it by now. Gatoclass (talk) 10:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

At Bo Burnham, I have a citation to Boston's Weekly Dig that requires a URL of http://www.weeklydig.com/[catpath]/200903/bo-burnham. It's currently used in a {{cite news}} with nowiki brackets, and I recently tried to surround it in a {{URL}} wrapper, but none of them seem to be able to get over the square brackets in the URL. Can anybody suggest a fix? — pd_THOR | =/\= | 17:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The URL will need to be percent encoded, i.e. http://www.weeklydig.com/%5bcatpath%5d/200903/bo-burnham. —DoRD (talk) 18:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Excellent, thanks so much for that! — pd_THOR | =/\= | 18:14, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

broken image?

The first image used at Airman Basic (File:DCS04980.jpg) has been broken for quite some time. I've used a wide variety of browsers and computers since I first noticed it, and haven't seen any change. Can anybody else see this problem? — pd_THOR | =/\= | 17:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Odd. I added a size parameter to try to make it display. 200px was too small. 220px is the right size, but like the image with no size, it does not display, so I've left it at 221px. Maybe someone with more knowledge can explain this. —DoRD (talk) 18:30, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I purged the image page at Commons. That usually does the trick. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 18:43, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Awesome, that seems to have done it. Thanks! — pd_THOR | =/\= | 20:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Ahh, thanks for the tip! —DoRD (talk) 20:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Category intersections

What's the easiest way to find articles in two or more categories? PL290 (talk) 10:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

By using CatScan. Graham87 14:23, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Nice, but CatScan will only work with two categories. There must be something that lets us use all this lovely data to construct richer queries than that? PL290 (talk) 08:37, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
WP:AWB allows richer queries. Cheers. HausTalk 08:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
AWB can easily list articles in three categories? Couldn't see it when I looked; pointers would be appreciated. PL290 (talk) 10:04, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Go to "Tools"->"List Comparer" which can intersect two categories at a time. Take the result and intersect it with the third category — several approaches exist, but copy/paste and clearing the other lists out is probably easiest. There are 30+ other ways to generate lists in list comparer: transclusion, what links here, links on page, etc.... Lots of flexibility. One problem is there's a limit on list size — I think its 20K items. There's a workaround for this problem by using catscan to intersect huge lists down to <20K lists, and using text files or "links on page." Cheers. HausTalk 10:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, that will be useful when I'm using AWB. PL290 (talk) 17:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
CatScan 2 does almost any type of intersection that you could want. I've even replaced a few reports with it. — Dispenser 13:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, that looks to have a lot of potential. PL290 (talk) 17:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Userbox + participant category

If this is not the correct venue for asking this question, I sincerely apologize. I cannot figure out for the life of me why this category doesn't include all of the project participants displaying this template/userbox even though several people display the box. If anyone else able to help, it would be much appreciated. --Another Believer (Talk) 04:07, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Line 15, try removing the "| " from the link. See if that works.  A p3rson  04:11, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
EDIT: Could it also be the noinclude tags?  A p3rson  04:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
The template is correct. It's just that updating the category may take a while. If you want to speed this up, you can null edit the user pages in question (I have done so for some of them). Svick (talk) 05:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks! If the template is correct, perhaps I will just wait a while and see if the category begins to fill in. I am not familiar with null editing, so I will look into how it works. Much appreciated. --Another Believer (Talk) 15:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

"Take me back" and "New features"

Hey dudes. How can I get rid of the "Take me back" and "New features" links at the top of the screen? Peace ;-) Anna Lincoln 16:42, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Add the following to your Special:Mypage/skin.css... –xenotalk 16:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
li#pt-prefswitch-link-off {
    display: none;
}
Thanks! Anna Lincoln 16:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Funny, I had to use:
li#pt-prefswitch-link-on, li#pt-prefswitch-link-anon { display: none }
Wonder what's going on there. PL290 (talk) 17:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
It's possible that your code is the appropriate one for the OP (my code is perhaps for those still on monobook). –xenotalk 17:17, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
These "new features" were deployed months ago. They are not new anymore. Let's get rid of those links. Dodoïste (talk) 01:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, they should be removed very soon. I think we'll ideally want the equivalent of "Take me back" to remain easily accessible within the user prefs (without having to toggle all the options that restore the classic experience).--Eloquence* 04:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Where do I file a bug report for an error in the link to the toolserver template transclusion counter? For example, if do a "what links here" for any template with a space in the name (e.g., Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Hang on), you will see links to "external tools". The first link is fine, but the second one appears to be missing the needed "urlencode" and is tripped up by the space in the title. 68.35.13.81 (talk) 23:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Here is as good a place as any. Fixed - thank you very much for the report. –xenotalk 23:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

AVI to OGG

We're trying to start a new project, with tutorials using screencasts. There are a number of proprietary ways to do whatever we want, but I'd like an open source solution. There's an open source screencast program (CamStudio), but it outputs AVIs for some darn reason. Does anyone know of a dead simple way to covert those to .ogg or .ogv using another open source program? We've found a proprietary screencast program that will do absolutely everthing, so if the minimum is one proprietary program, then a converter is not needed. CamStudio is crazy easy to use, so I'm hoping I can combine it with one more easy program and have it still be easier than some pay program. Thanks a million. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:56, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and I'd like to avoid teaching newbies command line, if I can. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:59, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps Commons:Help:Converting video might be of assistance? Killiondude (talk) 05:30, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

"API action parse has been been disabled [wikitech], this mean Dab solver does not work."

The above message appears on Dab solver. The only bit of it I understand is "Dab solver does not work". Could someone explain please what has been done, why it has been done, and when will it be undone so that Dab solver will work again? Thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 11:03, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

And before anyone asks, no I haven't asked at Wikitech, this is because it is impossible to ask anything at Wikitech and there is no help page at Wikitech. DuncanHill (talk) 11:19, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Part of the API was disabled yesterday because it was causing performance problems. They seems to have tracked the cause to a program on commons. The errant API feature has been turned back on. Dispenser needs to update his tool. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
What's an API? DuncanHill (talk) 11:33, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Application programming interface - Basically, they allow scripts and external programs (e.g. toolserver tools) to access Wikipedia without having to go through the HTML/human readable interfaces. —DoRD (talk) 11:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
OK, thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 12:02, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm removed the site notice. Next time I'll try adding more links to better help explain. — Dispenser 15:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

RSS & Atom watchlist feeds reuse id/guid

I'm trying to look at my watchlist in Google Reader, and keep finding that some edits don't appear in the feed. I suspect this is due to the feeds on Wikipedia using the article URL for the id (Atom) or guid (RSS) field, with no other qualifier, so these fields aren't unique.

The W3C validation service says this is categorically wrong for RSS, although it appears to be permitted if not recommended for Atom, so I'll blame Google for GReader failing to cope with the Atom feed properly.

I'm planning on raising this as a bug for the RSS case on Bugzilla, and a feature request for Atom. Before I do that, though, I thought I'd check here in case anyone's found a work-around or can tell me I'm Doing It Wrong.

--me_and 17:09, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I have already reported a very similar bug. Svick (talk) 18:27, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I have this same problem when viewing my watchlist from Thunderbird 3.14, any known fixes?  A p3rson  23:00, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
File:Temporary screenshot.jpg

The search bar on this search bar is too narrow and is displaying g letters as qs. I recall that a few days after the vector switch the main search bar was widened but this change was apparently never applied to the others. Marcus Qwertyus 19:53, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

It seems fine to me (vector, Windows XP, Google Chrome 5.something). /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 19:59, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Windows 7, Firefox 4 Beta 6. Could be that it is just a Firefox 4 problem in which case it is good to plan ahead.Marcus Qwertyus 20:08, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm running the same and can't reproduce, at any zoom level, unfortunately. Maybe you have an odd default sans-serif font set? Just a suggestion. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 20:29, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I restored all the defaults and am getting the same. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 20:50, 22 September 2010 (UTC)