Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bugs and feature requests should be made at the BugZilla because there is no guarantee developers will read this page. Problems with user scripts should not be reported here, but rather to their developers (unless the bug needs immediate attention).

Newcomers to the technical village pump are encouraged to read these guidelines prior to posting here. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk.

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Wikimedia errors

Is it me or have there been more technical difficulties in the Wikimedia area in the past couple of weeks than for the past few months? Simply south (talk) 18:49, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

It's happening to a lot of people. Gary King (talk) 18:55, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting them almost every 10 edits now (and sometimes even on WikEd's AJAX preview), and every single ACC account-creation. It's getting annoying. What's wrong? Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 03:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've gotten an error message on all three of my last three edits. Strangely, I interpret the error message to mean "no error"

Request: POST <snipped URL>, from 208.80.152.39 via sq28.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE18) to 10.0.5.3 (10.0.5.3)

Error: ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT, errno [No Error] at <snipped time>. Does anyone know what that means? Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 04:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The servers use Squid. You received the "ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT" error, which means that Wikipedia's server closed the connection without sending any data. There were probably too many people connected to the servers at the time. Gary King (talk) 05:03, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Makes me wonder why I get them more during off-peak hours... or is it because we haven't gotten any new servers since late 2006 per here and here? And wait a sec, I have page caching turned off in preferences, why is it even expecting something from the Squid cache server? :P too many questions... Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 05:58, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

That page caching option is different from the server's caching. Gary King (talk) 06:17, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

More correctly, that option does indeed ensure that nothing is cached by the parser, and thus presumably not by Squid either, but all requests go through Squid anyway. It just means that in this case, Squid doesn't cache the results, it only forwards them. (Or it might cache them but not use them, or something. I don't know much about how Squid is configured.) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:10, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting them so often (for the last two days) that I can barely post or get any work done. Particularly when posting with people who re-edit every one of their posts five times, causing multiple edit conflicts. I'm ready to quit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Is this still happening? Is there a good test case? Please note that these errors have nothing to do with squid or how it is configured, they come from MediaWiki. -- Tim Starling (talk) 07:41, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

When I was going through this string of edits [1] I probably hit it once or twice, for me it is occurring at least 5-6 times a day. MBisanz ^talk 08:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

No test case, sorry. But it does occur sporadically for me, too, maybe one in 50 edits. It only occurs on edits, not on page views. Re-submitting the edit right away usually works. I access the WM projects through KNAMS. Lupo 08:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Here it happened: [2] with the error message "Request: POST http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Spiritia&action=submit, from 91.198.174.38 via sq39.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE18) to 10.0.5.3 (10.0.5.3) Error: ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT, errno [No Error] at Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:38:49 GMT". Clicking the browser's back button and resubmitting then worked and created the linked edit, sending me back a page that contained at the bottom the HTML comment "<!-- Served by srv105 in 0.283 secs. -->" Lupo 09:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Same problem for me - normally no problems, but today (27th June) has been especially bad - "Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cable_barrier&action=submit, from 91.198.174.37 via sq23.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE18) to 10.0.5.3 (10.0.5.3) Error: ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT, errno [No Error] at Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:32:24 GMT" CultureDrone (talk) 14:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

DARN IT !! Yes, it's still happening. I'm hitting it TONS of times and losing TONS of work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Lupo, KNAMS isnt' the only one with problems, I connect through PMTPA, I get it too. Happens far more often on account-creations (I work with the ACC tool), sometimes 4 times in a row. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 20:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Are we all referring to the same error or different ones? I was referring to that recently i have been trying to edit and that (or sometimes move) but every now and then it has come up with an error page saying something like "Wikipedia has a problem!" and the rest. Simply south (talk) 20:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Same error, yes. At the bottom of the error page, you should see the message we've been referring to. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 20:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Exact same problem for me. Happened a couple of times now. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 02:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly (?), I've just had the error above (err_zero_size_object etc.) while logging in - not editing, just logging in... weird ! CultureDrone (talk) 09:42, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I just got an error of "Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist, from 208.80.152.28 via sq21.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE18) to 10.0.5.3 (10.0.5.3)

Error: ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT, errno [No Error] at Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:55:52 GMT" MBisanz ^talk 00:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Image question

Is there a way to make an image go above the Wikipedia logo? It is on my userpage, and z-index doesn't work because the image isn't static. And I do know this is a silly question. JohnnyMrNinja 08:57, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the MediaWiki prevents that from happening, unless there's a way to do it via CSS. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 22:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

There is a way. Some user pages do have images over the globe. However, I can't think of the userpage that does have it. hbdragon88 (talk) 23:00, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I knew those secret pages weren't totally useless. Half of them have a rotating star or something similar on top of the globe. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 04:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought those rotating barnstarts were underneath the globe? Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 04:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I shouldn't remember; I haven't looked at any for some time now. Been a productive editor instead, pro-establishment. (evil grin)

Anyway, there must be something over the globe. I am not good with such technical stuff, but me assumes that if Uncyclopedia uses MediaWiki, then an example from there must be as good as any here (I hope). I am referring to this classic. Waltham, The Duke of 07:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC}

That looks under the logo, if I'm not mistaken? Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 14:21, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The banner is, but the logo is different. [3] It seems to be done using a skin? I don't know how that works but here is the skin. JohnnyMrNinja 21:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, now it is personal. I could safely ignore this section before, but I wrote Uncyclopedia's Aaaa.css (and made the Aaaa logo). And did most of the tricks setting up per-page and per-namespace logos. Here is the juice: The p-logo {z-index: 3;} is above #content {z-index: 2;}. These are inherited. This means nothing inside the content can have a higher z-index, no matter what you do to inline css (even if you put a floating div outside the content and give it a z-index of infinity + 1). This also prevents you covering the selected p-caction tab (but not the unselected ones, because they use a lower z-index trick in monobook to appear behind the content, which is very hacky!). You need to have control of a style sheet in order to change this, like MediaWiki:Monobook.css. Then you can do what I did: #p-logo a { background-image: url(/images/1/1f/Aaaa.png) !important; }. But please note, that is Uncyclopedia, this is Wikipedia. Short answer is you not only can't do it, you very obviously shouldn't be able to, so there. --Splarka (rant) 08:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Dang. JohnnyMrNinja 05:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

New template Talkarchivehist

I wrote User:Flatscan/Template:Talkarchivehist based on Template:Talkarchive. It displays useful historical links below the header, as described in Help talk:Archiving a talk page#Cut-and-paste archiving: Increasing transparency. It appears to work in my limited testing, but any fixes or optimizations are welcome. Is there anywhere to request non-technical feedback?

Sample Special:ExpandTemplates input (currentpage parameter may be omitted):

• Context title: Talk:UCLA Taser incident/Archive 1
• {{User:Flatscan/Template:Talkarchivehist|188869483|197075453|20080204010900|currentpage=Talk:UCLA Taser incident}}

Thanks. Flatscan (talk) 02:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I suppose you could go to WP:HD to get non-technical feedback. Gary King (talk) 03:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, I'll try there. Flatscan (talk) 18:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I like lists, but the information I seek is rarely organised in one

This instalment concerns fonts: is there anywhere a list of those recognised by the MediaWiki software? I see all sorts of fonts in signatures and talk pages, and I always wonder if the editors owning them simply tried out those fonts they knew about until one of them worked. If this is the case, I guess I'll have to start my own list.

I know, yet another question that has absolutely nothing to do with the mainspace. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 04:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki doesn't do fonts -- it's the job of the web browser to decide what font to use to display text. If you want to increase your chances that other people see the text in the font you want, use a web-safe font or specify a CSS font family instead of a specific font. --Carnildo (talk) 05:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

You can use any font you want, but as the person above suggested, choose a font that other people are more likely to have installed. Usually this means making sure that the font comes preinstalled with popular operating systems such as Windows or Mac OS X. Gary King (talk) 06:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you both for your responses; I suspected that the (almost) universally accepted fonts would be few, but probably not so few. Still, good to know.

A fresh question, now, for those willing to give it a go. I have noticed that in many talk pages all text is assigned a font different from the standard one. Can this be done selectively, namely only for headings? (Level-two headings, in particular.) I am thinking of adding some style to my talk page but I'd like to restrict it to headings and keep text as it is.

PS: I see that you are experimenting with your signature, Mr King... Interesting results so far. Glad to see the giant K go, by the way. (evil grin) Waltham, The Duke of 07:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Just set up a CSS rule like h2 { font-family: Verdana } and it'll apply only to h2 elements (second-level headers). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:03, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you like the new signature :) As for the CSS rule, generally you should only use that on pages where other people will not edit, such as user pages, because otherwise people might be confused as to why headings look a certain way without realizing that there is a CSS rule applied to them. Gary King (talk) 18:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that would be a problem... I mean, if people see that all the headings on the talk page are of a certain font, won't they assume that it is intentional? (And I never archive everything on the page.) Additionally, I could leave a HTML comment at the top, for those a little more keen to investigate.

Now, how does this work, Mr Cunningham? Do I simply paste it on the page? (It can't be that easy, can it?) Waltham, The Duke of 23:14, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Regardless, custom CSS rules are disabled and so you can't use the suggestion posted above. You can, however, make custom CSS appear only for yourself using monobook.css, but that is probably not what you are looking for. Gary King (talk) 01:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

No, not really. Well, thanks. I wasn't too desperate to do the formatting, but it is a minor pity.

I have one last thing to do now... (draws sword) What did you say Cunningham's address was? :-) Waltham, The Duke of 08:49, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Image mystery

Here is a gallery of four image, two of which I personally uploaded to commons. The thumbnail of one of them has ceased to display on FF3.0 running on XP. Click on it- and it loads the correct file. It works on Opera 9.21, and FF3.0b5 on Ubuntu Hardy.ClemRutter (talk) 16:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

How do the thumbnails look now? They appear fine for me. Could you show us a screenshot of how it looks like for you? Gary King (talk) 20:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The minute I made the post the image reappeared. So I put it down to a faulty download, followed by a cache problem. Testing now, it is fine-- but on doing a page refresh the Image (Notice board at Howard Park) appeared last, a flicker after the rest. I Shift-Refreshed the page and now they all occur simultaneously.ClemRutter (talk) 08:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Can't stay logged in?

For the last three or four days I have been unable to remain logged in to Wikipedia -- I go to Special:UserLogin, enter my password, click "Remember me", get the "Login successful" page, and then no matter where I go from there, I am logged out again. Cache doesn't seem to have anything to do with it, and logging in with the secure server doesn't help either. Is anyone else having this problem? 76.175.32.147 (talk) 19:38, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

No this is not an error, i don't think. I have found that after a period of inactivity, most times, it has logged me out so i have to log in again. This has happened for a long time and is pretty normal. Simply south (talk) 20:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is indeed normal and by design. Gary King (talk) 20:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

But there's no period of inactivity! I log in, try to move to any other page (main page, watchlist, random page) from the "Login successful" message, and I am logged out again. 76.175.32.147 (talk) 22:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Did you trying deleting your cookies? -- Kendrick7^talk 23:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep, cookies is often the culprit here then. The usual suggestions are to: delete your cookies clean, and try another browser. Gary King (talk) 01:11, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I think i now know what you mean when it logs you out straight away, so it seems. Just click on the refresh on the page you return to, and it should register you have logged in. Simply south (talk) 13:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Can't edit watchlist

My watchlist has over 9,000 entries and I'd like to trim it down. However I can't seem to do so. "View and edit watchlist" simply gives me a blank screen. "Edit raw watchlist" presents me with a list of watchlisted pages, but when I try to save the revised list I get a blank screen, and the changes aren't saved. Is is timing out? Do I need to find a developer to do this by hand? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:02, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The long (and I mean long) way would be to go to each page you want to remove and click 'unwatch', although that's hardly practical...... Dendodge .. Talk^Contribs 20:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, how do you get to 9,000?! I suppose you do need a developer then. Gary King (talk) 20:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It's been over 10,000 several times before but I was always able to edit it using the "raw" function. (I haven't been able to edit it using the standard method for years.) ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I created a test account and pasted in 5,000 pages, which I could edit. When I added more to bring the total to 7,721 the list could no longer be edited. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:21, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

That is interesting to note. Can you perhaps try another, more powerful computer and see if the problem isn't that your computer can't make the huge POST submission? Gary King (talk) 01:11, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

It has worked from this computer before with an even larger watchlist. And I'm trying to post a 100-entry list to replace the 9,000-entry list. I was able to post 5,000 entries without any problem, on the test account. I tried it again a while ago, thinking that lower traffic on the weekend may help, but I got "HTTP gateway timed out. You tried to access the address http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Watchlist&action=raw, which is currently unavailable. " That may be an unrelated server problem. But now it's back to just going to a blank screen. I'm wondering if the time-out thresholds have been lowered. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:13, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

This is not an uncommon phenomenon: I remember hearing about one bot which accidentally ran for a month with the "watch all pages I edit" button checked and ended up with 56,000 pages in watchlist. IIRC someone in the bot community wrote a script to streamline the unwatching process (basically calling http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ThePage&action=unwatch for every page on the watchlist). There also used to be a special subpage Special:Watchlist/emtpy or something, which was the same as Special:Watchlist/raw but with the box empty (so the list of however many thousand pages didn't have to be fetched from the server) - not sure if that's still active, or where it's located if so. Happy‑melon 09:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I've been able to edit the list directly in the "Raw" page. What it won't accept is a list edited in a text editor and pasted in. So, I'm whittling the list down that way. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

It's over nine thousand... Bugzilla:13250 is closely related to this. — CharlotteWebb 17:53, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Rollback problem...

I'm trying to rollback two edits by an IP on History of the Knights Templar (because it was a changed word and self-rv, so it's not helpful to the edit history), and I've clicked rollback (twice, actually) and although the page tells me the edits were rolled back, it appears neither in my contribs nor the edit history for the article. MSJapan (talk) 22:16, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The IP reverted whatever it added. Nakon 22:18, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

This oversight has existed for a long time - if user A adds something, then user A reverts the article back to where it was before he edited, then user B comes along and clicks 'rollback', User B is told the rollback occured, but since the version being rollbacked from, and the version being rollbacked to, are identical, there's no actual rollback performed. But you can't remove things from the edit history even with a rollback, so that's certainly not a reason to do it. --Golbez (talk) 23:25, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's just going to make the edit history worse if you try to do this. I agree that it would be nice to remove such fluff from the edit history (it really makes it hard to follow, especially when most of the edits are vandalism and reverts), but we can't trust people to remove stuff from the article history, even admins. It makes it too easy for people to make things disappear. I have thought a lot about how we can make edit histories tidier, but all options (e.g. letting users 'mark' or 'hide' vandalism, self reverts and other trivial stuff) require an edit history of edit history modifications (a meta-page history) to avoid people messing around with it and being untraceable, a situation that is even worse than the original. Richard001 (talk) 00:15, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

There is a way to make edit histories cleaner: (a) have the software calculate hash totals to determine when one version is absolutely equal to another (this is already being done for images); and (b) give editors the option, when displaying a page history, of hiding all edits where one or more editors changed the page, and then an editor came along and reverted it to a prior version. (This can be easily done if there are hash totals.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:16, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Any easy way to contact a whole bunch of editors at once, e.g. those in a category?

I was wondering if there is any way that a group of account holders could be contacted. If they all watch a common page they could hopefully be reached by posting on that page, but what if they don't? In my case, I'm referring to photo requests: I want to quickly send a message out to all Wikipedians in Bristol. Here the number is only a dozen, so doing it manually isn't too much of an annoyance, but it certainly would be if there were 120 of them. Is it technically possible to do this? It would be nice if all such people would watch such categories so that they could be spoken to as a group, though this seems difficult to achieve without making it somehow compulsory, which isn't going to stick. Richard001 (talk) 00:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:Autowikibrowser was made to do that. I personally don't really know how to use it, though, you'll have to read up yourself. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 00:15, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, right. I won't use it in this case but that's good to know, thanks. Richard001 (talk) 00:31, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Another option is to post a request at WP:BOTREQ; this is the sort of thing that a lot of bots (and bot owners) do, since it's very similar to delivering a newsletter for a WikiProject. I posted such a request about a month ago, regarding a scheduled meetup, where I wanted a message posted to editors living in a particular region who had so self-identified via a category. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Making posts to a lot of users could bring up charges of canvassing or spamming. Corvus cornix_talk 18:14, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

There is definitely some judgment involved here. A brief message, done infrequently, and clearly targeted, isn't a big thing - say, for a meetup or about photo requests. But lengthy messages, or repeated messages (say, the same invite sent once per month to join a geographically-based WikiProject) - yes, that could be irritating. And messages soliciting support - certainly canvassing. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:26, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

text

is all the text really messed up for everyone else or is it just me? 76.1.243.193 (talk) 00:36, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I haven't noticed any difficulties. What, precisely, is the problem? Algebraist 01:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

It looks fine to me. Perhaps post a screenshot of how it appears for you. Gary King (talk) 01:08, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Good idea on Gary King's part - and is all the text on your screen messed up, or only a certain part? IceUnshattered (talk) 23:01, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Loss of autoconfirmed status

I was at the help desk and noticed this comment. I thought "that's impossible", but his contributions show that he is (or should be) autoconfirmed. I asked at the admin IRC channel, and Chris G (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) instructed me to block the user, which I have done Unblocked; concerns raised that the decision was made off-wikiAn unfortunate misunderstanding on both our parts. This has apparently happened to someone else, so I'd like to know how an autoconfirmed user can stop being an autoconfirmed user. Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk) 10:04, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Autoconfirmed isn't so much a status as an implicit threshold, so if the conditions upon which one needs to meet that status are changed, they will not be autoconfirmed until such time as they do. I believe that with TorBlock, the sysadmins can set a higher edit and time threshold for those users. Ask the users if they perchance use tor. --Splarka (rant) 11:34, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

If someone makes an edit, and then that edit is oversighted or removed by an admin, does the edit count to their 10 edits? Corvus cornix_talk 18:15, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Simple reversion, or even deleting the revision, does not remove it from the editcount - deleted contributions are still counted towards the total count. I'm honestly not sure what would happen if an edit was oversighted. Happy‑melon 18:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Normal - not

When I paste text into an edit box with wikiEd on, it adds "Normal 0" in front of the pasted text, just a minor irritant, but what's happening? jimfbleak (talk) 10:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

You'd better ask here, but can you please add what kind of browser and version you are using? That sort of information is usually crucial in tracing any issue with Javascripts. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Another question is, where are you pasting text FROM? I've always had a problem copying text from word processors because formatting codes often get copied and translated into readable text like the kind you describe. Copying text from word processors can also get you unwanted soft line breaks which translate into hard line breaks. If you are trying to prepare text for copying to WP or anything else in your web browser, you might be better using a plain text application such as Wordpad. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 22:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Categories missing at an AfD page

At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Colbert/O'Brien/Stewart feud, the usual categories are not showing up, and the AfD is then not listed at the relevant category pages. Does this have something to do with all the slashes in the page title? ...the software thinks this is a subpage of a subpage? Does anyone know any way around this? Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 20:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the slashes are to blame. The template compares the BASEPAGENAME with 'Articles for deletion'. In this case, the BASEPAGENAME is Articles for deletion/The Colbert/O'Brien, so it leaves out the categories. I can't immediately see a better workaround than adding the cats manually (along with a note to remove them when closing). Algebraist 00:07, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for doing it. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 00:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

It should work to change the use of {{BASEPAGENAME}} to {{#titleparts:{{PAGENAME}}|1|1}} in the template. Anomie⚔ 15:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

This would cause the log pages to be categorized, unfortunately. There are quite a few solutions that almost work, but fail in rare cases. --- RockMFR 19:18, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

What are the specific requirements for what is to be included/excluded then? Anomie⚔ 21:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Missing User Contributions ???

If a user has an article speedy deleted (but not oversighted) does his "contribution" vanish off the Special:Contributions log ? Low Sea (talk) 02:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Special:Contributions only shows non-deleted edits, admins have access to Special:DeletedContributions, which shows the deleted ones. Mr.Z-man 03:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I thought maybe there was a software glitch as I found notations (in talk pages) for creation and deletion of a certain article but no contribution log for the creator. Low Sea (talk) 03:50, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

SUL cookie conflicts

I now maintain two SUL accounts, and just now they start conflicting - I can't keep logged into two different wikis on the same browser. Is it possible for the developers to include an option to disable the SUL auto-login-to-other-wikis? hbdragon88 (talk) 06:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

You do realize the S in SUL stands for single right? Heh...

But anyway, you could try disabling images (or disabling images from external domains) briefly while using the login screen (I am not completely sure if this would work). You could also try having one account use regular http URLs, and one use secure.wikimedia.org. --Splarka (rant) 07:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was horrified at the idea of using IE, so I installed FF3.0 and am setting that up to hold my second account. Perhaps some time in the future I'll merge the two accounts together. hbdragon88 (talk) 08:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Move should be renamed into rename

Warning to regular editors: you might find that you don´t like it because you are used to "move". Please, leave that to a side and be objective.

• Article
• Discussion
• Edit this page
• History
• Move >> to rename
• Watch

Can it be done? Prietoquilmes (talk) 13:03, 29 June 2008 (UTC) P.S: This would be better for the new users.

Yes, it can be done, by editing MediaWiki:Move (only editable by administrators) to contain the text "Rename". To justify such a sitewide change, however, it would be preferable if we can find a reasonably significant number of editors to be in consensus for it. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 13:40, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

This would be a bad idea for the following reason: The MOVE function actually does just that, move the data from one file to another. It also triggers the insertion of REDIRECTS to prevent REDLINKS. In the event that the target already exists you end up with a file conflict that has the potential to completely overwrite the old target file. Calling it RENAME would be an inaccuarte description and cause new users to be confused when file conflict situations occur. Low Sea (talk) 14:02, 29 June 2008 (UTC) In this case practicity should be above a correct use of the language. Besides rename is not incorrect Prietoquilmes (talk) 14:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

This would be a good idea for the following reason: When a new user wants to rename a page does this: just copy and paste the contents, destroying the edit history of the page. The reason why i ask for this change is for reduce the amount of cases in which this happens. Prietoquilmes (talk) 14:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

True"Calling it RENAME would be an inaccuarte description" Prietoquilmes (talk) 14:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

False "cause new users to be confused when file conflict situations occur": Move is far more confusing than rename. Prietoquilmes (talk) 14:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC) This is the error message when you try to rename it and the article already exists:

The page could not be moved: a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid.

Please choose another name, or use Requested moves to ask an administrator to help you with the move.

Do not manually move the article by copying and pasting it; the page history must be moved along with the article text.

Please, put in the position of someone who doesn´t know what move does and doesn´t know about th GFDL nor about keeping the history of the page Prietoquilmes (talk) 14:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The 'ignorant' user is the one who is more likely to be confused by "rename", in my opinion. I would consider copy-and-paste actions to be very obviously 'moving' text from one place to another - the move feature is a way of achieving the same end (of 'moving' content) without mucking up the GFDL etc. "Rename" would suggest that the only thing that happens is that the title of the page is changed; this is not the case at all: redirects are created, contributions are updated, log entries and histories are moved to follow the content to its new title. The old title remains as a redirect: what has happened is that the content has been 'moved' from it to a new location. If the new title is already occupied then the content cannot be 'moved' there because something is in the way: this makes sense, but is not so intuitive if the action is just thought of as a 'rename'. In short, I can't see how "rename" is more or even as intuitive as the current "move". Happy‑melon 17:16, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Why are you moving the content?. The answer: to rename itPrietoquilmes (talk) 17:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Look at the definition of move from Help:Merging and moving pages A move renames a page, giving it a new title. Prietoquilmes (talk) 18:58, 29 June 2008 (UTC) And even though this has been always move, there are a lot of references in that same article to rename.Prietoquilmes (talk) 19:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

If you still don't see how "move" can be as or more intuitive than "rename", I suggest you read my post again. You may not agree with my arguments, but please accord them the same attention that I have given yours. You will achieve nothing by sticking adamantly to an unsupported assertion: if you have substantive arguments for prefering "rename" over "move" that you have not already presented, then I would like to hear them. Similarly, if there are flaws in my rationale for prefering the status quo, please explain them. There is no question that the semantic differences between "rename" and "move" are minor, and the two are largely synonyms - hence their use interchangeably in the help files. However, the differences are, in my opinion, sufficient to prefer the latter. Happy‑melon 20:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Read Help:Moving a page Prietoquilmes (talk) 20:46, 29 June 2008 (UTC) It says:

"Moving a page means giving the page another name. The page history is then attached to a new name. Another page with the old name is created and automatically redirects to the new name." The reason why rename is more intuitive than move is that the reason why you "move" an article is to rename it. The users that do it for something else (E.G: archivate an old discussion) already know what move makes and they don´t need it to be intuitive.Prietoquilmes (talk) 20:50, 29 June 2008 (UTC) The problem that this change brings is the changes that should be make because of this. So if they are too many this might not worth the effort. The main change that should be make would be rename move protection >> rename protection. And this is something i realized after propose the change. Prietoquilmes (talk) 20:59, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I shall surprise you both and inform you that this has been discussed quite recently. The relevant discussion, which resulted in a consensus against the change, was archived three weeks ago. Nothing has happened in this short time period suggesting that consensus has changed.

So... This is the second time in this year that the issue comes up. Will a third suffice to list this as perennial or will more be required? Waltham, The Duke of 05:45, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't surprise me in the slightest, although I only started following VPR very recently so I wasn't aware it was quite that recent. I think a couple more times should be sufficient to earn it a place at PEREN... Happy‑melon 18:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of This discussion Prietoquilmes (talk) 19:57, 30 June 2008 (UTC) The votes where 11-9 (counting only the oppose-supports). But if you count user by user those that supported the change and those that didn´t i don´t know which was the result.Prietoquilmes (talk) 20:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Consensus is not just in the numbers; the arguments count as much, if not more. Waltham, The Duke of 04:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Specific date history selection

On page history, we can display up to 500 edits and go to the earliest and most recent edits. But when you have a file that is say, 4 years old, and has been edited several thousands of times, and you need to view an edit that is say, 2 years old and about 5000 edits back, it is a real pain to get to as you can only get there 500 edits at a time. Can the capability be added to go through the history from point A directly to a specific edit or at least a specific date? If this capability currently exists, please educate me. Thanks. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

If you go to the history of an article and click "earlier", then look at the URL of the new page, you see a parameter &timestamp=20080629031234 or similar. This is the timestamp of the first revision on the page, so if you know the exact (or approximate) time of the edit you're looking for, you can just edit this parameter to go directly to the correct time. Happy‑melon 13:26, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, by again manually manipulating the URL (set &limit= to whatever number you want), you can set higher limits than 500; I sometimes go for 1000 if I need to manually search a list quickly. This might slow down one's browser somewhat, but I haven't had a problem yet. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 13:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I get a parameter called &offset=20080628184647. This is YYYYMMDDhhmm (UTC) for the most recent displayed edit. There are two more digits I don't know the meaning of, but digits can be omitted from the right when changing the offset, for example &offset=20080628 to omit hours and minutes. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:33, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, that's the one I'm talking about - I was too lazy to actually check the parameter name. The last two digits are seconds: the edit timestamp is recorded and stored down to the nearest second, but is usually only displayed to the nearest minute. Happy‑melon 17:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Why aren't the instructions for this post at the top of the history page? But thanks guys! — Rlevse • Talk • 18:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I added m:Help:Page_history#URL.--Patrick (talk) 20:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Great, that helps, many thanks, but most people won't go to meta, they'll never click beyond the history page, but I guess that'd take a developer coding change. Thanks guys this really helps me out, makes it much easier. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Page histories link to Help:Page history which is copied from m:Help:Page history so Patrick's addition should be copied to Wikipedia at some time. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

"Mean Time Between Edits" function ?

How hard would it be to incorporate some kind of function that would scan an article's (or a user's) past 50 edits and determine the average/mean time between edits ? The result from this function could be useful in determining what constitutes a "reasonable amount of time" and could be incorporated into any tags that reference that policy. I also suggest that similar to the algorithms used by Fair Isaacs/FICO that multiple edits by the same editor on the same day be treated as a single edit. This is because I believe "reasonable time" for responses should never be measured in anything less than whole days. Low Sea (talk) 13:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC) Also, edits by bots should be ignored as machine generated edits have no bearing in the reasonable time issue. Low Sea (talk) 13:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

One way you could do this is to get the time difference between the first and last edit in the range and divide it by 49 (since there are 49 time intervals between each of the 50 edits).

However, if you're taking into account multiple edits in one day and bot edits, it gets a bit more complicated. What you could do is decide which edits you would class as 'ineligible', e.g. if the user made 4 edits on one particular day, 3 of the four edits made on that day would be ineligible, and any bot edits would also be ineligible. Count how many edits you have classed as ineligible, subtract that number from 49 and divide the total time range by that new number. Tra (Talk) 18:14, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Tra, I guess my wording was fuzzy... What I mean is how hard would it be to create a template that included automatically calculated numbers saying something like

Also, how would one go about getting such a feature created? Low Sea (talk) 17:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

A template like that couldn't be made with the current software. You'll need to file a feature request at bugzilla but be aware that it may take a while for it to be implemented. Tra (Talk) 20:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not a function, but AKA's WPPageHistStat tool gives mean time between edits. Unfortunately, it bases the figure on the entire history of the article so if there's been a major change in editing frquency it won't capture that. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:37, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Global counter variables and discursive notes

With regard to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_27#Global_counter_variables (circa March 2008), I was unaware of the morphic discussions elsewhere. I posted to discussion in Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources (circa April 2008 - now archived Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_22#Request_for_nb_tags), basically to make a request for code development so that something like the following would support narrative notes with a list style type of lower-roman numerals ( ^{(i),(ii),(iii)}, etc.), which I suggested might be good with a new <nb> tag...

Example text,<nb>This is an example discursive note</nb> more example text.<nb name=Discursive>Discursive notes can be shown separately from references or citations - giving a neater appearing alternative compared to having mixed "Notes and references" or "Notes and citations" sections. This is an example of such a note. It is wishfully generated via a companion to the ref footnotes method (i.e. via use of nb and notes/ tags).</nb> A point made with a supporting reference.<ref>Author, A. (2007). "How to cite references", New York: McGraw-Hill.</ref> A second appearance of a note.<nb name=Discursive/> 

== Notes ==
<notes/>

== References ==
<references/>

Plus maybe we could have curve brackets instead of square for some further distinction, producing...

Example text, more example text. A point made with a supporting reference. A second appearance of a note.

Notes

References

Anyway, it would be good if something like this could be developed, though I'd just like to say the reason I suggested a list style type of lower-roman numerals ( ^{(i),(ii),(iii)}, etc.) rather than the use of alphabetic letters, which seem to be otherwise favoured, is not only that you can easily go beyond 26 notes, but principally that it avoids any clash with the alphabetic letters already used in back-links with multiple use of references sharing the same name, as in the example shown above ( ii. ^ ^{a b} ).

I also thought the tag <nb> in combination with <notes/> would be more concise than <note>, with the abbreviation paralleling the existing use of <ref> and <references/> tags.

--SallyScot (talk) 17:12, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Requests for a second class of notes are nothing new: in fact it must be one of our most popular perenial proposals. If you know any PHP, we would all give eternal thanks if you incorporated this into cite.php. And if you don't, well, I'm learning.... :D Happy‑melon 20:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Steve Sanbeg already did this, actually, but Brion reverted him ("near-duplicate of existing tag seems a bit odd to me"). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:20, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist from rollback

How comes whenever i rollback on an article for mainly vandalism, it does not add this article to my watchlist, even though my prefs are set so that everywhere i edit does, or is meant to? Simply south (talk) 18:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that option is only set if you actually click "edit this page" and then "Save page," because that option simply makes sure the "Watch page" box is automatically checked. When you rollback, you don't get that screen, hence, probably why it isn't added to the watchlist. hbdragon88 (talk) 18:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Userboxes in Infobox user

As mentioned here, there is a problem with userboxes in a Template:Infobox user. Can it be resolved by correcting only the code in the {{userbox}} template? It would be great if someone could take a look at it. Thanks. --Kochas (talk) 22:34, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

"This thread is useless without pics" or examples :D Give me either and I might be able to help out, but reconstructing such a case from scratch is just a bit too much of a waste of time if you don't know exactly what it is that YOU see as a problem. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Porting Template:Navbox to other wikis

I finally stopped dragging my heels and made a version of {{Navbox}} that will work with most other wikis, such as those hosted by Wikia, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Transwiki/Template:Navbox. It's a "pure wiki table" version, with {{!}}'s equaling |'s, making it work with parser functions. There is still one problem left, the use of a div for each group/list

{{#ifeq:{{{evenodd|}}}|swap|odd|{{{evenodd|even}}}}}" {{!}} <div style="padding:{{{listpadding|0em 0.25em}}}">}}{{{list4|}}}{{#if:{{{list4|}}}|</div> }}

Because the div tag starts in one parser and ends in another it breaks, resulting in a visible </div> tag at the end of each list, as seen on wikia:fashion:Template:Grands couturiers. This is the same reason the template code needed to be wikitable code and not HTML, because when the opening and closing HTML tags get separated they then break on these wikis. (because of a different Tidy setting than what we have)

How vital is this div tag? When I took it out of one line it didn't seem to make a difference when viewing on Safari. There's probably a way to still keep it, but use a single parser function, so that the opening and closing tags don't get separated.

Also, on {{Tnavbar}} there's a switch to use either div or span. Since this also places the opening and closing tags in different parsers, the tags won't apply and will result in orphaned </span> and </div> tags being visible. I assume this is for browser compatibility?

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. -- Ned Scott 23:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Cross posted to Template talk:Navbox#external wiki version. Please respond there.

references-2column

Does anyone know what the following code in Mediawiki:Common.css is for? It's not used by Template:Reflist, so I'm baffled as to its purpose.

/* VALIDATOR NOTICE: the following is correct, but the W3C validator doesn't accept it */
/* -moz-* is a vendor-specific extension (CSS 2.1 4.1.2.1) */
/* column-count is from the CSS3 module "CSS Multi-column Layout" */
/* Please ignore any validator errors caused by these two lines */
.references-2column {
    font-size: 90%;
    -moz-column-count: 2;
    -webkit-column-count: 2;
    column-count: 2;
}

—Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:34, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, looks redundant; the CSS is being inserted inline when using {{reflist|2}}. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:45, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Check the page history and ask the person who added the code? Or check the talk page archives? --MZMcBride (talk) 05:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll ask someone at WP:BOTREQ to do a sweep through a database dump for it; if it comes up blank, I'm all up for removing it. Happy‑melon 20:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

"source lang=asm" formating tag messes up the first line

Eg

	pushq	%rbp
	movq	%rsp, %rbp

	movl	$0, %eax
	movq	%rbp, %rsp
	popq	%rbp
	ret

pushq %rbp is moved to the far left instead of tabed over. I have seen other spacing styles used for assembly as well (4 spaces instead of a tab) but the error persists there as well.

Also new registers for 64bit processors aren't highlighted. (%rax, %rbx, %r12, %r13, %r13d etc etc) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 1veedo (talk • contribs) 04:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Invisible infoboxes

Is it a problem on my end, or is Template:Infobox Restaurant not showing up in any of the articles? For example: 21 Club has no infobox as far as I can see, but if you click on "edit this page" you can see all the code for the infobox. Same goes for all the other restaurant articles I checked. Is anyone else seeing this? Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 04:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

{{Infobox Restaurant}} had an open noinclude tag. Fixed. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Good eyes! Thanks! Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 04:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Assistance at Template:WikiProject Video games

Kariteh has been working very hard to update Template:WikiProject Video games at User:Kariteh/Sandbox and could use some assistance. I know nothing about template code, so am unable to help. The decision was made at WikiProject Video games to automatically assess a non-article page's class based on namespace, i.e. Category:Video games with time travel would automatically be assessed as {{Category-Class}} and be placed into Category:WikiProject Video games categories. It now appears to sort properly, but does not display the line "This article has been rated as Category-Class on the assessment scale." Could anyone with a knowledge of template code and a desire to help please take a look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games, Template talk:WikiProject Video games and User:Kariteh/Sandbox? There have been other small improvements at User:Kariteh/Sandbox, so that is definitely the version we'd like to use, but we'd really like to get the bugs out. Thanks! JohnnyMrNinja 05:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Huggle/Whitelist

Resolved

If you go to Wikipedia:Huggle/Whitelist, instead of getting the usual list of usernames, you get 1.) Right under the header is a description of the page that does not exist in the wiki-code anywhere.

This is a list of users whose contributions may be ignored while finding vandalism. It is updated automatically by Huggle.

2.)The rest of the page content is hidden and replaced with instructions on viewing the raw page with ?action=raw, yet, this also doesn't appear in the wiki-code at all, either in the edit box or the raw page text. It's obviously not MediaWiki generated, it wouldn't be able to recognize the page as a list nor know why to leave the rest of the page alone and append the message there. A look at the page history reveals no one edited that into the page. It wasn't like that before, yet no one changed the page to do that. What in the world is up? Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 05:43, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Huggle/Whitelist/Header shows that there is a <div style="display: none"> at the end of the page. Nakon 05:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I mistook {{/Header}} to mean {{Wikipedia:Huggle/Header}} :) Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 05:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Pipe trick bug

Okay, so most people who post here are aware of the pipe trick that lets you post internal links in a short form. However, there's a minor bug — if you combine a colon-separated prefix (namespace or interwiki, it doesn't matter) with a section anchor, it breaks: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Pipe trick bug works, but [[Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Pipe trick bug|]] doesn't. That's a bug, sure enough. However, it's not clear to me what the exact correct behavior is (otherwise I'd just post to Bugzilla). Apart from the current breakage, there are four ways this could be formatted:

1. Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Pipe trick bug - do nothing except link. This is not very useful, and probably not what's intended by the person who typed it.
2. Village pump (technical) - clip both the beginning and the end of the link text. This is what happens if you use the pipe trick on a link with both commas and some other markup the parser knows how to handle, e.g. [[Wikipedia:Bold, revert, discuss|]] → Bold. However, as this example shows, that can produce really baffling links; it's not clear that this is what's wanted either.
3. Village pump (technical)#Pipe trick bug - just clip the prefix off the front. This would be useful for hard interwiki links, but probably not for on-wiki links (it's rare that you want to hide the namespace).
4. Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) - just clip off the section anchor at the end of the link. This is useful for shortening internal links to sections, but probably useless for interwiki links (how often do you want to link to a page section on another wiki?).

So, for the purpose of suggesting the correct behavior in a bug report, does anyone have an opinion on just what the correct behavior is? — Gavia immer (talk) 18:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

To help people understand your examples, you should probably give the original text in nowiki tags next to each link — for example, "[[Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Pipe trick bug]] produces "Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Pipe trick bug". As for my opinion on the matter at hand, I disgaree (I think?) with your comment on the first example — straight-up no-pipe links should always produce the exact linked text, because what if a full link is what you want to display?

As for possible ways of doing it, here's one thought: The basic rule could be, "hide whatever's just behind the pipe, and reveal everything else." So [[WP:|VP (T)#Pipe]] would give VP (T)#Pipe, [[WP:VP (T)|#Pipe]] would give WP:VP#Pipe and [[WP:VP (T)#|Pipe]] would give Pipe, and [[WP:VP (T)#Pipe|]] would give VP#Pipe. Hmm, not perfect, but maybe an improvement… $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 19:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd personally have it display as Pipe trick bug. — Werdna • talk 07:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course, this is what i get for suggesting that there are only four ways to do it — people immediately post more than four ways to do it :p I like Lenoxus' logic, but I'm more concerned with what people will want to happen most often. With regard to Werdna's suggestion, I think that would most often be useful to link to a thread on the same page, but you can already do that with less typing: [[#Pipe trick bug]] makes a link like #Pipe trick bug. Of course, if you see it as likely to useful for something else, the preceding doesn't really apply. — Gavia immer (talk) 14:06, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, ha, I realized I'd been somewhat misreading what you were asking, but I think I now understand. (That's why I scratched my first comment.) Well, I agree with Werdna — all other things being as they are right now, [[A:B (C)#D|]] should result in [[A:B (C)#D|D]] — that seems the most intuitive.$\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 23:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, Werdna's suggestion is not what I would have instinctively thought of (hence why I completely missed in in my list of suggestions above), but then again that's why I posted this — I don't know what the correct behavior is supposed to be. If there's no other suggestion (I'm going to wait a bit just in case), that will be the suggested behavior in the bug report. — Gavia immer (talk) 20:07, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

searching diffs

So, I'm looking for the holy grail for searching wikipedia... the ability to search across all diffs of a single page. So you're only searching within one page, but all the versions of that page. Has anyone hacked this up? -- phoebe / (talk to me) 18:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep. WikiBlame. Gary King (talk) 22:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Franamax also has a tool, WPw5, for the job. It works differently from Wikiblame, and may be faster for repeated searches on the same article. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not yet available as far as I know, though. Gary King (talk) 23:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

From help desk — Putting category= inside a thing inside a thing

Resolved

 – but if you have any ideas, feel free to contribute! $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 00:56, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm working on the new redirect meta-template {{This is a redirect}}, which embeds other templates as chosen by the user. I'm trying to get it so that if one uses the template with "cats=no", then none of the embedded templates give their categories. (With many templates that categorize, one can use the argument "category=" to cause no categorizing to happen, as explained here.)

Simplifying it somewhat, here's an example of what I'm dealing with:

{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{R_{{{1}}}|{{#ifeq:{{{cats}}}|no|category=|}}|embed=yes}}|}}

Using tests with substing and {{R from brand name}}, I found that currently, what happens is that the embedded template takes "category=" as the content of its first argument (that is, it thinks "1=category="). (Everything else works.)

I've tried using a template whose content was literally {{{1}}}, so it might "print" the string "category=", but no luck. What does work is to put the "category=" before the ifeq, so that {{R from brand name}} takes the argument "category=result of ifeq" — but that won't ultimately work with what I'm trying to do.

Any ideas? $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 04:38, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

It's possibly due to having templates within templates confusing things. Hmmm... RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 08:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

This is weird, I can see no reason why it's not working. As Lenoxus mentioned, it seems to take the cats param as part of {{{1}}}. Odd indeed; I will have another look later. If anyone else solves it in the meantime, I would be very interested to know how! RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 10:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Just as a general observation, the MediaWiki parser may contain bugs. Some templates on Wikipedia do not work on other MediaWiki wikis that aren't running HTML Tidy - that's probably not a factor here, but it points out how MediaWiki's wikitext syntax isn't well-defined for some of the complex template stuff. And of course your example above uses the ParserFunctions extension. You might want to ask on WP:VPT which a larger number of technically-inclined users frequent. It would be nice if MediaWiki had a template debugger, that would let one step through all the transclusions and parameter expansions in the order that MediaWiki's parser (and possibly, HTML Tidy) apply them. --Teratornis (talk) 15:41, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

This is described in m:Migration_to_the_new_preprocessor#Expected_differences: "The equals sign between parameter and value can no longer be generated (by transclusion, parameter, parserfunction, etc) as a delimiter in the template parameters, it is interpreted literally."

However, the parameter name can conditionally be the relevant one or a dummy (like also explained below):

           {{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{R_{{{1}}}|category{{#ifeq:{{{cats}}}|no||1}}=|embed=yes}}|}}

Patrick (talk) 21:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I know where you're going with this. The issue is with the way the parser handles null and undefined parameters. Each redirect template {{R from foo}} contains the code

{{{category|[[Category:Some category]]}}}

If the parameter |category= is defined, with anything including null, then this is output instead of the category link. So if you were to call {{R from shortcut|category=Foo}}, you would get an unwanted "Foo" appearing somewhere in the display - however the way the anti-categorisation system works, you call it as {{R from shortcut|category=}}, passing null to the |category= parameter, so null it output instead of the category link, as desired. However, when you call the template from within another template, you have much less control over what is passed through to the inner template. You can't just put:

{{inner template|category={{{category|}}} }}

Because this will always define |category= for the inner template, so it will always stop categorisation.

There are two ways to circumvent this problem. The first is to be a bit sneaky with the way you call the inner template:

{{inner template|{{#ifeq:{{{category|foo}}}|foo|xxx|category}}={{{category|}}} }}

Notice what this is doing: if the |category= parameter is undefined in the outer template, then the logic test equates to true, and the (corrupted) null value is passed to an unused parameter, leaving the |category= parameter undefined in the inner template. If, however, |category= is defined in the outer template (as long as it is not defined as "foo", of course) then the logic test fails, and the category parameter is defined for the inner template. This is the simpler method for solving the problem, but it is fairly inelegant, and also a little risky: if another meta-template is created which doesn't contain the same code, then there will be problems. So avoid this, the recommended solution is slightly different: it requires editing all the subtemplates as well, but not in a breaking fashion. In each subtemplate, replace:

{{{category|[[Category:Some category]]}}}

with

{{#ifeq:{{{category|μ}}}|μ|[[Category:Some category]]}}

Note the use of the uncommon character "μ" - the greek letter mu, which is the standard for this system, as the likelihood of anyone ever calling a template with |category=μ is laughably small. Then in each meta-template, you can use code like this:

{{inner template|category={{{category|μ}}} }}

This system makes it easier to create meta-templates, and most importantly, template chains of any length can be created using the same syntax, passing the μ arguments right down to the bottom level. Essentially, if the |category= parameter is defined at any point in the chain, then that argument replaces the "μ", and is only evaluated at the bottom template. This makes it a simpler system for creating long chains of templates. I know that's not what you want to do here, but for consistency's sake I suggest that you use the μ system. I hope this explains what you wanted to know - this really should be documented somewhere (any suggestions?). Happy‑melon 19:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thank you so much, Patrick and Happy-melon. I had started to come to a similar conclusion, feeling that there ought to be the option of calling "category=default" to get the deault categories, or something like that. I will meditate on this and see if I can't spread a μ trend (or something like it). In the meantime, I think I've figured out a short-term solution involving two alternate versions of the inner template, called depending on the status of the "cats" parameter. $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 00:56, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

PLEASE ADD CATEGORIES AND INTERWIKIS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE

I've just created some templates that will be useful (i.e. are being used) in chess and paelontology projects, and one of the paleo ones may be useful for other biology articles. When I create the doc pages for these, the "blank" doc page contains the text PLEASE ADD CATEGORIES AND INTERWIKIS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE. There are 2 difficulties:

• I dont't knnow what an Interwiki is.
• I don't know where to find the appropriate list of Categories, Interwikis, etc.

I've seen similar problems when adding images.

I suggest the edit screens for items items for which categories, interwikis, etc. should be modified to provide links to the appropriate lists, which should open in a new browser window / tab so that the user can copy and paste. I'm sure it's not that difficult to modify the edit pages:

• The edit page for newly-uploaded images pesters the life out of users for FURs.
• The box in which I'm typing this post is a modified version of the standard edit box, with the subject box above the text areas instead of below.

It would also be helpful to modify the relevant Help pages so that e.g. Help:Category has at the top a link to the list of categories. Philcha (talk) 22:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

An interwiki is a link between corresponding pages on different wikis. You'll see the list on the left side of your page under "languages" so that the en-wiki article Chess has several dozen links to the article in other Wikipedias. The format is [[en:Chess]] (for a non-English wiki's back-link), or, say [[fr:Échecs]] for A link to the French article. There is no master list of interwikis, nor is there an easy-to-navigate master list of categories apart from Special:Categories - you have to look for likely candidates. See also: Wikipedia:InterWikimedia links. Acroterion _(talk) 15:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Problems with List of National Basketball Association players

I've noticed a couple of problems with List of National Basketball Association players.

• 1. I used to click on "Related changes" to check if any new player articles had been created, but now, the only results at "Related changes" relate to articles linked in the intro of the list. See [4]. (And it's not because no one is editing the player pages. They are; I can see some of the changes on my watchlist.)
• 2. The list doesn't appear at the "What links here" page for each player on the list. See [5].

I realize that the list could probably be split apart and remade to resemble these, so you don't have to bring that up (unless, of course, the length of the list is the cause of the problem.)

Thanks! Zagalejo^^^ 23:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Userpage problem...

I wanted my committed identity box at the bottom of the page, but for some reason the background stretches out across the whole page. I reorganized all my userboxes into a sidebar box to try to fix the problem, but it didn't make a difference. I'm guessing that it shouldn't be a Firefox problem, but that is possible as well. Does anyone have any ideas or a fix for this? MSJapan (talk) 02:09, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I fixed it by inserting {{-}} 5:15 02:52, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Problem with g12 speedy template

I had the following problem with the {{db-g12}} template:

This thread resulted into nothing. How can we fix this in such a way that a user receives an error message if the entered URL is equivalent to the URL of the current Wikipedia page. Alexius08 is welcome to talk about his contributions. 06:25, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

How common a problem is it? --Carnildo (talk) 08:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

No comment on whether or not this is a technical problem that needs fixing, but I highly doubt any admins reviewing C:SD would delete a page with a G12 tag pointing at a Wikipedia article. Also, if anyone's going to fix the problem, it should also give an error when linking to diffs or old versions of pages. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 11:21, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

There might be a way to add an IF argument somewhere that triggers if the url includes "en.wikipedia.org", for example... The purpose would be twofold; yes, it flags the problem for the reviewing admin, who would presumably decline the speedy, but it also flags the problem for the tagging editor - maybe they meant a different url, copied the address bar from the wrong tab, or whatever. If I tag an article and get a big red ERROR, I'll fix it immediately. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 12:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Wheras if you tag an article and get a big red warning template, you know you've done the job right? In seriousness, we don't have a more prominent warning message than the CSD templates!! From a technical standpoint, however, incorporating a check on the URL would be extremely difficult, since there is no parser function that can operate on only a fragment of a parameter (there is no method, for instance, of searching for a substring within a parameter). You could check if the URL was for the exact page where the template was placed, which is better than nothing, but anything more complicated than that would be extremely difficult. Happy‑melon 12:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, now it will refuse to link to the exact same page, at least. It will return a text that says the text can't be a copyvio of itself and asks them to re-check whether or not the url is correct. --Eivind (t) 14:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I played around with the display a little to add it as another box above the main CSD template - it should be more noticeable that way. You can see it in action above. Happy‑melon 15:18, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Bizzare IE7 bug

Resolved

File:IE bug.png

Why is it that all links to my shoutbox are in large text and highlighted in red? This is the most bizzare thing I've ever seen. I have firefox and this doesn't happen, just tell me why in the world IE7 does this? and why only to my shoutbox. -- penubag  (talk) 16:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

It's IE7, need there be any more reasonable explanation? :D

I won't patronise you and ask if you've done the usual purge/restart/kick routine. What does the HTML source code for the relevant areas look like? Have you tried it with a clear .js/.css?? Happy‑melon 16:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Hehe, pass me my trout. If you're going to put something like a[title ="User:Penubag/shoutbox"] {color: white; background: red; font-size: 150% } in your monobook.css, then why are you surprised when it actually works?? Why it's only just started showing up for you when you added it in March I don't know, but in the immortal words of the car repair salesman: "there's your problem!"... Happy‑melon 16:39, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thanks Happymelon. Why in the world did I put that in there? Only god knows.... -- penubag  (talk) 16:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

HTTP Header

For some reason, the HTTP header for the connection between Wikipedia and I showed up in random places on my edits [6], [7], and [8] (diffs are in reverse chronological order). I might want to note that right after I saved those edits, I got a "403 Forbidden: You do not have access to / on this server", so I tried resending (and then I noticed the HTTP header was in my comment) Does anyone know how that could have happened? Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 22:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:Export

I've created {{Export}} as a way to easily create a link that will generate the entire history of a given page in xml format. For whatever reason, Special:Export is limited to 100 versions, but not when using the url formatted in {{Export}}. Right now it works in two different ways, one is like {{purge}}, in that one can throw it up on a page and then click on it (for export people should probably use preview, since it's unlikely they'll need a constant link on the page at all times). It can also be used by putting in another page title, for example {{export|taco}} creates "Export: taco", which could be used on any page as an export link for Taco.

The thing about these links is that they're sometimes huge. An exported article could be a few KB, or 10 to 20 MBs (or more). I'm thinking some kind of warning needs to be formatted into the template, but in a way that still allows it to be a relatively small link. I would like it to be simple and flexible, so that it could even be put into things like the links of an AfD.

I got to thinking about the concept of a covered switch, like in the movies. You flip the class cover up, then press the big red button. The idea would be to use the show/hide function seen on many nav and other templates (like the ones on WP:DRV). The default view would be something like "Export" with a link that said "warning" to the side or below. The warning link would actually point to some form of instructions page (possibly Wikipedia:WikiProject Transwiki/exporting). An editor could then dismiss the warning portion with another link ("show", if it can't be renamed to something else) and then be presented with the actual link.

Before I put a lot of effort into this I figured I'd throw the idea out on the VP. There might be a better idea that I'm not considering. I'm also not sure how to exactly go about this technically and from a style perspective, so any feedback on that would also be very helpful. -- Ned Scott 03:34, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

RFCs not showing up on my watchlist

I have a bunch of the RFC sections watchlisted, but I never seem to get a notificaiton. The last week I did a RFC -- no notification. Now I've just done another RFC -- again, nothing on my watchlist. I suspect this is a global bug, and a major one. The last RFC I did got no comments. In general, many RFCs are getting little to no attention. II | (t - c) 05:35, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Database dumps failing

When will the backups stop failing? Gary King (talk) 18:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Probably not until the backup process is fundementally redesigned. The current process for generating a complete dump for en takes weeks and fails if there is any communication breakdown during that time. Its a very long standing problem, but perhaps the devs can offer some views on when it might be "fixed". Dragons flight (talk) 18:52, 2 July 2008 (UTC)