Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Leobold111 (talk | contribs) at 22:32, 1 January 2015 (→Log in every 30 days). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 
Shortcuts
The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bugs 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. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk.


Mass move template

Resolved

Is there a pinpoint page where I can ask for a mass-move of templates? (like WP:CFDS for categories). -DePiep (talk) 18:21, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Er, WP:RM perhaps? --Redrose64 (talk) 21:47, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a lot of make-work, unless you have a very good reason, as readers never see template titles. Just like we don't encourage renaming files without good reasons to. Wbm1058 (talk) 22:53, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
re Rr64: of course (+headslap over here). re Wbm1058: of course. -DePiep (talk) 19:56, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Viewing deleted talk page posts

Hi! I have one question. Many users, especially those problematic, remove (delete) warnings from their user talk page. Those are, of course, visible in the page history. But, it is hard to track all the warnings in the long page history. Is there some tool that can be installed which, when activated, shows all the posts from the talk page at once, even those that were removed? This would be very useful tool. When making disruptive edits, user has to be warned, but it is sometimes hard to check if the user was warned, if he routinely removes warnings from his talk page. In that case, I have to check every revision of the talk page. Vanjagenije (talk) 21:42, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • If Phab:T20670 get's completed, this kind of thing will be exceptionally simple as tools used to tag things for deletion will be able to tag the edit that makes the post to the user talk page as "Tag:CSD notification" or "Tag:deletion notification". Otherwise the best you can do is list 5000 entries for the page history and look for the notifications manually using your browser's search feature, if it has one. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 22:07, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

bits.wikimedia.org

Having recurring page load hangs, all waiting for responses from bits.wikimedia.org; what are we loading from there? — xaosflux Talk 01:15, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Everything. Other than the page content itself (duh), non-gadgetized on-wiki scripts and styles, and uploaded files. Matma Rex talk 01:22, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Lol, I guess what I meant was what are we loading from there that is going so slow, or is there just a general capacity issue going on? — xaosflux Talk 01:29, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Xaosflux, I've noticed this is happening quite often as well, and I've noticed that it is usually an issue with scripts that are using deprecated code or at very least code that is in the process of being deprecated. Hopefully I can start fixing these scripts in a few more weeks if I can get global interface editor on Meta for this project. I asked a week and a half ago, but met some objection because I hadn't requested the template editor bit back on this wiki yet after having it removed, for what was suppose to be a very short period (like 24 hours) according to the discussion on AN(I?), in July. Anyways, I got the bit back and withdrew my request for a period of one month. I'll be back there in the middle of January to request it again. At that point, I can start sandboxing and verifying that patches for these scripts work and applying them. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 01:45, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
this seems highly improbable, bordering on impossible. i cannot think of any mechanism that will create any correlation between use of deprecated methods in JS code, and failure to load this code from bits. the problem is much more likely related to transient problems/issues with wikimedia servers that serve those pages than it it to their content. User:Technical 13: could you please explain why do you think this has anything to do with use of deprecated code?
irrespective of this, it *will* be good to comb the various JS pages in mediawiki space, sanitize the code and replace deprecated calls with their modern counterparts. IMO, it would be nice to do also this for all the userspace JS that's linked from WP:JS: when someone offers their self-developed scripts to public consumption, i think it's fair to see this as an implicit license to the site maintainers to fix problems in those scripts. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 19:26, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Syntax highlighter

Dear editors: I have been using the Syntax Highlighter gadget happily for some time, but lately it will not disengage when I am editing a really long page, and I have to turn it off manually. I am using Firefox, which is apparently its preferred platform. Does anyone know what could be causing this? —Anne Delong (talk) 05:11, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Anne Delong: could you please clarify what do you mean by "disengage"? i am not familiar with this term relating to syntax highlighter. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 17:49, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
קיפודנחש (aka kipod), the syntax highlighter gadget normally turns itself off if it detects that it is causing the text to take too long to refresh during editing. This is great, because then I can use it on shorter pages, such as articles, which have complicated formatting, but not on long pages such as lists like this one which don't need it anyway and where it would just slow things down. Lately, though, it has not turned itself off, so every time I edit a large file I have to think ahead and uncheck it in my preferences. If I forget, Firefox displays its "not responding" message for as much as 60 seconds each time I cut and paste one line of text. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Today the syntax highlighter appears to be working normally again. I don't know if it was a bug, or if it was a browser issue, but in any case, the problem is gone. Thanks anyway. —Anne Delong (talk) 21:01, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Enable visual editor for talk pages

First of all, no offense to anyone who actually likes the current editor and opposes visual edit.

But anyway, my proposal is to enable visual editor for article talk pages and other discussion related pages. I think this will help give speedy responses to a talk page comment. Also, only allowing visual edit in articles means that anyone who refuses to learn wikicode cannot effectively comment on talk pages.This may be subject to opinions, but the current editor is essentially a group of images in a toolbar with inked javascript commands, something that was essentially used in 2005. We are stepping into 2015 and this just looks disgraceful and it makes it look like the seventh largest website in the world has no technological awareness whatsoever. I still don't understand why this doesn't come by default and why people actually have to opt-in, but I am sure that has been discussed before. So, I think for now, Visual Editor should be activated for talkpages and namespace articles.NetworkOP (talk) 18:15, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, has there already been a discussion about whether or not to default visual editor?NetworkOP (talk) 18:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
as far as i understand, "Flow" is coming to discussion spaces pretty soon, so i do not think it makes a lot of sense to enable VE in discussion space right now, seeing that it will be short term anyway. also, discussion pages use many features of wikitext that do not appear (or at least, seldom appear) in articles, and are not supported or poorly supported by VE, such as indentation, signatures, liberal use of "pre", "source" and "nowiki" tags (probably a few others also), and more. it's not impossible to teach VE all those tricks, but i do not think this will be good use of resources. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 19:15, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So why not make visual editor opt-out rather than opt in for new users? I personally did not know about visual edit until someone told me about it at the "tea house"NetworkOP (talk) 19:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@NetworkOP: They did make VE opt-out for a few months during 2013; it caused a lot of trouble at the time - some people were doing nothing except clearing up the mess. The bad feeling that it created persists to this day such that any new innovation is viewed with doubt and mistrust. See the archives of this page for examples. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:26, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if you release untested software that's what happens.NetworkOP (talk) 21:20, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
no no no no the issue with VE is that it often messes up formatting of the existing page. Personally, I like VE, however there is far too much of a chance of collateral damage when using on talk pages, especially as it is designed for use in article space. As flow is being developed for talk pages, I'd rather that was promoted as opposed to VE. --Mdann52talk to me! 20:10, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Access rights failure

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T85428

See this edit. It was made by a logged-out user. That shouldn't have happened, because editing subpages of Template:Editnotices is restricted to those with the template-editor and accountcreator rights. How was it possible? --Redrose64 (talk) 19:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That does seem to be a flaw in security. One guess is that the token was grabbed while logged in and then used while logged out, the system may be failing to check that the user is the same on the token was issued to. If that is the case then session stealing may be possible via a MITM attack. However it happened it should be looked into. Chillum 19:31, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone know how this protection is actually implemented? I know it reads in WP:TPE that "The template editor user right allows trusted coders to edit templates and modules that have been protected with the "protected template" protection level (usually due to a high transclusion rate). It also allows those editors to edit edit notices, all of which are permanently uneditable without template editor, account creator, or administrator rights." but unless this is implemented in the core MediaWiki functionality, or an extension, there's no evidence I can see that unprotected templates - such as the edit notices - are actually protected. Mind you, I've still got a post Christmas hangover. QuiteUnusual (talk) 19:40, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It is implemented via the Mediawiki:Titleblacklist, specifically:
  # Editnotice pseudospace
  Template:Editnotices\/.* <noedit|errmsg=titleblacklist-custom-editnotice>
If I attempt to edit Template:Editnotices/Page/European Union, I get a red warning box that thinks it is protected. Dragons flight (talk) 19:48, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I was able to make a change. I'm just a regular user. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 20:11, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ummm I can edit it [1] but now cant revert as the "You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reason:" box appears ....So could someone please revert me - Sorry! –Davey2010 Merry Xmas / Happy New Year 20:17, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Done. I also logged out and got my wife to log in (normal user). She can't edit it. So it's not that everyone can edit it and the protection isn't working at all. Black Kite (talk) 20:22, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Now everything is ok - I can't edit it anymore. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 20:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It appears this bug has some nuance to it. Were those able to edit it using IPv6 and those not able using IPv4 per chance? Chillum 20:24, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did wonder that. Unlikely though, if Edgars2007 could edit it, but now can't. Black Kite (talk) 20:32, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I was unable to replicate this while logged out. I even tried to copy the entire source of the page from a logged in as ACC & TE account (this one) to the logged out in IE one and although I could make it so I could type in the box and click save, it still got caught up in the back end. I'm guessing it is a caching issue and has nothing to do directly with tokens or the specific users. I'm wondering what things are similar between the two accounts and the default logged out. Should dig into what gadgets and preferences the two logged in users have disabled that were default as those can probably be excluded. Also, curious if there is a common userAgent string string involved. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 21:56, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It shouldn't even let you alter the contents of the edit box, and no "Save page" button should be offered. The experience for a logged-out user attempting to edit an editnotice should be almost exactly the same as if they were on a template-prot page and clicked the "View source" tab: the only differences are that on an editnotice page, the "Edit" tab isn't modified to read "View source", and the notice above the edit window is different - crucially, it says "This editnotice can only be created or edited by administrators, account creators, and template editors" instead of "This page is currently protected so that only template editors and administrators can edit it". In both cases, the edit box is unalterable, and there are no tools or other buttons. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:49, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It doesn't, on it's own. You missed the part where I said that I altered my local rendition of the code to see if it was an interface issue and it still caught it in the backend. ;) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 23:01, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Likely this has nothing to do with it, but I will mention it just in case: I have several time been in the middle of an edit when the I was automatically logged out because my 30 days were up. I activated the edit window while logged in, but by the time I decided to save I was logged out. Is it possible that this situation is treated differently from one in which a person manually logs out? —Anne Delong (talk) 23:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My first thought was the same as Anne's, although after reading everything, I also agree that it's less likely.
On a related point, whoever made it possible for me to get logged out mid-edit, and did not also make that result in large, annoying banners that said "You've been logged out again, so don't save!!!" with an automatic trip back to the login page, deserves to have a Long Discussion with the OTRS team about how much unnecessary work that choice makes for them.
(I don't know if it's possible, but I have wondered whether the usual ...w/index.php?title=Fee&action=submit could be changed to something like ...w/index.php?title=Fee&action=submit&status=logged-in, so that if I started editing while logged in, the URL would report the status when I try to save, and if I'm no longer logged in, then it would complain and give me the opportunity to log back in. (There would be no corresponding &status=logged-out, because if I started editing while logged out, and then logged in (in a separate window), then there's no harm done.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:22, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've opened phabricator:T85428 about this. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:22, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Download pdf still broken, round two

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T32706

The problems with the "Download pdf" link are still a problem. The tables and infoboxes are still not appearing. (Apparently not any navboxes, either.) I tried this on two different featured articles, and as anyone can see if you do a "download as pdf", critical information is omitted. On Appaloosa, the breed infobox and a critical illustrated chart of coat color patterns is omitted, and on California Chrome the pdf version omits the infobox and a chart of all his racing statistics (material that is really not easy to render in a simple bulleted list.) An earlier post here explained that "MediaWiki recently switched from using the legacy PediaPress PDF renderer to using OfflineContentGenerator." However, they basically said they were hoping to find some volunteers to fix the problem. It still isn't fixed. I'd say that if WMF broke it, they should fix it and not wait for volunteers to do it, but maybe someone here happens to be good at this sort of thing? I took a look at the same articles in WikiWand, and WikiWand renders it all beautifully. If a non-WMF project can deliver wikipedia content, so should WMF. Montanabw(talk) 22:12, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bug at phab:T32706. --  Gadget850 talk 14:58, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Does WikiWand generate PDFs, though? I suspect not. It's not a fair comparison. — This, that and the other (talk) 04:42, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that generating templates seems to be well within the doable, and if a third party source can do it, and the previous pdf generating software could do it, why wasn't this bug fixed several months ago? It's a serious problem, particularly for articles that make use of templates for statistics and assorted data that is not suitable for rendering in narrative form. Another example would be rainbow trout. This failure of the pdf generator is causing some drama in certain articles where editors are trying to remove templates on the grounds that they don't show up in a pdf format. I know nothing about how the tech works to fix this, but hoping someone does and is willing to look at the issue. Montanabw(talk) 22:51, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkle Bug

There appears to be a complicated problem with Twinkle in notifying the creator of an article that it has been tagged for speedy deletion or nominated for deletion at AFD. A page that is a biography of a living person was created in user space for a non-existent user, as User:Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist), which was just incorrect. I moved the page to draft space as Draft:Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist). The author then moved/promoted the article into article space as Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist). (By the way, the disambiguator is necessary, because Hari Singh Nalwa was a general with an existing article.) Another editor then tagged the article for speedy deletion. However, rather than notifying the originator of the tagging, Twinkle put the tag on User talk: Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist). Another editor then removed the speedy tag. I then nominated the article for deletion via deletion discussion. Twinkle again put the tag on User talk: Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist). I have copied the notice to the originator's talk page. I realize that this is a problem that is unlikely to occur under normal conditions (because creating a BLP as a user page is a strange error), but can someone look into it? It does appear to be reproducible, because the same article has been nominated twice via two processes. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:19, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The page history [2] shows the page was created by User:Hari Singh Nalwa (Scientist) so I don't see a problem. Special:Contributions/Hari_Singh_Nalwa_(Scientist) also shows the page creation. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:28, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct. That user account made one edit in 2011, to create a user page that reads like a BLP that reads like a resume. After some editing, I moved it to draft space, and it was then moved to article space. So notifying the recent editor who moved it to article space was a courtesy rather than a requirement. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:38, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Difference between title of special page and tab title in Maltese.

Hi. I am using the Maltese language interface and, quite accidentally, have come across a little irregularity - all I simply want to do is find out where it is likely to have originated and whether there is any way to fix it. Please review this link which is my contributions, using Maltese as the interface language. You will note the page title is "Kontributi tal-utent", but if you look at the tab title, it reads "Kontribuzzjonijiet tal-utent". Both mean the same thing, "User contributions", but I am trying to figure out why they are different and whether they should be. I am running Firefox 31.0 with no addons. Do you have any thoughts on this one? Thanks :) CharlieTheCabbie|paġna utenti|diskussjoni 00:25, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The words are taken from MediaWiki:Contributions/mt and MediaWiki:Contributions-title/mt. None of them have been customized at the English Wikipedia so the MediaWiki defaults are used. I don't know Maltese but somebody probably either made them independently or thought they were each better in their own context. Some other languages also have differences, for example Swedish and Dutch, although the only difference there is whether to include the local word for user. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:13, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template editors and coding skills

Where can I go to begin learning the coding skills to become a template editor? What credentials and/or demonstrated skill set are required to obtain template editor privileges? Thanks for your help -- Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 02:29, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Start here Wikipedia:Template editor; MOST templates are not protected and can be edited. Just like any other wiki page, you can copy template code to your own sandbox and experiment as well. The actual user permission is only required for templates that are used on massive numbers (e.g. over 10,000 pages) of pages; getting the permission is mostly by demonstrating that you know what you are doing and won't break things. Wikipedia talk:Template editor is a good place to ask for a mentor if you want. — xaosflux Talk 02:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Xaosflux: Thanks for your response -- I may want to see if more than one experienced template editor wants to take me on as an informal mentor. My interest in template editing involves specific templates that have hundreds of transclusions to several that have 10,000+ transclusions. As a seasoned WP editor (5+ years and 70,000 edits), it's probably past time that I start learning the more technical details of template editing. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:59, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Dirtlawyer1: Your tenure is more then sufficient to show that you are here for the good of the project ("trustworthy") - comments below are related to the technical skills to demonstrate your template ability. After meeting the guidelines, request access at WP:PERM. — xaosflux Talk 18:29, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dirtlawyer1, I'd be more than happy to help you develop some template-foo if you are interested. I started putting together a basic tutorial on learning how to write templates, but lost interest and it's just kind of sitting in my user space. Having someone to teach might make development of that program easier because I'll be able to see how others learn and be able to pick out which parts of coding should go next in a better manner. You know where my talk page is if you are interested. ;) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 02:59, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Dirtlawyer1: There is no particular technical skill set needed for the template editor right. All that is required, per the granting guidelines, is that you have "a need for the right, as well as a familiarity with the care and responsibility required when dealing with high-risk template modification". In other words, whatever pages you need the template editor right to edit, you're not going to mess up the code or do things against consensus. In most cases this means that you need to know fairly advanced template code, but if all you need to edit are protected stub templates and edit notices then you could just as well get the right without understanding how any of our more complex templates work. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 08:09, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr. Stradivarius: Thanks for your explanation of the TE user right. After 5+ years as a Wikipedia content editor, I think it's time for me to begin absorbing some of the more complex template editing skills. What I have observed is that template editors are rarely substantive content editors in my areas of interest, and when they edit the templates in those areas they are doing so as technicians and not as regular users of those same templates. Frankly, I think we need more template editors who have a content editor's (and template user's) perspective. So, I am willing to begin the learning process. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:59, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Dirtlawyer1: Fair enough. The best way to learn template editing, in my opinion, is by doing it. So you should start with a template that you want to alter, or an idea of a new template that you would like to create. Then you can start experimenting on it on the template's /sandbox subpage, or just on the template page itself if it's a new template. For guidance on what to do, Help:Template is a good starting place, and if you get stuck, just ping me or the other editors here who have offered their help. Also, it would be a good idea to read WP:TESTCASES (freshly rewritten by yours truly) - many existing templates have test cases, and they can make the process of testing new code much simpler. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 18:13, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Dirtlawyer1, I want to put in a plug for writing WP:TemplateData for templates that editors use (mostly with VisualEditor). Some are quite easy, but others are complex and require a full understanding of how the template works to get it all correct. The GUI tool is pretty good now, but the lists of which templates are commonly used is seriously out of date. Adding TemplateData would be useful to editors here as well as at other Wikipedias (which often copy TemplateData from en.wp), and working on that project would be a useful way to learn about the breadth and scope of our templates. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:28, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template Prev/doc and Template:Origlink/doc are missing

Template:Prev/doc and Template:Origlink/doc are missing. Consequently, a user visiting Template:Prev or Template:Origlink is given no instructions on how the template works.

Also, Template:Cross-wiki diff, Template:Cross-wiki free diff, Template:Cross-wiki language diff, Template:Cross-wiki language free diff, Template:Diff, Template:Diff3, Template:Diff4, Template:Free diff, Template:Undo, Template:Cross-wiki language oldid, Template:Cross-wiki oldid, display a spurious wikilinked "[1]" at the top; Template:Diffnum displays a spurious wikilinked "edit {{{1}}}" at the top.

Also, Template:Free diff says "{{{4}}} (the third parameter)"; I assume this is an error, because I assume {{{4}}} refers to the fourth parameter. — Anomalocaris (talk) 06:38, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just wrote Template:Prev/doc. I'll have a go at the other one in a second. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 07:48, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I nominated Template:Origlink for deletion, as it didn't have any transclusions at all. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 07:52, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I've removed "the third parameter" from Template:Free diff/doc, as I agree that it was confusing. The "spurious" output at the top of the template pages is actually the default output of the templates, which we usually leave there as an example, unless it does something undesirable like output a tracking category or display an error message. By the way, a lot of these templates should probably be merged into Template:Diff - it's confusing having so many similar-but-different templates that only have a few transclusions. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 08:01, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
User:Mr. Stradivarius: Thank you for your quick and comprehensive response to a multiple request. I guess it was obvious that the user is supposed to mouse over the "spurious wikilinked '[1]'" to see what the templates output, and I may have figured this out in the past but forgot. Most of these templates define the triple-bracketed parameter number on first use, e.g. "{{{4}}} (the fourth parameter)" and I would have changed "{{{4}}} (the third parameter)" to that, but lacked the confidence. — Anomalocaris (talk) 09:14, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Anomalocaris: In future, you can create such missing documentation pages, and place {{Bad documentation}} on them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:10, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki:Edittools issues

I've recently noticed that the MediaWiki:Edittools interface that's used during page edits is no longer available to me. This is how it should look at the bottom of the edit window but this is what it looks like when I try to edit something, note the lack of symbol/markup addition buttons. I thought it might have something to do with JavaScript, but I have the most recent version installed, the same situation occurs if I try to edit in a different browser (I use Firefox normally, Chrome to test this situation), and if I log out the buttons appear again so I think it's something related to my preferences or my .js page. Any ideas? Thanks in advance. —Mr. Matté (Talk/Contrib) 21:04, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You have some CSS in your common.js that is not supposed to be there and is likely blocking all JavaScript. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 22:09, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That was the issue; all is well in the world! (well not really) Much thanks. —Mr. Matté (Talk/Contrib) 23:14, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It feels like this problem has come up a lot recently, and I'm starting to wonder if it's common. Is there any way to make a list of .js files containing CSS? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:31, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There are Phab. tickets to not allow you to save invalid JS anymore, they include some discussion about how many pages that currently are, and how we should proceed of handling those, before adding JS validation to the save action... Lemme look... phab:T76204, phab:T85304 and phab:T85306 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:38, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr. Matté: The line that you removed in this edit wasn't CSS - it's valid JavaScript, so you could put it back. It's only the line that you left behind that was CSS (apart from the very last semicolon, that's not CSS but is valid JavaScript). --Redrose64 (talk) 14:28, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Two capital letters

Several hours ago, I discovered the WIlliam P. Ginther article and moved it to William P. Ginther, correcting the wrongly capitalised "I" in his first name. Is there a database report, or some other type of function, that would produce a list of all mainspace pages (minus redirects) with titles consisting of two capital letters followed immediately by lowercase letters? Some such pages would be appropriate, e.g. PEnnsylvania 6-5000, but probably most of them would be errors. Nyttend (talk) 00:13, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Nyttend: I just ran one. See its results at User:Jackmcbarn/Possibly miscapitalized article titles. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:11, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I've moved the list to my sandbox and have begun chipping away at entries, moving pages when appropriate. If you have time to check them, it would be helpful, since there are still something like 3200 entries to check. Nyttend (talk) 02:02, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Nyttend. You can use a regular expression to do an "Article title search" using an external tool; see Help:Searching#Special searches for the link. A regular expression like "^[A-Z][A-Z][a-z ]+" is similar to what you want but you'll have to craft it to your taste. Each search takes a while to run. I also played around with regular expressions using the new default Wikipedia search. For example I did "insource:/WIlliam/" and found about 35 matches (all fixed now but one). I don't think "insource:" searches titles though, only the source, and I'm not sure if it searches every article or not. I get the impression it only searches a small subset. I'm now tackling other similar names like "WInston", "WIlson", and so on using this specific case approach. The default search also has an intitle: feature but I don't think it accepts regular expressions like "insource:" does. PS In my guess, "William" is perhaps the most commonly messed up name on Wikipedia. Over the years I've fixed many screwed up variations of this name with "Willliam", "Wllliam", and "Willlam" being a big problems. Jason Quinn (talk) 23:14, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OneClickArchiver new feature!

Since there has been concern by some editors that they are "afraid" they'll accidentally activate Template:1CA while trying to click on the edit section link, I've added a new feature today that allows users to toggle the script on or off directly from talk pages! The best part is that it will remember what the last state was! Please see the documentation for more details and happy archiving! — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 02:18, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's a really nifty feature. I see the "oca-on" and "oca-off" toggle at the top of the talk page. Thanks for doing this. — Maile (talk) 13:56, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maile66, the "on" or "off" is the current status of the tool. You can also toggle it with Alt+⇧ Shift+O. I made a large scale change to the tool yesterday that checks if the required parameters can be detected before polluting the page with lots of unusable |Archive links that just yell at you when you click them. I've replaced those links with an "error" message that fades away after five seconds in the top right corner of the screen instead. Due to some complaints about the error message, you should now only see those messages when the script is "on".
I've also added a small debugging feature to the script. If you click on Debug mode on any talk page where the script doesn't seem to be running or append ? or & and then debug=true to the URL of a talk page (ie en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)?debug=true or en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)&debug=true) and then press enter you will see a box in the upper right corner that will not go away until clicked on that will tell you what the script could find for parameters.
If it couldn't find a parameter, that cell will be red and it will show what it's going to guess the default value should be. Those default values are for an upcoming feature that will allow you to use the script to set up automatic archival on pages that currently have none and will also be used for the requested features of being able to use the script to increment the counter, create new archive pages using the defined header, and respect maxsize. Lots of features in the works. I'll try and keep everyone posted! — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 14:25, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I was sent here from the teahouse: As neither categories nor navboxes appear on mobile view, I'd like to check individual pages with what-links-here, to see it needs something like see-also or whatever from a related page. But I haven't found an option to suppress links from the transcluded navbox. Any suggestions? Besides, what is the rationale of not showing a link to the category pages? After all there are links to other languages in mobile view. Jo Pol (talk) 06:04, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 132#What Links Here generating too many listings due to navboxes --NE2 06:47, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The rationale is that the mobile team works on elements one at a time and tries to find the best way to expose them to users. If it is not there, then either they have not had time to work on it yet, or they are still in a fase of experimentation. Languages are there, because there were a lot more user requests for that and thus has had higher priority. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:32, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2015-01

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

Software changes

  • There are no technical changes this week.

Feedback about Tech News in 2014

  • The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2014? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us at m:Talk:Tech/News. You can write in your language. Thank you!

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

16:52, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Log in every 30 days

I've looked through the archives (not all 133 pages, but did it by search) and didn't see anything directly answering this question. Why are we limited to 30 days per log in? I'm sure those with multiple bots find this aggravating, not to mention those, like me, who make changes sporadically. We go to make a edit and suddenly find we're not logged in. I can keep Wikipedia up and open for multiple days, so I can open on Friday, get logged out on Saturday, and not know it until Monday. I'd also like to see this changed, but not sure if I would have to resubmit the question in another section for that. I can log into my e-mail for years on end, and that is far more sensitive than my Wikipedia account. Only thing I can figure is that it is a server issue (too many active log ins slowing it down), but I'm not an IT guy, so I may be way off.

Thank you in advance and Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. Leobold111 (talk) 20:25, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it's a little better than that, barring any flukes that happen once in a while. Mostly, as long as you edit on a semi-regular basis, say once a week or so, you'll stay logged in. The "flukes" have nothing to do with the 30-days max. And by that, I mean that a couple of times lately I've been editing, go to another article and find out I was involuntarily logged out. It has its kinks. But you'll probably stay logged in longer than 30 days if you edit regularly. — Maile (talk) 22:01, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I usually bypass it by never cleaning he Chrome history and keeping the WP tab open - This year alone I've only ever been logged out once which was weirdly a couple of days ago! (although If you love your laptop more than I love mine it's probably a bad idea to keep laptop on 300 hours and on charger 247!..) –Davey2010 Merry Xmas / Happy New Year 22:13, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I asked (read: complained) about this two or three years ago, and I was told that the 30-day limit was due to the privacy policy. The privacy policy (back then, at least) said that no cookies would be stored for more than 30 days, and therefore cookie-based logins couldn't be expected to last longer than 30 days. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
For many years, the login cookies lasted 180 days. For almost the same number of years, the Wikimedia Foundation had a privacy policy that said cookies would not be set for longer than 30 days. At some point (2011 or 2012, I think) this discrepancy was noticed and the login cookies were reduced to 30 days. As a practical matter, it was easier to make the cookies shorter than to change the privacy policy. Relatively recently (2013, I think), there was a major overhaul of the privacy policy [3]. At present, the main text of the policy does not specify cookie durations, though there is an associated FAQ that lists current cookies and gives durations ranging from 1 day to 1 year [4]. Since the update of the privacy policy, I'm not aware of any discussions regarding to changing the duration of the key centralauth cookies to change the duration of an active login. Dragons flight (talk) 22:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'll go ask Legal if this limit is still necessary. It may take a while to get an answer. In the meantime, someone else can start thinking about remarks to file under the heading of "Why having a long login session is not a significant security risk, and why it is The Right Thing to do". Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:35, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
How about a warning box at the top of any page displayed during the last ten (?) minutes of the login session? "Your login session will expire in N minutes." That could help to reduce accidental logged-out edits. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:45, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
To Whatamidoing's point, I don't see how a long login here is such a security risk, or a security risk at all. If someone gets into my e-mail account, they can wreak havoc on my life, due to needing an e-mail address for everything. I'm almost positive it would be the same for most people reading this. If someone gets into my Wikipedia account, there's not really any damage that can be done, aside from easily revertable changes to pages. And if it continues, there can be a lock put on my account until it can be proven that the stolen account is no longer an issue. Breaking into this account would hurt my feelings, but nothing more. Leobold111 (talk) 22:31, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Polytonic in special character inserter

The character inserter at the bottom of the edit box has the option to insert the template {{polytonic}} at the end of its menu of Greek characters. This template is deprecated and should be replaced with {{lang|grc}} in the programming of this thing. I'm commenting here because couldn't find any Help or Wikipedia page relating to the character inserter. (I feel like I'm in a bizarre nightmare....) — Eru·tuon 00:12, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed it. I don't think it needs to be replaced with the lang tamplate. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 00:52, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I am trying to standardize articles on Ancient Greek by adding that template, and since {{IPA}} and {{Unicode}} are included in the special character inserter, it would make sense if {{lang|grc|}} were as well. — Eru·tuon 04:54, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We'd have to add to to every language section then. Can you post this at MediaWiki talk:Edittools? -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 09:02, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Erutuon: It's a gadget, and the gadget's front page is MediaWiki:Gadget-charinsert. There is a small help page at Help:Edittools. These do have talk pages, more than two in fact - the main one is MediaWiki talk:Edittools, which you were directed to by Edokter, but in addition that there is MediaWiki talk:Gadget-charinsert there is also MediaWiki talk:Gadget-charinsert-core.css. The gadget has been renamed and reconfigured more than once, and I suspect that other talk pages are strewn about along the way. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:18, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Edokter: Thanks for the pointer. I posted a comment there.
@Redrose64: Thanks for the info. Seems like the gadget ought to at least be briefly mentioned and linked in Help:Editing. I posted a suggestion in the talk page there. — Eru·tuon 22:21, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Edit window font

I edit with Firefox 34.0.5 for Windows 8.1, 64 bit. To choose a font for the edit window, I went into Preferences-->Editing, and for the Edit Font Area Style I chose Monospaced Font. In Firefox I chose Tools-->Options-->Content Tab-->Advanced. For the Monospace font I chose Consolas, size 16. But the Wikipedia editor just started ignoring my choice and displaying some nearly illegible font. What changed, and how can it be fixed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jc3s5h (talk • contribs) 00:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Consolas works for me in Firefox 34.0 on Windows Vista. Have you tried the more common Courier new? Does it help to log out? PrimeHunter (talk) 04:39, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
After some experimenting, I found that in the Wikipedia editing preferences, I need to specify "Browser default" rather than "Monospaced Font". Somehow the broweser monospace font is chosen rather than any of the other browser defaults (serif or san-serif). Jc3s5h (talk) 17:12, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Jc3s5h: Browsers typically have more than one default font; Firefox 34.0.5, for instance, has several sets of four. You can check and set these as follows: in the menu at the top, select "Tools" → "Options"; in the icon strip at the top of that, click on "Content"; in the "Fonts & Colors" box, click Advanced... and this opens another dialog box. This has a pull-down menu named "Fonts for"; if you're checking the fonts used in English Wikipedia, make sure that "Latin" is selected there. Below that are four fonts - the one that is used for English Wikipedia edit boxes is the one shown against "Monospace" - I've got "Courier New" here, size 13. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:14, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, my confusion was that the preferences dialog in Wikipedia does not make it clear that when "Browser default" is chosen, it will be the browser default monospaced font.
and indeed it shouldn't, b/c it's not WP choice, it's the browser's choice. the part that may be confusing is the fact that most (all?) browsers use by default monospace fonts for a "textarea" element. maybe this (i.e., the default font used by the browser for textarea element) can be configured for some browsers, and if it can, then you might find non-monospace fonts in edit box. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

CSD

I am attempting to nominate an article for speedy deletion {{Db-g4}}, but the article was created under a slightly different name and I am having difficulty getting the old Afd discussion to appear in the header (see diff). Help with this would be appreciated. Thanks! - Location (talk) 05:32, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind. Thanks, Fuhghettaboutit! - Location (talk) 06:08, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No problem:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:10, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Undoing translation edits

Could someone explain to me how in blazes I'm supposed to undo junk edits like the ones at c:Help:Contents/pt. I am surprised that this functionality is not readily apparent. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 05:44, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Magog the Ogre: What's stopping you from reverting? Oh, I see. Hmm. Gonna look.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Phab:T41415 maybe? — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 06:23, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like you have to contact a Commons:Special:ListUsers/translationadmin.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Well I guess I'll just have to deal with it for now - the edits did translate the text afterall; they goofed up the linking too. Thanks. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 06:27, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Fuhghettaboutit: - could I make myself a translation admin? I tried that once and it didn't work. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 06:27, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Simple. Just make yourself a steward first.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:29, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Or, you know, click the translation administrator box under Groups you can change?[5] But it still doesn't work. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 06:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder what are the junk edits at c:Help:Contents/pt? Can't find... I don't understand Portuguese but at least the edits made by MEX VICENTE M3 seems fine to me. --Stryn (talk) 17:57, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The edits seem to be a bit messy. There are headlines which are not present in the English version, and various links are broken. I don't know whether the text matches the English text. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:11, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if the edits are not that good they can be deleted (commons:Special:Contributions/MEX_VICENTE_M3) or fixed (if someone knows pt). --Stryn (talk) 00:12, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Specifying location in Template:Infobox Company Comment

On pages such as Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken the company infobox seems to be broken with respect to the location field. The way I have it seems to be the recommended way per the documentation, which advises leaving the location_city and location_country parameters blank, but this instead leaves extra commas after the location string "Germany". Is there a proper way to express the location of the company with only country, without city, or is the template currently broken? Anon423 (talk) 15:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed with this edit to the infobox template. Due to the span tags the parameters in the {{comma-separated entries}} call were considered non-empty, so the template added commas. SiBr4 (talk) 15:30, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! So I'm not going crazy. And I didn't even have to go back and re-fix it. I have a lot to learn about infoboxes, but should this fix be similarly applied to {{infobox company}}'s sister infoboxes, and/or other fields with similar syntax pitfalls? Anon423 (talk) 15:43, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
These are all templates that use {{Comma separated entries}}. Randomly checking the source for a few of the infoboxes, most appear to either already use #if cases or not need them. {{Infobox company}} did also use them until they were removed today. SiBr4 (talk) 16:22, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Image in Limbo

File:Action-centre-warning.PNG was reported at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#Disapearing image file (but not image page)? It's still at http:/upwiki/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Action-centre-warning.PNG. It could probably be fixed with a new upload but maybe somebody first wants to investigate further in case there is a more general problem. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:25, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re-uploaded. This should not frustrate any investigation (I think). -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 14:31, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pending Changes Log

The article Twitch.tv has Pending changes protection. However it neither has a lock in the top corner, nor any entries in the log [6]. Why is this? meamemg (talk) 23:51, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The padlock icons need to be manually added; you can do it yourself with {{pp-pc1}}. Regarding the logs, that page was recently moved after it had been protected. According to the fine print at WP:MOVE, pending changes protection is moved with the page but isn't logged against the new page name after a move (unlike other protection types, which are logged). Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 00:04, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"action=" parameters

Need a link to a list of valid "action=" parameters, say, in https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sandbox&action=edit. I know a few constructive ones like "edit", "purge", etc., but need a wider list for antivandalism check. Thanks in advance. Materialscientist (talk) 02:26, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Help:URL#URLs of Wikipedia pages has some. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:40, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think what you are looking for is MW:Manual:Parameters to index.php#Actions. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 03:09, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 04:07, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Lua help needed

I would like to make a template, say {{Make diff}}, that takes a URL like https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Robin_Williams&diff=next&oldid=639931566 and outputs a formatted {{Diff}}? (A bot could regularly Subst: instances) That would be useful in many circumstances, and should be doable in Lua, in which I unfortunately have no skills.

I'd like as similar template, say {{Make unsigned}}, that would turn a string like 11:37, 1 January 2015‎ Pigsonthewing (which is easy to cut & paste from an article history) and render a formatted {{unsigned}} template. (Or perhaps the existing template could be modified to except that format of input?)

Could someone assist, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:42, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Re: the second request, there's {{unsigned2}} and {{UnsignedIP2}}. Graham87 12:36, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. They still require a pipe; I think Lua could be used to do away with that and to detect the parameter value's format, so we could merge them all. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:14, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The first one shouldn't be too hard - I'll have a go at writing that now. The second will be easy if we're talking about copying and pasting the date format as it is shown in the page history, but if we want to handle free-form dates then it will be difficult to write code that can tell where the date ends and the username begins. (Consider that, technically, someone could set their username as a date if they wanted to.) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 14:17, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Also keep in mind, dates in page history are formatted based on user preferences with 4 possible options. Mr.Z-man 17:39, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Pigsonthewing: Your first request is now done - check out Template:Url to diff. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 17:21, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pagename: magic word, no disambiguation

Please remind me: I think we have a magic word, or template, like {{{PAGENAME}}, but which returns a disambiguation-free version of the page name, so "Foo" from a page called "Foo (bar)". What is it? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:12, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

{{PAGENAMEBASE}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:41, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)&oldid=640570026"