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

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Should we ask for mapframe to be turned on?

Resolved
 – There's an un-animous snow consensus to checkY support the use of this functionality in en.wiki.The ball is now in WMF's court for optional deployment and/or further development. Winged Blades of GodricOn leave 05:56, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T175102

Mapframe is an extension that is being developed by the WMF to show small OpenStreetMap maps in articles. Background information is at mw:Help:Extension:Kartographer. It is currently enabled on some Wikipedias that have opted in, and I think it would be useful here as well. Personally, I'm interested in using this in Wikidata-driven infoboxes such as the one at Lovell Telescope to replace {{Location map}} with OSM data, but it also has wider applications. I don't think that it interferes with existing coding here, so it just adds functionality that we can use. I can't spot any previous discussions about this, so I'm starting this discussion here to try to determine consensus. Also see phab:T138057 and phab:T175102 Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 00:29, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree I think it would be a major benefit to have proper interactive maps in all Wikipedias, not just the ones that opted in. <mapframe> functionality has not caused any technical issues on any other wikis. Map code is already deployed to all Wikipedias as <maplink>, so enabling it would be as simple as flipping a switch. --Yurik (talk) 00:41, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support This should've been done waaay sooner. Ladsgroupoverleg 10:58, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Also support T137253 converting Earth coordinates in {{Coord}} to use <maplink> as well. Jc86035 (talk) 11:27, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support, would be especially useful to have mapframe maps in the infoboxes of road articles. See commons:User:Evad37/sandbox/maps for some examples - Evad37 [talk] 23:48, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note from the Wikimedia Foundation product team: This is a totally reasonable thing to request as better maps on Wikipedia could improve the user experience and would make a lot of people happy. Previously, we had internally decided on a process to enable mapframe for new Wikipedia projects by request on a batch basis every 6 months. However, the future of maps support from the Wikimedia Foundation is uncertain and at this point I think all new communities considering adding maps should be made aware of it.
The Reading product team has been working to try to figure out how to support the existing maps implementation, and our initial analysis is that maps requires significantly more resources than were assigned to the project at inception. We are currently working on establishing if we can prioritize resources to get maps into a stable, healthy state and will update folks on a plan as soon as we have a draft for comment. It has taken longer than we would have liked to get more clarity, due to organizational changes, but I think we are making progress and should have a clearer answer by the end of September, 2017.
The current situation is that over the last several months the maps project has relied on the goodwill of individual engineers at the Wikimedia Foundation to keep it up and running in addition to individual volunteers contributing support. We also have a contractor, working on a cartographic re-skin as well as dealing with some other maps issues like disputed borders.
I am personally very nervous about having maps on English Wikipedia because we don’t know what kind of support we will be able to offer in the future and I want to minimize the amount of editor effort going into a feature that is at risk. We are frankly concerned that the resources required to maintain and make necessary upgrades to the map service are more than we can commit to.
We’d like to propose that we revisit this question in October when we have more clarity over the path forward for maps. Thoughts? Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Jkatz (WMF): Thank you for the background information on the development work. I think that there are two different issues here that can be handled in two separate stages. First, do we want to have this functionality available on enwp? That is what this discussion will hopefully decide. Second, is WMF ready to support the deployment? That is something that the WMF has to decide, and if the answer to the first question is 'yes' then the timing of the deployment is up to the WMF; if it is 'no' then the WMF is off the hook. ;-) I think that delaying this until next month doesn't help with either question, so it's still worth asking & answering the first question now. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 01:06, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Peel: I think that is a totally reasonable approach. Am I correctly interpreting your intent when you say "if it is 'no' then the WMF is off the hook." to mean that if the Wikimedia Foundation is not ready to support the deployment, we will have a discussion and that you wouldn't deploy until we were? This interpretation seems like a great way to break down and approach this problem (thank you!). If, instead you mean you would deploy without our support, it makes me very uncomfortable, as it would mean deploying map infrastructure we are responsible for supporting and maintaining at a time when we are suggesting we might not be able to support and maintain it. Can you confirm that I am reading your intent correctly? Thanks. Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 03:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Jkatz (WMF): My understanding was that someone at the WMF would have to flip the switch to deploy this. Even if that's not the case, I don't think it makes sense to deploy it until the WMF is ready to support and maintain it. So let's answer the first question here (do we want it here), and then we can move over to phabricator and the WMF/devs can determine when to deploy it. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 12:15, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Peel: Makes perfect sense. Thanks for clarifying! I'll probably add my note with our concerns to the phab ticket too, just so it's in the relevant places. Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 18:12, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi all, quick update - Jkatz (WMF) is on family leave for a bit and we plan to provide an update next week. --ABaso (WMF) (talk) 22:34, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. We’ve been discussing this over the past weeks and are sharing an update as promised last week. Post edit - just wanted to make it clear! First of all, thank you for this RFC - we appreciate it. We acknowledge the decision and are working on a plan to enable map support on English Wikipedia.
As mentioned above, we thought we would have an answer about long-term maintenance by now, but it turns out we can only provide a partial answer at this time.
First, we’re committed to maintenance of the map service consumption experience as is.
Currently, our work continues to be on a best-effort basis—a maintenance effort from a handful of employees and volunteers.
We understand the desire to add <mapframe> functionality on English Wikipedia, and are encouraged by the support here - thank you for expressing the desired direction. <mapframe> seems like an opportunity to make the encyclopedia experience better. However, we believe a deployment in the near term would entail resourcing risks, potentially compounding the risk associated with the holiday deployment freeze and major online fundraising efforts. Consequently, we aren't activating this right now.
However, we are exploring alternatives concerning both the maps consumption experience and maps contributions (editing) to identify a more sustainable path forward. More specifically, we are looking to see if there are other organizations or efforts with whom a maps partnership would make sense and would align with our tightly held values around open source, open knowledge, privacy, and neutrality.
It will take some time to explore these alternatives, and we plan to provide monthly updates along the way. We know this has been a very long process with more uncertainty than anyone would like. We are really trying to do our due diligence before making further resourcing or product decisions that will have multi-year consequences. --ABaso (WMF) (talk) 22:22, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'll support.. I've been playing a bit with maps, and it could really use and benefit from some more exposure and feedback by a bigger audience. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:00, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Interactive maps are such an ubiquitous feature all over the web that it's surprising that we still don't have it, especially given that a really large number of articles are about places. I imagine that such maps can be turned on across the board (without the need for editor input in individual articles) for all articles that have explicitly set coordinates. – Uanfala 11:48, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Maps are a traditional feature of encyclopedias, and these days, we should provide the best maps we can within our articles. Better interactivity / better integration with what the editing community needs (e.g. for data display) sounds like a useful feature to put WMF developer time into. —Kusma (t·c) 13:48, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per the above. See also WP:VPTECH#Article with 201 unverifiable references due to exceeding the 2 MB template include size – hard-coded interactive maps can cause serious problems.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:54, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm amazed by growing number of "support" votes here. Right now, the feature is used by less than 200 users (but slowly growing). --George Ho (talk) 00:44, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Some food for thought: if this requires client-side loading resources from off-Wikimedia sites without user consent, this can have privacy implications (not an issue if done server-side). If pins come from WikiData, this may be less controversial than for article descriptions, but there is also an ongoing debate about WikiData integration on en-Wikipedia. If the feature requires scripts, it will not work for everyone (the current maps, although suboptimally implemented, work for everyone, without outsourcing information except from commons for images). —PaleoNeonate – 20:34, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • @PaleoNeonate: The OSM data that is displayed is stored on Wikimedia servers as far as I am aware, so there is no loading of content from non-WMF-operated sites (hence no privacy concerns). It is built into the Mediawiki software, see the documentation, so no scripts are required. Pins from Wikidata may be a concern (as info from Wikidata generally seems to be a concern to some community members), but they are working fairly well in the cases I've been working with so far (see {{Wikidata location map}} and transclusions), and they are not required by this extension (it's an extra layer on top that we can code by using templates here, if we want). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 23:01, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - and thanks to Mike Peel for the information. Location pins are rarely controversial, the detection of WikiData items changes and vandalism from en-Wikipedia remains an ongoing challenge that is likely to continue to be addressed at a more general scale. —PaleoNeonate – 23:18, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • PaleoNeonate, I don't think the RFC or the response you got provided an accurate picture. The Wikidata integration goes waaaay beyond location pins. The page explaining the extension[1] shows an example map built from a Wikidata database query pulling in an arbitrary batch of Wikidata items. This appears to ramp up the wikidata controversy to a whole new level. Alsee (talk) 21:49, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support This would be a great step forwards. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:53, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support, that would be great! − Pintoch (talk) 13:26, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support -- waiting for this feature. User:Naveenpf/sandbox -- few usages with maplink. -- naveenpf (talk) 10:47, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Why was this proposal on VillagePumpTechnical rather than posted on VillagePumpProposals? And is that related to the unrepresentatively high percentage of participants with financial or explicit-advocacy connection to Wikidata? I'm sure I'm not the only the only Proposal-watcher who would be surprised that we didn't get to review this before closure. I'm still trying to get more complete understanding of Kartographer, but the major wikidata integration is clearly neglected or misrepresented in the discussion above. Mapframe integrates what appears to be wikidata database query language for building map from arbitrary batches of wikidata results. If wikidata is vandalized, approximately zero-point-zero-zero percent of editors would be able to decipher the example at Kartographer#GeoShapes_via_Wikidata_Query to find the wikidata edit(s) to revert. Alsee (talk) 21:26, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Alsee: This is a technical request, so this page seemed to be the obvious place to ask this question. Looking at the VP proposal page, it says "Proposed software changes should be filed at Phabricator (configuration changes should have gained a consensus)." Just filing this on Phabricator (as also suggested above on this page) didn't seem to be sufficient in this case, and the linked page at m:Requesting wiki configuration changes doesn't specify where that consensus needs to happen. The time to say that this is the wrong page to seek that consensus was a month ago. This does not have anything to do with Wikidata directly - you can use the extension without any Wikidata connection (although as I said at the start, I am interested in using this in conjuction with Wikidata information). With "financial or explicit-advocacy connection to Wikidata" - you need to back up that accusation with references, as I can't see this connection. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 23:22, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Alsee: Expanding on what Mike said above on the other uses of mapframe, it (and also maplink) can be used with
And it should be possible to make templates like {{Coord}} display a <mapframe>, using the embedded GeoJSON method. - Evad37 [talk] 02:15, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Disappearing icons

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T176884

Good day, it seems that the watchlist star, the notification icons between the user name and "Talk" are all disappearing. Is this another one of the best bad solutions that are spoken of? --Jax 0677 (talk) 21:19, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And so are those little markers that indicate you're seeing an external link. NewYorkActuary (talk) 22:07, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've got them all, except the watchlist star. But then I use MonoBook in Opera 36. Maybe it's thursday? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:24, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
They all still display fine in my case for now, fortunately. —PaleoNeonate – 00:38, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think this might be a problem with Internet Explorer 11. With IE11 I see it both on Wikipedia and on another site, while I don't see it with Google Chrome. Strawberry4Ever (talk) 00:51, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
After a reboot the icons are back on the other website but still missing on Wikipedia. Strawberry4Ever (talk) 01:19, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, gone in IE, but there in Firefox. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 06:40, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, the Phabricator guys are working on it. --George Ho (talk) 09:14, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The icons are back. Yay! Strawberry4Ever (talk) 12:39, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, they seem to come and go. Strawberry4Ever (talk) 12:44, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have Microsoft Edge and I don't see arrows with External links.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:28, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Still not showing in IE. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 06:50, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes I see them, sometimes I don't. Strawberry4Ever (talk) 12:52, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply - Tell me about it. I see the Watchlist Star" icons here, but not at my own user pages. Does anyone know when this issue will be resolved for Internet Explorer 11.0? --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:37, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Mine had disappeared, too. I was worried that there was a problem with my computer. Thankfully things seem to be back to normal now, as of today, although it took seven days. Johnsmith2116 (talk) 04:41, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Seven days? In which case it definitely was Thursday. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:41, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Editing box inserting bogus hard linebreaks (MacOS X, Chrome, about a month now, only on this site)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T177804

For the last month or so I've been experiencing a problem (in Chrome, on MacOS X), where if I enter a space character at the end of a displayed "line" (i.e. right before a soft-wrap) in the editing window, a hard linebreak ends up being inserted when I save, often resulting in crap like this:

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.

where the second line, which should not be a real line at all, is treated as <pre>...</pre> text. What's happened is a hard line break was inserted after "magna", causing the "[space]aliqua" to start a new hardcoded line. This most often happens when the displayed "line" in the editing box soft-wraps at something not alphabetical, such as ]] or the like. Driving me nuts. Generally the only way to fix it is to save the broken version and go back in and re-edit it. I get hit by this around 1–5 times per day. Never happened before, in 12 years.

Any ideas what the issue is? Anyone else getting this?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  06:47, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I just now corrected this edit and was wondering how @such an experienced editor would make that mistake. --Pipetricker (talk) 07:26, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I've also run into it being done by other editors with increased frequency recently, though it's not all over the place.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  23:55, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Which editor are you using ? Do you have the Syntaxhighlight Beta enabled by chance ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:22, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@TheDJ: I do have "Wikitext syntax highlighting" turned on in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. I also had "Syntax highlighter" turned on in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets; maybe this is causing cross-talk of some kind. I'm not running "wikEd" or "New wikitext mode".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  23:53, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's happened to me too a couple of times but I've caught it in preview. I have the gadget, but not the beta. I'm using Win 10 & Opera. Cabayi (talk) 07:02, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Would you  two please turn off the gadget, and then try to trigger this? Since you have the gadget in common, it'd be helpful if we could quickly rule that out, or know that the gadget needs an update. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've turned off the beta gadget. As a test I turned off the regular one, and left the beta one on, and did not actually get any syntax highlighting at all, so the beta one seems to have issues anyway. I've run with the regular one for ages (before noticing there was a beta replacement) without this issue, so I'll try this change first.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  19:52, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's still happening. So, I have no turned off the non-beta syntax highlighter. This is going to be really painful.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  00:15, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've been getting this on the mobile site. It's incredibly frustrating. Hairy Dude (talk) 21:19, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Plain old wrapping is broken

Something is broken.

I am working right now in the wikitext editor, in Chome on a mac, with the browser window at about six inches wide. If I now add a link with a window that is about a foot wide. If I now now add something something long 

Talk:Water_fluoridation#NPOV_issues_in_controversy_section and then keep typing, and then save, I get what you see here. Jytdog (talk) 21:12, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That is messed up, and never used to happen. There is some kind of bug and this is wasting my time. Jytdog (talk) 21:13, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Jytdog: The formatting observed above occurs because there's a carriage return after the word "long" and the next line starts with a space. If you remove the space and/or the carriage return, it formats normally. DH85868993 (talk) 21:20, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I am not a moron and there is no carriage break. Something changed in wikitext editor in the last month or so. What is there, is two spaces. This happens with just one space as well, just before some sort of bracketed text like this. I end up having to change the width of the browser window to move the juxtaposition of the long thing with what is just before it, to be in the middle of the window instead of at the end, and then I can resolve it. But something broke in the wikitext editor to make this something i now have to stop and juggle to fix instead of just working like it should. And yes i fucking know how to fix it. The problem is that it happens at all. The wikitext editor is inserting some kind of carriage break itself. I noticed there have been other problems with wrapping on this page. I have not seen this described here. Jytdog (talk) 21:23, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
actually this is being discussed above at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Editing_box_inserting_bogus_hard_linebreaks_.28MacOS_X.2C_Chrome.2C_about_a_month_now.2C_only_on_this_site.29 Jytdog (talk) 21:36, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am experiencing this as well and had opened a thread below about this, here. I am using chrome on a mac and this error is completely about wrapping and is dependent on the width of the browser window. I have no gadgets enabled, just the plain wikitext editors.
Jytdog (talk) 21:38, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
btw, what you see there is an example of this. I had first saved the comment above in this diff, and i edited it a bit further in this diff, and when I saved that, you can see that my signature didn't wrap correctly and a hard stop was added by the wikitext editor. this never used to happen. Jytdog (talk) 21:42, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've reported a ticket about this now, but i'm still not entirely sure what combination of settings is triggering this, so if someone could clarify that, then maybe someone can fix it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:41, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly do you want to know? Jytdog (talk) 03:36, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
btw i just logged in with firebox (most recent version for mac) and i cannot make this bug replicate this in firebox. Jytdog (talk) 03:45, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Scrolling boxes adjacent to each other

I greet you again, with this much greeting. Look, on my user page I got a couple of article puffery boxes, one below the other (created, expanded)- I wondered if they could go next to each other instead? If so- how? Apologies if this isn't the right place for such a Q- I equally considered the Help Desk. Thanks in advance clever people! Cheers, — fortunavelut luna 19:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: This might work: 
{| style="width:100%;"
|-
|style="width:50%;"|
==Articles created==
<div class="div-col columns column-width" style="{{column-width|15em}} font-size:90%; height: 300px; overflow:auto; border: 1.5px solid #242424; background: transparent; padding: 4px; text-align: left;">
''(list goes here)''
</div>
|style="width:50%;"|
==Articles expanded==
<div class="div-col columns column-width" style="{{column-width|15em}} font-size:90%; height: 300px; overflow:auto; border: 1.5px solid #242424; background: transparent; padding: 4px; text-align: left;">
''(list goes here)''
</div>
|}
Some of the styling (such as the text-align: left;) is superfluous, I copied it from your page. Adjust the two width:50%; and the two {{column-width|15em}} as you see fit. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:36, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64: Thanks very much- apologies, I didn't get your ping- I'll try this tommorow and let you know. Cheers! — fortunavelut luna 21:13, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: Hmmm, I forgot that headings-that-aren't will put the kibosh on a notification. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Redrose64 headings-that-aren't?! -anyway- if you check my u/p you'll see you plan works- many thakns! Although- it could perhaps do with just a slight tweak- if you've any ideas? Thanks again! — fortunavelut luna 15:47, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: Yes, headings-that-aren't. In my code blob above there are two lines that begin with a double equals, this is of course the Wikimarkup for a section heading. They are inside <source>...</source> tags, so are displayed literally and not as headings; but the thing that sends notifications doesn't know this, it assumes that they are real headings, and one of the quirks of the notification system is that the username that you are notifying must be in the same section as your signature. So it thought that my original {{replyto|Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi}} was in a different section, so excluded you from the notification. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:43, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reference "Jump up" accessibility labels (for "^" links) are half-found by browser Find

For example, on list of generic and genericized trademarks, if I use Chrome's Find feature (command-F/control-F), and type in jump, it says it finds 173 instances of the word on the page (the same number as the number of references), but if I press return repeatedly or hold it down, or repeatedly press the next/previous arrows on the Find box, I can cycle through all 173 without anything appearing on the page (no highlights and no scrolling). This confused me for a while. Actually, while I was writing my post here to ask what was going on, I decided to try Firefox in addition to Chrome, and it turns out Firefox shows the link target URL of things Find finds, which gave me the clue I needed.

They seem to be <span> tags with class cite-accessibility-label, with 1×1 px size and overflow hidden, positioned above the top of the viewport, containing the text "Jump up", inside the <a> tag for each "^" link. If I view the source (not in the inspector, but view-source:) and do the same thing with Find, it only finds 7 instances (which are all visible there, obviously), so I guess these "Jump up" accessibility labels are being added by a script after page load? I don't actually know what piece of software is providing them (MediaWiki or something else), but would there be a way to keep Find from finding them, which confuses people who don't use them or expect them to exist?

– PointyOintment (talk · contribs) 02:23, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The related patchsets are discussed in this archived thread from 2013. The alternative at the time was "using WAI-ARIA labels, but that behaves inconsistently with screen readers and doesn't work with NVDA." I'm not sure if anything has changed since then. :/ Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:48, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Quiddity: I think it may well have, actually ... screen reader support for ARIA has improved significantly since then, and NVDA itself has improved to the point that it's now a serious competitor to JAWS. I'd be happy to do some more testing if need be. Graham87 15:34, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And lemme ping the right account. :-) Graham87 15:37, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Hoo man and Matma Rex: Hey, any chance you could take another look into this, or ping someone more appropriate? (cf. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/79472/ and the archived thread link above, for reminders on context). Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 16:14, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:愛耶穌

The user is not blocked but says they can not edit anything except for the talk page because they gen an open proxy block notice. Could someone skilled please have a look (I am sure they would be happy to provide more details). Thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:50, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The next steps for this (also in Template:Autoblock) have already been provided on that user talk page. — xaosflux Talk 03:17, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Tnx.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:53, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thursday happened

Error in marking watchlist as visited

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T171027

Getting this error multiple times today when clicking "Mark all pages as vistited":

  • A database query error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software.[WdbJLgpAMEsAAGVgAZEAAABV] 2017-10-06 00:07:10: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError"

--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 00:09, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is related to phab:T171027. If so, they're working on it. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:34, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Another Watchlist error

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T177440

I tried to update my watchlist to not show bot edits, and 30 seconds or so later this cropped up:

Shows error when I tried to change watchlist settings to hide bot edits.

Is this a me problem or a Meta problem or not a problem at all? I assume it is related to the one above. Thanks, L3X1 (distænt write) 01:48, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

L3X1, do you use the New filters for edit review Beta feature? Trizek (WMF) (talk) 08:13, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Trizek (WMF) Not at this time. L3X1 (distænt write) 12:49, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Are you using ORES predictions? Trizek (WMF) (talk) 12:51, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I have them turned up to max. L3X1 (distænt write) 13:09, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There is apparently some significant Watchlist slowdowns due to ORES filters. We are investigating the case and some developments will happen next week.
In the meantime, I encourage you to lower ORES predictions or don't use them. Thank you for the report L3X1, and apologies for that issue. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 13:34, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I will, thanks for helping me, Trizek. L3X1 (distænt write) 13:46, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Watchlist hanging in Firefox 56 with beta filters

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T177440

FYI, I just filed phab:T177572 because some change made for the beta filters (the problems filters) is causing Firefox 56 to have a conniption. --Izno (talk) 04:15, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Argggh! Firefox on Mac issues

Not sure what's causing the slow-down or conflict, but the error message states: A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete. Script: https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/loa…ts&skin=vector&version=0v61to4:106 I am not code savvy so if anyone can help decipher the message and advise as to what I should do, please don't hesitate. Atsme📞📧 20:33, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Atsme: What page is that occurring on? If it is the watchlist, it might be #Watchlist_hanging_in_Firefox_56_with_beta_filters above. --Izno (talk) 20:40, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure, Izno, but will check to see. Atsme📞📧 20:45, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Watchlist. Atsme📞📧 20:46, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That was it, Izno - I unchecked some of the beta filters, and voila!! Speedy Gonzales, here! Much appreciated! Atsme📞📧 21:04, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that the section edit links for a blocked user's talk page are in strike-through style. Chrome shows the link as having: 

a.user-blocked-temp {
   opacity: 0.7;
   text-decoration: line-through;
}

is this intentional? I know we strike-through their user name, but why the edit links on their talk page? -- RoySmith (talk) 13:16, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@RoySmith: You appear to be using a gadget, because I do not see the same. --Izno (talk) 13:27, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed he is. Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets: Under Appearance – Strike out usernames that have been blocked. Also, it strikes anything that links to their pages, edit links and contributions included. Nihlus 13:29, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You can post a suggestion at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-markblocked.js but it looks OK to me. You can still click the edit links but just get an advance warning that the user is blocked. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:37, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

New source edit screen

Visual editor but on "edit source" kind of thing
That's yer problem right there

WTF is going on? Impossible to post a subst:GAN notice without a load of ******* nowiki ****?! — fortunavelut luna 14:17, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank fuck for the censoring! Anywho, could you give us a screenshot? Might be helpful FIM, though I'm not really sure what's going on.. -- There'sNoTime (to explain) 14:20, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You must see it surely- it's doing it right now on this page, where the edit screen isn't a window it's a page. I'm crap about the lingo. Yeah soz about the ****, was just going slightly potty back there  :) It loads ike V?E but displays mark-up rather than WYSIWYG. Here's a cap ------>
Do you have "New wikitext mode" enabled in your beta settings? Nihlus 14:37, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This is gorgeous this is :D If I have... then who enabled it?! "Grrrr" Hold on I'll have a boucherie — fortunavelut luna 14:40, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You could have if you have "Automatically enable all new beta features" selected as well. Nihlus 14:41, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
LOL thanks Nihlus- I take it the nicely ready-ticked box "Automatically enable all new beta features" is the culprit!?! -or should I say the ******* culprit?! ;) — fortunavelut luna 14:43, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Nilhus, got it just as you posted thanks for that. Now: UNCHECK :D and thanks too, fucking Time :p — fortunavelut luna 14:45, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, that'll do it that will -- There'sNoTime (to explain) 14:47, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Tech_News:_2017-40: "If you have turned on "Automatically enable all new beta features" you will now get the 2017 wikitext editor". There was a bug fix which meant you are getting the Beta Feature, like you indicated in your preferences. It is possible to disable it of course; thanks for considering "playing" with it a bit and leaving some feedback before opting out. Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:48, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Elitre (WMF), in general I don't mind experimenting (got me into a lot of trouble when I was young!), but al I was trying to do was paste '{{subst:GAN|subtopic=Royalty, nobility, and heraldry}}' onto a talk, but instead got <code><nowiki>{{subst:GAN|subtopic=Royalty, nobility, and heraldry}}</nowiki>- see, loads of nowiki /code etc wrapped around it. It worked on the fifth attempt :p — fortunavelut luna 15:02, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just for general information: The WMF decided that they could reduce the number of editors by building a "wikitext mode" inside of Visual Editor, and getting us to eventually switch into it. It has performance problems and faulty previews because it's build inside of VE. Performance is severely affected by the side of the article, and seems to vary for different people. The last time I tried previewing United States it took over 60 seconds. There was a Village Pump consensus to submit the performance and preview issues as deployment-blockers. The WMF has given no indication that performance can be improved to be comparable to the current editor, and they appear unwilling to provide genuine previews. Instead they want to eventually switch over article views to use the VE-rendering engine. That would theoretically fix most or all of the "preview flaws" of trying to use VE-itself as a preview for wikitext editing. Alsee (talk) 20:55, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. That's nuts. I really really really hope they don't go ahead with it — the normal editor's worked well for fifteen years, and if it's not broke, don't fix it. Nyttend (talk) 23:29, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto. A change like this probably would "reduce the number of editors", but probably not in the way that the WMF intended. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:29, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ha!, I also read it that way at first, as a sarcastic dig at the WMF by Alsee ... --Pipetricker (talk) 09:31, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"14,882 users are trying this feature."

In "preferences - Beta features", each feature gets a "X users are trying this feature." statement. Are this users on enwiki or global? Fram (talk) 14:28, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's related to the wiki you're looking at. Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:40, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I thought someone said awhile ago as well. I then already thought that the numbers given were suspiciously high. For the "Content translation tool", it says "58,320 users are trying this feature.", even though the tool is "restricted to editors that are extended-confirmed.", of which there are at the moment only 36774... Fram (talk) 14:54, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't always limited to extended-confirmed and all users still see the option in preferences and can enable it there even if it doesn't currently work in their account. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:05, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In addition to this, the number is only about those who opted-in deliberately: doesn't count those who chose "Automatically enable...". Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:07, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
While I can buy Pimehunter's explanation, it seems extremely unlikely that more than 50,000 editors on enwiki, who don't have 'enable all beta features', have actually specifically enabled this feature. Fram (talk) 15:44, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's not. First, because it's been a tool in active development for a few years now, that's globally much appreciated and will soon celebrate the creation of article #250k. Also, the English Wikipedia is quite often the source of translations, so one needs to have Content Translation enabled here to start a translation into their own language. Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:07, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Floating tooltips near right margin activate hor scroll

References tooltip gadget in the latest desktop Chrome on PC goes to the right when reference number (e.g. [1]) is near right webpage margin, thus activating horizontal scroll, instead of being displayed on the left. Screenshot.

Also, same thing happens with floating keyboard-settings tooltip window which sometimes (when typing Edit summary) gets displayed in the bottom right corner of standard wikisource editor, thus activating horizontal scroll same as in example above (except that here is until it disappears by itself, and with reference tooltip it is like that until one moves cursor of reference number). --Obsuser (talk) 21:33, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

get_all_pages_in_category

Trying to do a get_all_pages_in_category call but it is only returning 500 entries. Any ideas how to set it up to something more reasonable? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:17, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7: If it suits what you're doing you could try using PetScan. Jc86035 (talk) 08:21, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. That might work. One disturbing thing: Petscan says that Category:FA-Class military history articles has 1,007 members, but the category says that it has only 1,002. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 08:52, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Bug. It erroneously reported subcategories. Still three erroneous elements. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:51, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Damn! It doesn't work. It just gives me back a lot of HTML. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:21, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I can't help for the general case but I have a script I can run to get the pages in a category. It found 1005 pages, see my sandbox (permalink). I think WP:AWB also has a mechanism to make a list of pages from a category. The numbers shown such as "out of approximately 1,002 total" at the category page are estimates. I think the only way to know for sure is to generate a list and even that is subject to peculiarities because, for example, one bad edit to a template or module can create an error that adds (or removes) hundreds of pages to a category, and even if the bad edit is immediately reverted the system may take weeks to clean itself because that is done at a low priority. Johnuniq (talk) 22:16, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I got the same result; the category page says 1,002, while PetScan says 1,005. I will run a script over the output and check them all. I really prefer an API I can call from a script; I don't going through tools like PetScan. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:59, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
mw:API:Query#Continuing_queries —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:00, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That might work. I'll give it a try. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:04, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Category page counts on category pages themselves are notoriously inaccurate and have been for a long time. That's why we added "out of approximately" before the count. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:38, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's not so good. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:04, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The situation is that if there's a bug where some page addition/removal doesn't update the count or if the job to update things somehow gets lost, there's no way to know that the count has become inaccurate and needs updating. It'll get updated if the stored count goes negative (since that's obviously wrong), or if the total number of pages is less than 200 (i.e. no paging on the Category page), or if a slow maintenance script is run on the server to recalculate all the counts from scratch. Anomie⚔ 17:58, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that this is tracked as T18036, but I am wrong nearly every day. This could be one of those days. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:31, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Images are not showing up on Wikipedia

I have a big problem going on with Wikipedia. I can't locate around images easily on Wikipedia and when I click on an image, it is throw up an error message. This only happening on Wikipedia and nowhere else. This is the error message that comes when opening File:Farewell to 442402 Beckenham Junction to London Victoria 1Z43 approaching Beckenham Road station (32556548674).jpg:

Page not found

/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Farewell_to_442402_Beckenham_Junction_to_London_Victoria_1Z43_approaching_Beckenham_Road_station_(32556548674).jpg We could not find the above page on our servers. Did you mean: /wiki/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Farewell_to_442402_Beckenham_Junction_to_London_Victoria_1Z43_approaching_Beckenham_Road_station_(32556548674).jpg Alternatively, you can visit the Main Page or read more information about this type of error. Pkbwcgs (talk) 08:20, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have the media viewer option turned on? If so, you could try disabling it, in case that helps. The image shows up for me (including its large version). —PaleoNeonate – 08:51, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PaleoNeonate: How can I disable media viewer? Pkbwcgs (talk) 09:27, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Pkbwcgs: under preferences -> files there should be an "Enable media viewer" boolean option. —PaleoNeonate – 10:06, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PaleoNeonate: There is no files tab in my preferences so I still can't find it. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Images work for me. "Enable Media Viewer" is at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. What is your browser and skin? Does it happen if you are logged out? Are you saying the error happens when you click on the link "File:Farewell to 442402 Beckenham Junction to London Victoria 1Z43 approaching Beckenham Road station (32556548674).jpg"? How about commons:File:Farewell to 442402 Beckenham Junction to London Victoria 1Z43 approaching Beckenham Road station (32556548674).jpg? Or does it only happen when you click on a displayed image like at User:Pkbwcgs/sandbox? Do you have the Firefox addon NoScript? It can cause problems with some file names with parentheses. Does File:Example.png work? PrimeHunter (talk) 10:16, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: File:Example.png doesn't work. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:23, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Also, File:Example.png and commons:File:Farewell to 442402 Beckenham Junction to London Victoria 1Z43 approaching Beckenham Road station (32556548674).jpg doesn't work after enabling Media viewer. In fact, a few hours ago some pictures worked but in the last two hours none of the pictures work before and after enabling Media viewer. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:26, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And... I don't use Firefox, I use Google Chrome. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:27, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And your skin, and logged out? PrimeHunter (talk) 10:45, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: Logging out doesn't help the problem. The pictures still don't appear. Nor does clearing the cache. Pkbwcgs (talk) 11:01, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: Apparently, it is error 404 but I can't able to fix it. Pkbwcgs (talk) 11:08, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Can you try another browser and maybe Internet connection? Is the error message the only content on a file page? Does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Example.png or https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Example.png work? PrimeHunter (talk) 11:22, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: Both versions are not working. The error message comes after going to the image - there is an image link instead of the image. If I click on the image link, it leads to error 404 and the error message I put right at the top of this thread. If I am too vague, I will post a screenshot. Pkbwcgs (talk) 12:29, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Have you tried Ctrl+F5 in Chrome? If so, please post a screenshot. Nihlus 12:43, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Does https:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Example.png give the error? Are you in England as your user page says? I'm nearby in Denmark so our locations shouldn't make a difference. User-uploaded files are stored at upload.wikimedia.org. Does https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/static/images/poweredby_mediawiki_132x47.png work? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:02, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: @Nihlus: I don't know where can I upload a screenshot and only https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/static/images/poweredby_mediawiki_132x47.png is working at the moment but the other link isn't. Pkbwcgs (talk) 13:31, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Pkbwcgs: See WP:WPSHOT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:06, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I wondered whether your browser didn't go to upload.wikimedia.org for some reason so I manually replaced the domain in the correct url and got this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Farewell_to_442402_Beckenham_Junction_to_London_Victoria_1Z43_approaching_Beckenham_Road_station_(32556548674).jpg. It's not supposed to find an image and it gives me the error message you quoted, but I can find no way to get there without manually modifying the address. What is the address in your browser after you click this link: https:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Example.png. My browser stays at that address and displays the image. The address https://upload.wikimedia.org with nothing after the domain redirects me to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. The manually made wrong address https://commons.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Example.png also gives me an error message like you quoted but again, I can find no way to get there by clicking normal interface links. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:25, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: It still quite a bad problem. As soon as I clear the history, the images will work for 5 to 10 minutes and after that, the images will suddenly stop working. This problem suddenly happened on Friday and I still didn't get a solution. Pkbwcgs (talk) 14:36, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's hard to help if you don't answer questions. If you click https:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Example.png then is your browser still on that address when you see an error message saying "We could not find the above page on our servers"? Where does "Main Page" in the error message link to? PrimeHunter (talk) 15:12, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: The link you have given is working. However, the pictures are still not showing up. The main page in the error is linking to Wikimedia Common's main page. However, sometimes even opening Wikimedia commons is throwing up this error below:

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

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

By the way, the 'error message' in this error is error 404. Pkbwcgs (talk) 16:42, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I am being held up with technical difficulties on Wikimedia Commons. Is there any maintenance work going on? Pkbwcgs (talk) 19:56, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Commons currently works for me but I have periodically seen such error messages for years. It's unrelated to the other problem. If the "Main Page" link goes to Commons then it sounds like you are at commons.wikimedia.org when you see the error message while you should have been at upload.wikimedia.org after you click an image to view the image directly and not just on a file page. But I cannot be sure because you still haven't answered what the address is. Maybe there is a problem with your browser. Do you have any browser extensions which may manipulate addresses? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:36, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: No luck - problem still is going on. The address that it is going to is upload.wikimedia.org. Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:14, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Which of the problems? "We could not find the above page on our servers" and "Our servers are currently under maintenance or experiencing a technical problem" are completely different. And upload.wikimedia.org is only a domain. Please post a full address where you see the problem, e.g. https:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Example.png which works for me. Copy-paste the address from your browser to be sure to get the precise address. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:04, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: We could not find the above page on our servers. is the error message. https:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Example.png does not work for me. A few days back, it did. Pkbwcgs (talk) 15:42, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: Please look at the image on File:Wikimedia error 404.png. I hope this is the right images but I think this is the example screenshot of the error 404 message I am getting. Pkbwcgs (talk) 15:47, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That's odd. Not only does it work for me but if I try a deliberately wrong name at upload.wikimedia.org like https:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/7/70/WrongFilename.png then I only get this:
404 Not Found
The resource could not be found.

File not found: /v1/AUTH_mw/wikipedia-commons-local-public.70/7/70/WrongExample.png
It's a different message and it has no link to Commons or anywhere else. Contructing a wrong link with the right directory per mw:Manual:$wgHashedUploadDirectory gives me the same result: https:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/WrongFilename.png. Please confirm that your browser is still on the address https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/WrongExample.png when you see "We could not find the above page on our servers", and a "Main Page" link going to Wikimedia Commons. Do you know where to see which address you are on? Can you try another browser? File:Wikimedia error 404.png is only a partial match to the message you quoted in the first post, but the file is five years old and from another domain so that's not surprising. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:15, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Small grey rectangle in Template:Infobox river

Hi. Can anyone help identify what is causing that grey rectangle to appear (on the top-right) in the above template page please? Thanks in advance. Rehman 10:42, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am currently looking into the issue but it is probably a formatting issue. I have cleaned it up with autoFormatter and that didn't work. I am going to perform some tests on this template. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:53, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Rehman: The same problem is going on in Template:Infobox Film but I don't know what it could be. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:56, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Rehman and Pkbwcgs: That's just an empty infobox generated by the code of the template not being wrapped in includeonly tags. Nihlus 10:57, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @Pkbwcgs: and @Nihlus:. It makes sense, but any idea why this is starting to show only now? I can confirm this wasn't there before, as I have been working on this template for a while... Rehman 11:02, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Update: It's probably due to some MediaWiki update. Noticed that it is now showing in other templates too (example: {{Infobox power station}}). Rehman 11:03, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I see it in Google Chrome but not in Firefox. They apparently treat empty tables differently. It produces the code <table class="infobox vevent" style="width:22em;font-size:90%;"></table>. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:03, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nice spotting! I did change my browser from Firefox to Chrome. That explains the recent appearance of this horrifying grey thing. Cheers! Rehman 11:05, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It only happens with class="infobox" so I guess it adds some styling which forces some browsers to display an empty box. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:14, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

VE and preloaded content

The AFC draft templates have a "submit your draft for a review" or "resubmit" button that adds a section with a preloaded {{subst:submit}}. This works fine in the source editor, but in VE there's no new section with preloaded content. This has led to several questions from new editors who wondered why the instructions don't work. Is there a way to preload content when using VE? As an alternative, adding &veswitched=0 to the URL forces the source editor even against the editor's preferences, but that seems a less preferable workaround. Huon (talk) 14:01, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Preload is soon to work. :) --Izno (talk) 14:26, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

{{nowrap}} broken on mobile

About the above topic heading: Please don't use templates (such as {{tl}}, or any other) in topic headings. It breaks the handy section link at the edit summary, because templates are never interpreted in that link. I fixed this heading so it doesn't use a template, but I suggest just writing Template:Template instead of {{template}} if you need to mention and link to a template in a heading. --Pipetricker (talk) 09:16, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As I have tried and apparently failed to explain several times on its talk page, this template does literally nothing on mobile. As far as I can tell, the nowrap class doesn't exist on the mobile stylesheet. I've been resorting to <span style="white-space:nowrap">...</span> to fix wrapping problems. Hairy Dude (talk) 21:26, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think the reasoning is that since mobile devices might be very narrow, using nowrap may cause a phrase to become longer than the available space. So using nowrap is not necessarily useful. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:51, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but especially the overuse inside infoboxes (and even some wrapping of entire sentences!!) of this class was breaking the mobile view left and right. I therefor decided to disable it there. But I've now partially re enabled it, and it is now only ignored when used inside tables. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:55, 9 October 2017 (UTC)�[reply]
The problem is that some table need nowraps—especially those with sortable functions—because nowraps keep everything on one line. Without them, cells become out of alignment, making them almost impossible to read. For example this table now incorrectly lists Swedish racing driver Marcus Ericsson as British, British driver Will Stevens as Japanese, and Japanese driver Kamui Kobayashi as German. It's also incorrectly listing which rounds they contested. How many table are experiencing similar problems?
I seem to recall you making this very same change about a year ago, but it had to be undone because it was creating these very same issues. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 08:34, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It would be nice if there was a way not to apply it on mobile, though. Look at the IPA notation at Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis on mobile, for example. Nardog (talk) 04:49, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How to propose change in general statistics page

The page https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org has just changed its content. It now seems to confuse deletion of sandbox with reverted edits (29% of my edits were not deleted!). Where do I propose a change in this statistic (or alternately learn how they arrive at this very misleading statistic)? Maybe reversions should be carried as a separate statistic. Jzsj (talk) 12:24, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if this completely answers your question, but if I remember deleted edits are not reverted edits but the ones which exist(ed) on now-deleted pages (also explaining why non-administrators get a permission denied error when trying to see their details). —PaleoNeonate – 12:35, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the tool is correct. Deleted edits are edits to deleted pages (or rarely individual edits deleted from public view by administrators). User:Jzsj/sandbox was deleted in August [2] and has 6,099 deleted edits, nearly all of them by you. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:24, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Glad we figured it out, and that it was correct! I guess the old one wasn't ;) For future reference, you can use the "Report an issue" link in the footer to create a ticket on Phabricator, using your Wikimedia account. If you are not comfortable with Phabricator, you can write here at VPT and ping one of the maintainers, or comment at mw:Talk:XTools. — MusikAnimal talk 00:06, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I should also mention that having a high number of deleted edits is not by itself a bad thing. For instance, this is often the case for new page patrollers because they tag pages for speedy deletion. — MusikAnimal talk 00:10, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Obscene image inexplicably appearing in William III of England

In the William III of England's family tree section I found a nasty pornographic image (this image from Commons, be careful if you want click, it is super NSFW). When I edit the page, I just found innocent-looking templates (such as {{centre}} and {{familytree}} none of these should cause the image to be there). In fact, the image disappear when I click "preview" on the editor without editing anything, or when I log out of my account. I can see it in Chrome and Firefox, even when using another computer. Do others see it to, and wondering what prank is this caused by? HaEr48 (talk) 06:20, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Probably related to this. The offending template has been fixed and I have purged that article's page to eliminate the grotesque. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:30, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ah thanks Mandruss. Looking at "related changes" link on William III of England, I think this edit on {{centre}} is responsible ({{redirect-multi}} reported in that incident isn't used in this article. {{centre}} template is used by 1397 pages. Is there an automated way to purge all of them? HaEr48 (talk) 06:42, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If there is, I'm not aware of it. It sure would come in handy in the rare cases like this. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:51, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have started a purge of all pages using {{centre}}. It should be done in under an hour from this time stamp. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:42, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nowrap template not working

I have noticed that Template:Nowrap has stopped working in the past hour or so. A lot of articles that I edit use this, particularly in complex tables, to aid mobile and tablet users. Is there a reason for this? Prisonermonkeys (talk) 08:12, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide examples? And is it not working on mobile or at all? Mobile is discussed above. Nihlus 13:23, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
TheDJ, is this related to your recent edits to MediaWiki:Mobile.css? Jc86035 (talk) 13:56, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oh sorry yeah, i had a mistake in there for a bit. Should have been fixed a couple of hours ago though. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:43, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Nihlus — it has been fixed. I didn't realise that someone else had already posted the issue above. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 02:32, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Warning: Leaving Wikimedia

I just got this when I clicked on the dabsolver tools link:

Leaving Wikimedia

Wikimedia requires notification of when leaving the Foundation's sphere of influence.

Huh? Doug Weller talk 11:18, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is either a Toolforge thing or something that Dispenser setup. — JJMC89 (T·C) 15:49, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
[17:11:13] <Coren> Dispenser: Dude, you can't just redirect from to Tool Labs tool to a server you own without an intersitial explaining that by proceeding forward users are giving you their IP and browser info. [3]
Its a stupid requirement since IP addresses can be from the MediaWiki's API (and formerly geoiplookup.wikimedia.org) and detailed browser information can be obtained via navigator. Shop.wikimedia.org doesn't use an interstitial, but WMF specifically exempted it.
For the record, I didn't even have logging turned on for the first two years until I noticed ~15 gigabytes transferred out (5-15x normal). — Dispenser 18:46, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Doug Weller: "Huh?" is a pretty vague question but I suspect you are not looking for the above discussion. Dispenser lost access to his old domain http://dispenser.homenet.org. See User talk:Dispenser (he may want to update some pages at insource:homenet prefix:User:Dispenser). For some time his website only had an IP Address and I don't know whether the current https://dispenser.info.tm is permanent. Many links to his tools were modified to point to redirects under https://tools.wmflabs.org/dispenser, e.g. https://tools.wmflabs.org/dispenser/view/Dab_solver, so there would be a central place to update links later if his site gets a permanent domain. Wikimedia policy requires a warning to users before they are redirected to websites not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation. The wording "Wikimedia requires notification of when leaving the Foundation's sphere of influence" is odd though. It could sound like it's asking users to notify the Wikimedia Foundation. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:43, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: sorry, that was vague, but it was literally my reaction when I saw that. I don’t remember seeing it before, and I certainly didn’t think it meant Wikimedia needed to notify me, I thought it was notifying Wikipedia, which made no sense. It really should be changed. Doug Weller talk 20:05, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2017-41

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

Recent changes

Problems

  • You will not be able to edit or upload files to Commons for around 30 minutes on 11 October. This will start at 06:00 UTC. This is because of work to let Commons show 3D models. [6]

Changes later this week

  • The font in the edit window is monospace by default. Today you can change preferences to another font family or use "the browser default" instead of monospace. Switching to the browser default has only changed the font on Macs. The option to use browser default will be removed this week. [7]
  • If you want to print a page or make a PDF of a page you can do so in the side menu. The way the pages look when you do this will change. You can read more on mediawiki.org.
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 October. It will be on all wikis from 12 October (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 10 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 11 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

14:20, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Pagecounts-ez hasn't generated since OCT-06

@Erik Zachte: The analytics files here seem to have hit a processing snag. This happened once in the last couple of months and I think it was tied to the decommissioning of a stats server or the following rsync process. I use these to generate the WP:5000 from which the popular WP:Top25Report is derived. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 03:03, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Done -- And now it has! Whether someone did something or by magic, thank you! West.andrew.g (talk) 13:38, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@West.andrew.g: Yes, I did. Scripts have been adapted to new stats server with different layout. Sorry I forgot to report it here. Erik Zachte (talk) 15:52, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Creating an introduction and guide for using Wikidata data in other Wikimedia projects

Hi all

I've started a first draft of an document on Wikidata explaining how and why Wikidata data can be used on other Wikimedia projects e.g as a way to organise work on a subject, or in infoboxes. Please can you take a look and add any thoughts to the talk page. I very much want to get the perspectives of both Wikidata contributors and people who are unfamiliar with Wikidata.

Many thanks

John Cummings (talk) 09:02, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@John Cummings: Bad timing. According to a WMF database admin, because of the use of Wikidata in infoboxes " we are close of running out of space on several main database servers, breaking all of Wikipedia" (emphasis mine), and already caused huge problems in projects which used such infoboxes much more than enwiki (e.g. Commons, rowiki, itwiki, dawiki). Especially watchlists and recent changes suffered badly, insofar that Wikidata changes have been excluded from the watchlist in some of the most urgent projects already and are set to be excluded on all projects very soon, until the problems are eventually sorted out (not expected to be very soon). See my comments on this page, where two other editors linked the two relevant phabricator tickets and I added some quotes from them. The linked page is a place where people are trying to write an enwiki RfC on the use of Wikidata in infoboxes.
Oh, and you may not be aware that an example you give on that page, infobox world heritage site, seems poised to become non-Wikidata based again based on an ongoing RfC there.
In any case, the page as written is very optimistic. Fram (talk) 09:17, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Fram:, can you point to where the WMF database admin said this? I've never heard this before. When you say "set to be excluded on all projects very soon", what do you mean? I know there are several language Wikipedias that use Wikidata extensively including article placeholders and in infoxboxes. Thanks, John Cummings (talk) 09:23, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
[8] The Wikidata changes will be excluded from watchlists and recent changes (and are already excluded on some of the projects which use Wikidata infoboxes most extensivley). Please don't get me started on Article PLaceholders, which should be abolished in general and will never be accepted on enwiki in any case. Fram (talk) 09:27, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Message in that ticket from yesterday: "Notification for users: We are going to disable wikidata recentchanges (meaning, changes on pages on other wikis coming from changes done on wikidata; the recentchanges at wikidata is not a problem) due to performance concerns. Once those have been fixed, the functionality could be enabled again.". I thought this also meant Watchlists, but perhaps I misread that part. Fram (talk) 09:28, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A link to the "running out of space" post by the database admin is phab:T171027#3667090 (hover the mouse over the date in the first row of a post to see the section link). Johnuniq (talk) 10:09, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes there are problems, yes they are serious, no this isn't an easy fix, no this doesn't happen often, yes this is not the first time we have issues as serious as these. Engineering will take care of what needs to be taken care of and will do so with as minimal impact as possible. When the impact is determined, you will hear what it will be (though it might be short notice). No point in speculation / FUD here. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:55, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Any point to this post, apart from the gratuitous "FUD" insertion? You may have missed the part which were actual quotes, not my comments. "Notification for users: We are going to disable wikidata recentchanges" is not FUD, but is the actual short notice notification presented by engineering. Where is the problems the most serious? At projects which have enabled the most Wikidata)driven infoboxes. That you don't like this message doesn't mean that you should pretend that repeating it is FUD or speculation. Not that your reply comes as a surprise. Fram (talk) 10:10, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not denying the problem, I'm just saying that there is no reason for you to speculate on the impact, the people in the ticket are perfectly capable of determining actual impact and the communicating this impact when and where needed. But you feel the need to pile on to that and use it as another weapon in your arsenal to further your personal agenda. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:32, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What speculation on the impact? Where have I indicated that the "people in the ticket" are not capable of determining the impact? The only one to have raised that issue (before you did so here) was apparently the dba who was surprised not to be informed about some changes that had been made earlier and which seriously impacted his (our) database and caused the current problems. So it seems as if there was a serious problem with people in that ticket not able to determine the actual impact, and not internally communicating the impact; and it seems as if most people on enwiki and Wikidata were not aware of these issues either.I guess that's more FUD as well? My "need to pile on": all I did was reply to sections about infoboxes and Wikidata started by others, with information not yet shared by others. Or do you believe that this is not relevant for the post by John Cummings? So, no piling on, just news you don't like. Anyway, let's leave personal agenda's out of this, shall we? If I post factual errors, feel free to point them out. Otherwise, don't bother pointing out that my posts include my opinion, never mind framing my opinion or my apparently correct reporting of the facts is FUD just because you don't like problems with the WMF and/or Wikidata being pointed out. Fram (talk) 12:46, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • that document should more clear that it is technical/how-to. The question of whether and how Wikidata should be used in other projects is dependent on the policies and guidelines of those other projects. I have started a draft for that in WP here: WP:Use of Wikidata in Wikipedia (again that is just a start and still just an essay)Jytdog (talk) 11:39, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata Primary Sources gadget

By the way, what's wrong with Wikidata? When you scroll down a page, you get in the left hand column an annoying "Browse Primary Sources ▲ back to top ▲" which follows you down. What the? This happens on every page, and the "Browse Primary Sources" can't be clicked anywhere. Rather intrusive for such a useless feature. Fram (talk) 12:54, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fram, It's this gadget. --Pipetricker (talk) 13:06, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but that's a) not working and b) enabled by default anyway. Something that doesn't work shouldn't be enabled by default (and probably shouldn't be included in gadgets full stop. Fram (talk) 13:12, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's not default (no "default" at d:MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition) and it wasn't enabled for me. It does seem to work but only some items have relevant content. When the gadget is enabled, click "Random Primary Sources item" to see examples, e.g. Light + Shade (Q1091553). PrimeHunter (talk) 14:27, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Weird, I can't remember having enabled this (I never edit Wikidata and have thus no use for such preferences). On that page it indeed works (though it still is an annoying eyesore), on other pages it is just a piece of useless nothing. Now disabled again. Fram (talk) 14:36, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm seeing in both Chrome and Edge on my PC, as well as Chrome on my Android device, that navbox templates with lists using second level bullet items are displaying odd. First noticed it on {{Diablo}} which was edited today. Then while trying to figure out what was happening, I noticed other navbox templates doing the same. I don't see any changes to {{Navbox}}, but I'm not sure what else to check, stylesheet?. What I see is that the second level items of the list start their grouping correctly with a (, but there is no closing ) and instead there is an extra bullet. -- ferret (talk) 19:26, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This edit by Jon (WMF) seems to be the culprit. Nihlus 19:43, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Undone for now. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:02, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Back to normal now. -- ferret (talk) 20:04, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have a list of images that I would like to add in a certain category. The list also exists in a form of a gallery. I noticed that the gadget Cat-a-lot can't categorize the items from a gallery - it only works for the images in a category or for those returned by a search. I can categorize those items in the list using AWB (if I get the bot flag) but is there any gadget capable to do that? Fructibus (talk) 00:42, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't easy. What makes this so difficult is that categories are still intermingled with the rest of the wikitext, and MediaWiki allows for a lot of flexibility in how categories are entered. To begin with, categories are usually entered like this:
[[Category:A]]
[[Category:B]]
However, this works just as well:
[[Category:A]][[Category:B]]
so the basic assumption that each category starts on its own line goes right out the window. To make things worse, both Categoría and Category are allowed on eswiki, but on enwiki, only Category is allowed. And as if that wasn't bad enough, categories do not have to be specified in the page at all. They can be transcluded. Via templates. There are plans to move things like categoies out of the wikitext, which would make writing scripts like these trivial. You can read about this at mw:Requests for comment/Multi-Content Revisions or at phab:T107595. Nirmos (talk) 14:44, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Nirmos: - I understand it's not easy, but in the same time, all those problems also exist for the images displayed in a category, and the gadget Cat-a-lot can handle them. I dont' see where is the difference between a gallery shown in a category and a gallery shown using the <gallery> tag, for the Cat-a-lot perspective. The gadget only gets a list of image links, in both cases. And sorry for the late reply - Fructibus (talk) 18:54, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not receiving pings

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T177825

Several people tried to ping me today, and nothing went through [9] [10] [11]. My settings don't have anyone muted, and the templates/signatures seem to have been placed correctly. Also checked to make sure that my preferences have notifications on for mentions. Anyone have any ideas why these aren't going through? TonyBallioni (talk) 01:07, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I also noticed that a few pings were lost for me as well (i.e. I never received the two notifications from Beetstra at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#Torrent_socks). —PaleoNeonate – 01:13, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@TonyBallioni: Did you receive this ping? Also, do you know if those users have their settings set to tell them when they fail to ping someone? Adam9007 (talk) 01:17, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've just changed my settings so that it should tell me when I successfully ping someone. Testing: TonyBallioni. Update: Yes, ping was successfully sent. Adam9007 (talk) 01:21, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've also noticed several pings did not reach me too. Is this another system change? Incidentally, are all of the failed mentions from {{u}}? Alex ShihTalk 01:24, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) @Adam9007:, I did. Looking at those pings they used the {{u}} template, while you used the {{re}}. I do not know if @Megalibrarygirl: has her settings to notify if pings don't go through. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:25, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@TonyBallioni: I received your {{replyto}} ping, so maybe it's a problem with the {{u}} template? Adam9007 (talk) 01:28, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Adam9007: It's not going to be the {{u}} template. Templates do not, by themselves, trigger notifications: the required feature is a link to the user page. If a template - whether that be {{u}}, {{user}}, {{replyto}} or similar - happens to generate a user page link, a notification will be sent exactly as if a bare link had been used, as I did in this post. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:56, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@TonyBallioni: Your first diff didn't notify because it was a modification, not a new post. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:56, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I’m not receiving any pings from anyone either. For example, Huon pinged me multiple times on article talk pages where they started discussions about an issue with which I am involved. However, I didn’t get any of those notifications, and I was only aware of the discussions because I was watching those talk pages. Additionally, I didn’t get any notifications when my edits were reverted on some pages, even though my settings are supposed to send me such notices. This is appearing to be a technical bug of some sort, because pings and other notifications were working just fine a few days ago. Also, when I get a talk page message, the “You have new messages” banner appears, in addition to a notification in Special:Notifications. This is weird. —Ecstatic Electrical, 01:30, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    I also have this impression, because I did not change any related setting and the edit history did show that the signature was present in the two edits I mentioned (a requirement for successful notification). —PaleoNeonate – 01:34, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This edit from an alternative account with "Successful mention" enabled at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo gave the account "Your mention of PrimeHunter was sent", but my PrimeHunter account did not receive a notification. This may be a case of phab:T177825. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:39, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: Pings are being received if they're sent using the {{Reply to}} template. It's pings sent by {{User link}} that appears to be the problem. That said, {{ping}} is the same as {{Reply to}}, so who knows? Adam9007 (talk) 01:45, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I used {{ping}} and you used {{re}}. I didn't get either. When the software told the sending account that a notification was sent, I doubt it's related to which template was used. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:54, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: It's not. The key requirement is a link to the user page. Templates have nothing to do with it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:56, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like you are referring to the mention feature in general when it's working correctly. We were discussing why some notifications failed to go through when they satisfied all the requirements including a link to the user page. When something is partially broken, it's fair to speculate about which circumstances cause it to fail. I received several mention notifications today so it works in some cases. My guess is that the failures are independent of whether a template or which template was used. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:30, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm also confirming that it persists. —PaleoNeonate – 17:08, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've also been missing pings lately. GABgab 17:45, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have figured out what was causing this problem. 1367 users are affected on English Wikipedia, and they are not receiving any notifications (mentions or otherwise) from logged-in users (but notifications coming from anons should work). I have a fix lined up, but we probably won't be able to roll it out until Monday (most people don't work over the weekend, I usually don't either). In the meantime, you can work around the issue by making a change to your preferences. It can be any change, and you can even change it back, as long as you save in between. For example, change your language to Canadian English, save, change it back, save. Once you do that, you should start receiving notifications again. For a more detailed (technical) explanation and for a play-by-play of how I figured this out over the course of an hour, see my comments on the Phabricator task. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 00:06, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Roan Kattouw (WMF): I have now made a pref change/un-change. Will I need to do this on all other wikis too?
Also, is there any possibility that these incorrectly-muted notifications could be re-sent? Since Monday 9 October 2017, the only notifications that I have received have been of just two kinds: (i) 'Your mention of Example was sent' and (ii) 'Example‬ left a message on your talk page in "‪Thread"'. It's easy to find out who has thanked me in that period; it's all recorded at Special:Log/thanks - but the notifications which I have really missed are those concerning: mentions elsewhere than my talk page; edit reverts; and notifications (of all types) from another wiki. I am certain that I have been reverted in the past six days, but I only know about those on my watchlist; similarly, I don't know who has mentioned me elsewhere than discussion pages on my watchlist. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:45, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
So I received my first ping today (since about a week ago) after changing a setting, saving, then changing it back, saving again. Lost notifications are not available in the log, however. I agree that it would be a very nice thing if when the bug is fixed the log could also be restored (assuming that it's still available somewhere in non-public logs)... —PaleoNeonate – 16:21, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64: @PaleoNeonate: Yes, you would have to do that on every wiki. However, that issue should be moot quite soon, as my fix for this should roll out within the next half hour or so (I'll update here when it does). Sadly, muted notifications are not stored (since muting happens at send time) and I don't think they're going to be recoverable. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 18:27, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Maintenance banner linking to example page

I'm probably not the first to report this, but there's a banner currently showing that says "Technical maintenance will be performed soon", with a "Read More" button, which links to an example page on Meta with no further information (and a magnet for vandalism, apparently). I'm using the latest version of Firefox (macOS) and in San Francisco if it makes a difference. Funcrunch (talk) 05:17, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Funcrunch: I think it has been fixed already (clear the cache), as the example link has been commented out (see m:Genericmaintenancenotice). Alex ShihTalk 05:26, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, the link in the banner was removed about a minute after I posted here. Vandals are still having fun with that meta page though; someone might want to protect it... Funcrunch (talk) 05:30, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Now I see the correct target for the link,but if it affects Commons, why am I getting the banner notice on en:wp? (no longer seeing the banner here, nevermind) Funcrunch (talk) 05:36, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Unable to lift autoblocks

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T177952

From this discussion over on WP:ANI. Eruditescholar (talk · contribs) is asking that an autoblock be lifted. In this particular case, it appears appropriate to lift the autoblock. Only... I can't. DoRD notes they are unable to lift the autoblock, too, stating, "the error is that the autoblock number isn't a valid username or IP address. This sounds like a bug related to the recent conversion of the block and unblock interfaces to OOUI." Xaosflux asks if the autoblock number, which is 7892601, appears on Special:AutoblockList. It does. --Yamla (talk) 13:29, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This has been traced to a recent software update. A bug report has been filed and is being worked on. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 15:19, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No notifications when reverted

I don't seem to be receiving alerts and emails anymore when being reverted, at least when it's "undo," which I find especially useful when dealing with vandals or other disruptive users. Don't know if it's the same for reversions with tools. My preferences haven't changed and the "edit revert" radio boxes under Notifications are still checked. I think it was working last week. Amaury (talk | contribs) 14:00, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Not_receiving_pings. Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:01, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
For me, it wasn't working for more half a year, but maybe its because I don't get reverted a whole lot. Try to revert this edit (as a test) that I just made on this page, so I can see what's going on.--Biografer (talk) 22:40, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just an update. Mentions are working again, but still no notifications when reverted. Amaury (talk | contribs) 14:01, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Editing through protection

Background info: WP:AN#The Rambling Man

Is it technically possible for a system to be set in place that would allow an editor to edit a protected page (template/navbox/whatever) when said editor would normally be prohibited from editing that page by the protection in place?

A specific scenario is to allow The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) to edit {{In the news}} and other templates that make up the Main Page. These are protected at Admin level and also cascade protected. Apparently it is not possible to downgrade these templates to allow template editors to edit them due to the cascading protection. What I have in mind is a system which would permit admins to name editors who would be allowed to edit. This could either be done through the system in place to protect the page or by adding a template to the protected page which would allow named people to bypass the protection.

Conversely, if the above is possible, might it also be possible to disallow named editors from editing certain pages where they would normally be allowed to edit. This could be a useful alternative to locking a page in the case of an edit war, stopping the fighters from editing whilst allowing other editors to carry on editing. Mjroots (talk) 18:13, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Ritchie333: has proposed a "block from specific page" function, for the record. Also, given how cascade protection works being able to edit cascade protected pages will always by default entail the ability to lift and impose cascade protection. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:19, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Theoretically, possible. Realistically, very difficult and unlikely to gain support. Blocking or exempting from a specific page would be technically difficult and result in a lot of administrative overhead. Instead, we have edit requests. ~ Rob13Talk 18:22, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Good to hear that it might be theoretically possible. What I had in mind was that adding a template to a protected article would probably be best. It could be called {{alloweditor}} and would work by piping allowed editors names after the template (e.g. {{alloweditor|Joe Bloggs}}). The one with the opposite effect could be called "disalloweditor". Obviously there would need to be a safeguard to stop editors not at admin level or higher from adding and removing these templates. This could be done by similar software to that which prevents adding links to blacklisted urls, i.e. it would check on saving that the editor has administrative privileges or higher before allowing the edit to save. Mjroots (talk) 18:41, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This implementation would not be possible without substantially reworking the software. Templates aren't connected to user rights/blocks in any way, nor can they easily be made to be. The closest thing to your implementation would be a magic word, but even that would have serious issues because we have no infrastructure in place to connect a magic word with user rights nor for user rights to block from only certain pages. Not to mention we'd need an expensive (bordering on impossibly expensive) edit filter to prevent non-admins from adding the template or magic word to an article to bypass protection for another editor. This is technically possible in the sense that rewriting Wikipedia from scratch is technically possible; it would be a massive undertaking bordering on a complete rewrite of the code handling blocks. ~ Rob13Talk 20:19, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Agree here - this is not something that exist - yes anything could be made in theory but a use case of making individual user<->page access lists is unlikely to attract much development time, or WMF adoption. — xaosflux Talk 04:11, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, this isn't possible without major reworking of how the protection system currently works. I think the easiest solution here is to have the editor in question apply to be an administrator. FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY [u+1F602] 04:34, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That is not an option. Mjroots (talk) 05:11, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The "block from page" proposal is a different idea to this, it's to stop having to deal a complete block to users who are only disrupting one page (eg: from edit-warring) and should keep the drama at ANI down (eg: "The Brilliant Content Contributor was blocked for going over 1RR on an article with Discretionary sanctions! He was in the middle of my FAC review! The blocking admin is an idiot - desysop him!") Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:36, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Ritchie333: - see my comments above. I think we're both aiming at the same target. Mjroots (talk) 18:44, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

An admin-bot could always copy a page-version by approved-user from unprotected-page-A to fully-protected-page-B. In this instance page-A could even be template protected, as a convenient redundant layer. It seems like such a bot might have other uses as well, assuming it doesn't already exist. Alsee (talk) 19:05, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Alsee: - that would work in the specific case I mentioned, "Main Page/TE" (or the relevant templates subpaged /TE)for those with template editor privileges, and an admin level bot to check every x minutes and make the necessary changes. Mjroots (talk) 19:13, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This would need a full RfC, probably listed at CENT. It's essentially allowing non-admins to edit through full protection via bot. That has the potential to be controversial. Keep in mind that if we do this, it would not be only for one editor; many editors (who may know nothing about DYK or the main page) will gain access. ~ Rob13Talk 13:36, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Technically speaking, it wouldn't be difficult to set it up so that the bot looks at a (full-protected) page listing users and the pages they have access to. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 09:56, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it will need a full RFC. The purpose of my original post was to work out whether or not there was a technical solution to the problem, which it looks like there may be. Also appreciate that it will allow a number of editors access to editing the Main Page which they do not now have. Mjroots (talk) 16:37, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@BU Rob13: would WP:VPP be the most suitable venue to propose the /TE idea? Mjroots (talk) 09:35, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's at least the venue we previously discussed it at (without any outcome though). I had also made the same proposal Alsee mentions above back then without traction. Possibly this might be more successful as an RfC with CENT. Regards SoWhy 09:43, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
RFC posted at WP:VPP#RFC: Proposal to allow Template Editors the ability to indirectly edit the Main Page and listed on CENT. Mjroots (talk) 13:08, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion notifications

Many editors use Twinkle for notifications about content issues. With the current system of notification, that means an editor could get multiple copies of the exact same template for a blanket issue with all the files - see here for a recent example.

With new users, it's easy to see how they could be overwhelmed by receiving a large number of notifications that their content is going to be deleted. An hour ago, this user received multiple notifications for an issue that could have been grouped into one template. Here's another example of a user who received around 80 individual notifications with content issues. Redundant notifications is really only alienating our users from participating in the project.

For experienced users, being "templated" is found to be really impersonal and does not get conversations started on the right foot. Currently, there isn't balance between respectful, courteous notification and the use of tools such as Twinkle. I see a few options for improving editor interaction regarding content issues :

Option A: Import VisualFileChange from Commons

  • This has an easy-to-use user interface that allows editors to "group" notifications for an issue covering multiple files.
  • Producing notifications like this would be possible with this tool.
  • Could also be modified to provide a custom message instead of a template.

Option B : Modify Twinkle

  • Add a feature to Twinkle to add a personalized note in place of a template. Chances are editors will respond better to a note such as:

"Hey RandomUser123, I noticed that a few of your file are missing X - would you mind adding the missing information to them? Thanks"

A drawback from using only Twinkle is that it would probably would take a major rewrite to be able to tag batches of files. VisualFileChange can already do this, and modifying it to fit the English Wikipedia's needs may be easier. Implementing both of these would provide for the most flexibility and most exposure to the tools that are out there.

Notifications bots could also be modified to group notifications given in a short period of time. If a particular user is set to receive 6 notifications for the file issue on a given day, it's probably best to have one singular notification encompassing all files instead of six redundant ones. Jon Kolbert (talk) 18:34, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Misaligned table cell lines

This has been bugging me for a while. I have noticed that, in a number of wikitables, some cells do not accurately align with adjacent cells. In other words, the bottom line of a particular cell may appear 1px below the bottom line of the cell adjacent to it. Is this a browser issue or a Wikipedia one? FWIW I'm using Internet Explorer 11.--Nevé–selbert 02:14, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Neve-selbert: Examples please. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:52, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64: I created a task at Phabricator T178005, which was declined for lack of information apparently.--Nevé–selbert 17:10, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's almost certainly a browser issue, although there's a slight chance there's broken CSS somewhere. Anomie⚔ 18:00, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds likely to just be a browser issue in certain circumstances but you didn't post the page name and also failed to do it here. I have never seen the issue in Firefox. You should follow Aklapper's advice and make reproducible reports. The page name you are posting about is an absolute minimum. I found it at List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom#Since 1721 after some searching but I really shouldn't have to do that. I cannot reproduce it in Internet Explorer 11.608.15063.0 on Windows 10. Details like zoom level, font size and window size can affect browser rendering. I did notice a similar issue with vertical borders around merged cells sometimes differing by a pixel in IE 11. I guess the browser uses a system with "local" cell border calculations without ensuring the table gets globally consistent borders. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:29, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: Might it have something to do with the skin I'm using? I use WP:MONOBOOK.--Nevé–selbert 19:42, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Neve-selbert: Is it List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom#Since 1721? There's a lot of rowspan= going on there. Maybe one of them is miscounted; you also need to avoid "disappearing" rows, as here:
Row 1, col 1, default size Row 1-2, col 2, 2 rows deep
Row 2-3, col 1, 2 rows deep
Row 3, col 2, default size
That's a three-row table, but in some browsers it may appear to have just two rows. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:18, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is the list of British prime ministers. I should note that, when I enable Compatibility View, the lines correctly align. Strange.--Nevé–selbert 20:23, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Many things might affect a small rendering detail like this. Skin could be one of them but I don't see the problem in MonoBook and IE11 with or without Compatibility View. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:45, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Checked again, the lines no longer align in Compatibility View. I have tried tweaking the settings in Internet options but to no avail. @PrimeHunter: Which operating system are you using to run Internet Explorer 11? This might be a Windows 8 problem.--Nevé–selbert 02:07, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have Windows 10 as said above. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:12, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64: Do you know whether it would be possible to force table cell lines to align? Thanks in advance.--Nevé–selbert 15:25, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: Do you think is a Windows 8 problem? If so, I'll try to upgrade as soon as I can.--Nevé–selbert 16:13, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think it depends on the browser and not the Windows version. As mentioned, I see a similar issue with vertical borders in IE11 on Windows 10. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:27, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If they're in the same row, they must align. If they're not aligning, they can't be in the same row. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:22, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear Redrose64, the issue here is pixel alignment. I don't think rows have anything to do with it.--Nevé–selbert 22:17, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
PrimeHunter is right, this is a browser issue, more specifically an Internet Explorer issue. I was able to get my hands on Windows 10 yesterday and the lines aligned perfectly in Edge, but not in Internet Explorer 11.--Nevé–selbert 00:47, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Revdel for delete and redirect?

I recently closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Integrated fluorometer as delete and redirect, which I implemented by redirecting, then changing the visibility of all the previous verions, using WP:REVDEL. I've never actually done that before, so posting here to make sure I used the right process. -- RoySmith (talk) 04:51, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@RoySmith: This isn't really a VPT matter - have you asked at WP:AN, or perhaps WT:AFD? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:53, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The normal way of doing this is to delete the article then recreate it as a redirect. JoJo Eumerus mobile (talk) 08:41, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Failing to enrol in course

I have been getting an error when I try to enroll a student in a course.

I am trying to add user:Tamjwh to Education Program:University of Hong Kong/Regional Geology (Fall Semester 2017) using the "Add students to this course" buttons.

However I get this error:

While adding students, the following error occurred: $1.internal_api_error_DBQueryError

Can any one add Tamjwh into this course? What has gone wrong? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:54, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like phab:T156502. There was an old bug that would cause issues when editor gender was not set in preferences with this extension - have the student try setting that in Special:Preferences. — xaosflux Talk 12:07, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Or phab:T166109, the log actually shows this was done:
2017-09-13T04:50:24 Tamjwh (talk | contribs | block) enrolled in course Regional Geology (Fall Semester 2017)

.

— xaosflux Talk 12:10, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Linked in from Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#Enrollment_Bugs. — xaosflux Talk 12:13, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Graeme Bartlett: While I don't have an explanation for why this is happening, as an aside: have you played much with the Programs & Events Dashboard? I believe development and official support of the course page extension ended a while ago (which is not to say it shouldn't be used if it's useful). The Dashboard is still actively developed and what, I think, most are using for education projects now (see, for example, the training modules built in). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:03, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

TemplateData update

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T135667

If you're interested in how templates get placed on a page, then please see mw:Help:TemplateData#Custom formats. It's now possible to tell Parsoid that {{unref}} and similar tags belong on separate lines. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Disappearance of menu in Recent changes

Hello, does anyone else experience this problem: Just an hour ago I logged in, went to recent changes, and the whole menu have disappeared (i.e. I can't choose how many pages to display (from 50 to 500)). Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.--Biografer (talk) 20:22, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thursday change. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:35, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64: I was editing pages on this site every day (including Thursdays), never had an issue. What's changed (or changing)?--Biografer (talk) 22:50, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
From #Tech News: 2017-41 above:
If you look back through this page and its archives, most of the "unexpected" changes happen on Thursdays. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:53, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The English Wikipedia always gets new MediaWiki versions on Thursdays, and got one this week. I suspect Redrose64 is just guessing that it's related. I get a menu at Special:RecentChanges but a couple of seconds after the rest of the page has loaded. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:06, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
We should try and isolate if it does have to do with the new version first. Does selecting "Hide the improved version of Recent Changes" in prefs change anything? -- The Voidwalker Whispers 23:22, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: and @The Voidwalker: Your site already says that it's October 13. So no, apparently it have nothing to do with October 12 update. Will see if hiding it will do anything for me, if not, seek your suggestion and support. Thanks. PS: What would we do if it will not be fixed by October 19, shouldn't we just revert changes?--Biografer (talk) 02:20, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Today being 13 October will have nothing to do with it. MediaWiki updates are typically rolled out once a week, on Thursdays, in the middle of the day (California time). If it is a MediaWiki problem, don't expect any change until Thursday 19 October.
@PrimeHunter: I also see that Recent Changes is different, instead of nice quick "50 100 250 500" links that were present right from the start, I now have to wait for the JavaScript to stop churning, click a button (that is not present until the JavaScript finishes), then click another button. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:42, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and the buttons, having grey text on a grey background, are not good for accessibility. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:45, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Biografer, is your interface looking like that one?
Redrose64, the colors as they are used pass the WCAG tests AA and AAA levels.
Trizek (WMF) (talk) 08:34, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Trizek (WMF): You will be surprised, but, no. All of them are white coloured and where its light green its bright yellow (old version). The problem is, is that the whole filter menu is gone, and three dots (indicating loading screen) appears. With that thing absent, I can only view 50 pages at a time, and when I am done, I need to hit recent changes link to refresh it. I hope, now you can get a clearer picture of what's going on. And yes, I tried hiding List of abbreviations box, tried to log out/log in back, nothing. :(--Biografer (talk) 16:03, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Biografer: At least until you get it sorted out, you can go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rc and check Hide the improved version of Recent Changes three sections down. Nihlus 16:08, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Now it works, like a charm.--Biografer (talk) 16:15, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Biografer:, I didn't get your notification (they are broken). The interface you have (had, before you opt-out) is apparently the right one. At least, there is no interference from a script or a gadget. On recent changes with the new interface, you can still change the number of pages you want to view, like any function you had before. There is new functions as well, like a direct link to update the list of results without reloading the page each time. Please have a look at the documentation to know more. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 16:32, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Superb - that fix in the preferences works like a charm. Thanks! Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 11:42, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Something weird's happening in Ningxia

When I try to load the article, I get the page title and no further text, and it appears that the page is repeatedly attempting to load and not capable of doing so. I don't have the technical language to describe this any more precisely. I suspect some kind of shenanigans with the markup by a vandal, but I can't get enough of the page to load to be able to open an editing screen.

This is the first time I've reported anything here (after 3 years!) and so if I did this incorrectly, my apologies. Thanks for the help! - Julietdeltalima (talk) 21:10, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Julietdeltalima: I'm not experiencing any issues with that page. I've purged the cache, so let me know if you can see it now. Nihlus 21:18, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Nihlus: That did the trick—thanks much! - Julietdeltalima (talk) 21:29, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

IPBE and autoblocks

I was under the impression that IPBE allowed you to edit through autoblocks as well as through hardblocked IPs, and also I was under the impression that admins had IPBE by default. Which of those statements is wrong? Trying to find MediaWiki:Autoblockedtext, I decided to get it directly, so I blocked my alt account, logged out, logged into it, tried to edit (and got the you-have-been-blocked message), logged out, got the autoblocked message, logged into my main account — and I was autoblocked! The message said Editing from Nyttend backup has been blocked..., as if I were still logged into the alt. I thus posted a request with {{unblock-auto}}, and after a few minutes User:Floquenbeam came along and resolved the situation. The biggest annoyance here, moreover, is that as I was autoblocked from editing any pages other than my talk, I couldn't unblock my alt account, so I ended up being unable to undo my own block; when you post an unblock template, it looks rather silly to have the link to the blocking admin's page be black because the unblock is posted on the blocking admin's talk page :-)

So where did I go wrong? As an admin, shouldn't I be able to edit through an autoblock? I've been able to do that in the past; see [12]. Several years ago, I tried to use my alt account to edit from a public computer, but I found that it was autoblocked, so I used the main account to request IPBE for the alt (I didn't get autoblocked), and once someone gave me IPBE for the alt, I went back to using it and didn't have further problems. That was almost eight years ago; did we have some sort of software change that takes IPBE away from the basic admin rights package? Nyttend (talk) 22:43, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Nyttend: It sounds like you possibly hit a cookie block, which is different then a normal IP block. — xaosflux Talk 22:50, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) According to Special:ListGroupRights, admins are exempted from IP blocks (search for ipblock-exempt, given to admins, bots and users with the IP block exemption user right). Also, the page states that this user right exempts the user from autoblocks.
The user right torunblocked, which allows you to edit using Tor (anonymity network), is apparently only given to those who are specifically given the IP block exemption user right: admins and bots can't use Tor by default. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:53, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, cookie block; I figured those simply were another means of assigning autoblock, i.e. it's a normal autoblock that detects you by means of a cookie, not by means of your IP address. I wasn't using Tor; it was just the public wireless network at Wendy's #2834, which uses Comcast IP 75.75.127.168. Nyttend (talk) 23:07, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It could be that it was a cookie block, especially if you were using the same browser. See also phab:T5233. This may need some more experimenting. Generally it will be the same "person" that would be impacted by a cookie block, so being autoblock exempt (which is designed to prevent collateral damage for DHCP and rangeblocks) doesn't quite apply. — xaosflux Talk 00:30, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it was the same browser. So I could have just closed the browser and logged in with another one? That didn't occur to me. Also, what's DHCP? WP:DHCP is red. And finally, is it intentional that you can't do things like blocks and protections when you're blocked? It seems rather pointless, since as a security measure it's not useful (a rogue admin can always unblock himself and continue to make mayhem until he's desysopped), and any kind of tool usage when you're blocked will get you in big trouble anyway, unless, like here, you're testing; it seems silly that removing a block that I myself had set would be impossible as long as I didn't get desysopped. Nyttend (talk) 00:36, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
PS, of course I know that this is a rare (and silly) situation, so I understand if fixing the problems I've identified here isn't considered to be worth the effort. Nyttend (talk) 00:44, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
DHCP = DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), a way of assigning an IP address for you when your computer connects to the Internet. --Stefan2 (talk) 00:50, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, of course, the important thing is that important things such as deleting and protecting don't have to be bundled in with block (and more importantly unblockself). Therefore, the easiest way to deal with abusive accounts/problems in general is to simply block the user and not worry about handling rights in the short term. Of course, here on WP that doesn't really apply. -- The Voidwalker Whispers 00:55, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If we got rid of unblockself, that would be fine with me; I just don't understand why that's an option and other stuff isn't (either all of them should be options, or none of them should be), since the rogue admin can't really be stopped without bureaucrat or steward assistance, but the confused self-autoblocking admin has to get help. Nyttend (talk) 01:06, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The only thing admins can do when blocked is unblockself and editowntalk (if not also blocked). If you would have used a different computer or certain other browsers you would have a new set of cookies and would not be impacted by the cookie block anymore. — xaosflux Talk 01:17, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Having tested it myself, I can confirm that an admin can edit from an autoblocked IP address, but not from a cookie-blocked browser. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:08, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What changed with Template:Rfd categorization?

Has there been a recent change in the way {{rfd}} codes a redirect as being listed for deletion? This never used to happen at all, but the uncategorized pages tools now pick up RFD-listed redirects as uncategorized "articles" — I just had to run through an AWB batch of about 230 redirects, adding them to Category:Temporary maintenance holdings to get the list cleared. I've never had to do this before, and I definitely don't want to ever have to do it again — could somebody figure out why this is happening and fix it? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 04:17, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, but I've just added an invocation of Category:Temporary maintenance holdings within the RFD template's includeonly tags. Nyttend (talk) 05:34, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks. For the record, there was also a post to Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion yesterday by somebody else, noting that nominated redirects are also now getting picked up as new "articles" that need to be reviewed by WP:NPP — which is also something that never happened before and shouldn't be happening now, and most likely has the same root cause as the categorization-queue problem. Bearcat (talk) 14:05, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Hiero

To save vertical space, is it possible to put two Egyptian hieroglyphs in Template:Hiero side by side, similar to the default placing in Template:Multiple image? I know it's possible via <hiero> </hiero>, but in that case it would give an impression of a single word or phrase, which is sometimes undesirable. Brandmeistertalk 12:36, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A1
E27
Some caption
Does not look so. What do you need? Cannot something custom like this(→) be used? --ᛒᚨᛊᛖ (ᛏᚨᛚᚲ) 23:04, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, should work, thanks. Brandmeistertalk 07:33, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

IP was somehow able to edit a semi-protected page

This article was semi-protected by Samsara at 04:07 UTC today. Five minutes later, an IP address somehow was able to edit the page despite semi-protection having been applied before they edited. —MRD2014 Talk • Edits • Help! 15:01, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The logs appear to indicate that pending changes protection was applied, meaning that registered editors can see live edits even before they have been moderated/accepted, but they should see them in a separate section of the history until they are reverted/accepted (WP:PEND for more details). —PaleoNeonate – 15:36, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It was also semi-protected at the same time, as seen in the logs (the times are in Eastern Time):
  • 00:07, 15 October 2017 Samsara (talk | contribs) configured pending changes settings for Motu Patlu [Auto-accept: require "autoconfirmed" permission] (Persistent disruptive editing: via RfPP) (hist)
  • 00:07, 15 October 2017 Samsara (talk | contribs) protected Motu Patlu [Edit=Require autoconfirmed or confirmed access] (expires 23:07, 14 November 2017) [Move=Require autoconfirmed or confirmed access] (expires 23:07, 14 November 2017) (Persistent disruptive editing: via RfPP) (hist)
—MRD2014 Talk • Edits • Help! 16:39, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, it was first semi-protected, and then pending changes protected (but very close together). Christian75 (talk) 18:10, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
But I can not edit it as IP-user. So you are right, it seems very stange that the IP could edit the article. Nothing has changed since the IPs edit. Christian75 (talk) 18:13, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It may be that the IP began editing just before the page was protected and was allowed to save edit. Ruslik_Zero 19:51, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I tried doing that, and my anon browser was disallowed from saving the edit. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:08, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Recent Changes problems

I have used Recent Changes for the past year, but the Recent Changes won't load properly when I put in my custom changes to fight vandalism, it just sit there and load for minutes. Is it a bug in the coding? Gary "Roach" Sanderson (talk) 16:14, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Gary "Roach" Sanderson: This may be a backward step, but on the "Recent changes" preferences tab there is a checkbox labelled "Hide the improved version of Recent Changes". Your custom changes may be incompatible with the latest version. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:21, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What "custom changes" ??? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:42, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Do you really want to remove page X from your watchtlist?"

Today, viewing my watchlist, I can click to remove a page. All fine, very professional. But hey. Randomly I must confirm, and even then we do not return to the page came from. -DePiep (talk) 01:55, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@DePiep: This is likely because the page had not finished loading Javascript, or because an error in your scripts had an error and then interrupted the rest of the Javascript initialisation. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:38, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2017-42

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

Recent changes

  • When you edit a template with the visual editor it follows the template's format configuration on how to save it. You can now change the format in more powerful ways if your wiki wants it. [13][14]
  • The TwoColConflict extension is a new way to solve edit conflicts. It makes it easier to copy and paste the relevant text to the text field. It has been a beta feature for the last five months. You can now try out the new interface on a page where you will actually get simulated edit conflicts. You can give feedback to the developers.

Problems

  • There is a problem with recent changes pages and your watchlist that show a large number of pages. Until it is fixed, Wikidata edits will not be shown on recent changes or in your watchlist on Commons or Russian Wikipedia. If necessary, Wikidata edits will be removed from all wikis. [15]
  • Notifications are not working for some actions. For example some users don't get a notification when they are mentioned. The developers are working on fixing this. [16]
  • Users on some wikis could not change their preferences. This has now been fixed. [17]

Changes later this week

  • Editors and readers who still use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP will not be able to use Wikipedia from 17 October. Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP can't connect securely to the wikis. When we allow them to do so it means that we get less security for everyone else. If you use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP you can install Firefox 52 ESR instead. Around 0.1% of the traffic to the Wikimedia wikis comes from Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP. [18]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 October. It will be on all wikis from 19 October (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 17 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 18 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

15:31, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Looking for small tasks+mentors for new contributors - got something in mind?

Hi everybody! Google Code-in (GCI) will soon take place again - a seven week long contest for 13-17 year old students to contribute to free software projects. Tasks should take an experienced contributed about two-three hours and can be of the categories Code, Documentation/Training, Outreach/Research, Quality Assurance, and User Interface/Design. Do you have an idea for a task and could you imagine mentoring that task? For example, do you have something on mind that needs documentation, research, some gadget or template issues on your "To do" list but you never had the time, and can imagine enjoying mentoring such a task to help a new contributor? If yes, please check out mw:Google Code-in/2017 and become a mentor! Thanks in advance! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 19:51, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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