Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MiszaBot II (talk | contribs) at 06:42, 7 October 2008 (Archiving 9 thread(s) (older than 4d) to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 48.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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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.

"Remove titles"

On the "View and edit watchlist" page, there is a button at the bottom, clicking on which removes the selected pages from the watchlist. So far so good. When a list is long, however (say over 100 items), it takes much scrolling to get to the button, and sometimes one only wishes to clear the list of mainspace or userspace pages or something else closer to the top.

I therefore ask the honourable colleagues to comment on the suggested addition of a second button at the top. It's not exactly crucial, but I find that it would aid usability. (It's also standard practice in various sites; my e-mail inbox, for one thing, has buttons both at the top and at the bottom and it only lists 25 items per page.)

The only problem I can see is how exactly to fit the button. But again, we have many resourceful people here; I'm sure someone will "figure it out". Waltham, The Duke of 01:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I should have posted this at the Proposals section? Waltham, The Duke of 09:07, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How about adding this code (untested!) to your monobook.js:
if (wgCanonicalNamespace == "Special" && wgCanonicalSpecialPageName == "Watchlist") {
    addOnloadHook(function () {
        var form = document.getElementsByTagName("form")[0];
        if (!form || !/[?&]action=edit(&|$)/.test(form.getAttribute("action")))
            return;  // not the edit page
        var heading = document.getElementsByTagName("h2")[0];
        if (!heading) return;
        var buttonP = document.createElement("p");
        buttonP.innerHTML = '<input value="Remove titles" type="submit">';
        heading.parentNode.insertBefore(buttonP, heading);
    });
}
—Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, I just saved a slightly fancier version as User:Ilmari Karonen/watchlisteditdoublesubmit.js, so just as simple importScript("User:Ilmari Karonen/watchlisteditdoublesubmit.js"); will do. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:39, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And it works! Thank you very much; it's a small but meaningful improvement. Waltham, The Duke of 18:10, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Printing problem

When I printed the printable version of the Dinosaur article, all the images (except the lead image) turned out to be out of place and superimposed on text, while the Print Preview was fine. What do you think is the problem? If it helps, I'm using Firefox 3.0.3, a Canon S600, and I didn't print the references (printed only 22 out of 29 pages). Thank you. Eklipse (talk) 12:01, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks ok for me on Firefox 3.0.3, Mac OS X. --brion (talk) 20:24, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No I don't mean on screen, but on printed paper. Eklipse (talk) 15:23, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OpenID

Who wants to use OpenID on Wikimedia projects? Sign here!--Kozuch (talk) 14:17, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What is OpenID? Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 21:30, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, if only there was some huge free encyclopaedia right at our fingertips in which we could look it up... would be even better still if the above words could actually be linked to the relevant topic... ;P TalkIslander 21:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
:( Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 21:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Heh, I was only kidding. No offence meant at all - appologies if you took it the wrong way ;) TalkIslander 21:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe work on OpenID support is already under way: see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:OpenID -- The Anome (talk) 11:01, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You are right - the extension is ready. Implementation on Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects is a question though (read there might be little discussion and close to no plan). That is why I am asking if there is a demand for the service.--Kozuch (talk) 14:59, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would love OpenID in Wikipedia. NerdyNSK (talk) 10:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template expert wanted

WikiProject Geographical coordinates could do with some consulting services from a wikipedia template expert to advise & assist in the development of template driven categorisation of pages. The discussion leading to this request is here. thanks. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Experts reportedly hang out at Wikipedia:Requested templates (the page is for modifying existing templates as well as new ones). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:54, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

date a page was created

I am looking for a template or variable for a template that will display the date a page was created. Thanks GtstrickyTalk or C 15:43, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are variables for the date/time of the "top" edit, but not for the "bottom" edit. Talk to the devs. — CharlotteWebb 16:37, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a use case for it? — Werdna • talk 03:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

diffs with page blanking, CSS irritant (Safari only, maybe)

I've noticed this when viewing diff pages in Safari, where the current version is a page-blank, like this one: [1]. Safari for some unknown reason renders the right hand table cell (class="diff-ntitle") with a minimal width of 28 pixels, and gives the left hand table cell (class="diff-otitle") all the remaining space, creating a long unreadable column of text on the right hand side that's a pain to work with. Firefox renders the page correctly on my Mac, so this may be Safari specific. This should be fairly simple to fix, CSS-wise, but I can't find where the table class (diff) is defined in order to know where to put in a request. can someone point me in the right direction, or (blessed be) fix the problem? --Ludwigs2 06:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The file is diff.css, plus a small fix for very old Mozilla diff.js. Note that bugzilla:13875 "Empty diffs appear as long columns of text when viewed in Safari" looks very similar to your problem. —AlexSm 13:17, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How odd. Apparently Safari has a bug with table-layout:fixed tables where some columns are never used without colspan. It's not a Wikipedia or MediaWiki issue, this HTML is sufficient to illustrate the problem in Safari 3.1.2 (Mac and Windows (under Wine anyway)):
<html>
<head>
<title>Test case</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border="1" style="table-layout:fixed;width:100%">
 <col /><col /><col /><col />
 <tr>
  <td colspan="2">a b c d e f</td>
  <td colspan="2">a b c d e f</td>
 </tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
If you save the above to a file and load it in the browser, it should have 2 columns each 50% of the width; in my tests I see one 50% column, one 25% column, and empty space for the remaining 25%. Someone who actually uses Safari should probably file a bug with Apple. Does it also occur with Google Chrome (which also uses WebKit for HTML rendering)? Anomie⚔ 16:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
ok, I've created a temporary (user-by-user) solution - just add the code here to your monobook.css page. I'll post it over at bugzilla as well. it might cause minor problems with long URLs expanding the table, but that's the lesser of two evils. what I think is happening is that Safari is being over literal: it interprets the second table cell (with colspan=2) as though it were the third column, and applies the 2% width to it over-zealously (probably because of the 'fixed' element). that certainly looks like a Safari bug, and I'll go ahead and report it to apple. in the meantime, can anyone think of a more generalized solution to the problem? there are a couple that occur to me, but they aren't very elegant. --Ludwigs2 03:57, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if the devs want to adjust the code to always output a dummy row with no colspans (i.e. <tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></td>) at the end of the diff table, that should work around it. It might work to add the same using javascript. Anomie⚔ 15:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) ah, actually, that's a much better idea. this code: 

addOnloadHook( function() {
	var url = document.URL;
	if ( url.search(/&diff=/) == -1 ) return;
	var tbody = document.getElementsByTagName("TBODY")[0];
	var row = document.createElement("TR")
	var td = new Array
	for (i=0; i<4; i++) {
		td[i] = document.createElement("TD")
		td[i].appendChild(document.createTextNode(""))
		row.appendChild(td[i]);
	}
	tbody.appendChild(row);
} );

works perfectly. I assume there's a shortcut way of browser sniffing on wikipedia? if someone could give me the code to check for Safari, this could be added as a patch for the problem. it could probably be run as is - I doubt it would goof things up in other browsers - but better safe than sorry... --Ludwigs2 20:48, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It might be even easier to just change the diff code not to use colspans in the first place. It doesn't particularly need them: <td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td> would do just as fine as <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
yeah, you're probably right, though they may be preliminary moves in some future development. me, I'm happy I have a personal solution. that being sid, though, is there anything else that needs to be done to bring this to the attention of the developers, or will they pick it up here or over at bugzilla? --Ludwigs2 19:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The devs appears to be aware (there's a comment from Brion on the bug), someone just needs to code up the fix and commit it. I might take a look at it myself, though my experience with the diff code is limited. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very weird protection logs on WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009

There appears to be some very weird logs to do with the WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 article. The log (as shown on my watchlist) is also very weird, which involves a page move back and forth titles:

  1. (Move log); 10:27 . . IMatthew (Talk | contribs) moved Talk:WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2009 to Talk:WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 over redirect (revert)
  2. (Move log); 10:27 . . IMatthew (Talk | contribs) moved WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2009 to WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 over redirect (revert)
  3. (Protection log); 10:27 . . IMatthew (Talk | contribs) protected WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 (moved WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2009 to WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009)
  4. (Move log); 10:24 . . Josephjames21 (Talk | contribs) moved Talk:WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 to Talk:WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2009 (that is the title of the game, it's RAW not Raw on the cover.)
  5. (Protection log); 10:24 . . Josephjames21 (Talk | contribs) protected WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2009 (moved WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 to WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2009)
  6. (Move log); 10:24 . . Josephjames21 (Talk | contribs) moved WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 to WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2009 (that is the title of the game, it's RAW not Raw on the cover.)

The move was reverted as it is against the MOS and per previous titles. However the issue I'm having here is within the protection log. IMatthew (talk · contribs) and Josephjames21 (talk · contribs) are not admins thus cannot protect articles. Am I missing something here, or is there a new feature where if an article is moved, the protection moves with it? D.M.N. (talk) 15:11, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is a new feature, now when a protected page is moved the redirect at the old title is protected with the same level as the page and a log entry is created for the new title, as the logs don't move with the page. Though personally, I find it rather annoying and not especially helpful. Mr.Z-man 15:53, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
New protection log entries will look better pretty soon, appropriate new messages have been added (but not live on Wikipedia yet), see bugzilla:15754. —AlexSm 16:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I only hope this automatic protection of the redirect does not add a dummy edit to the history of the redirect (as a manual protection does). This would sneakily make the page-move more difficult to revert and should be considered a bug if it does work this way. — CharlotteWebb 17:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

moving multiple subpages

List of asteroids is divided up into about 1600 subpages of the form "List of asteroids/x–y". Is there a way to move them all at once, the way we can with subdocs of talk pages?

(They really should be titled "List of minor planets", as many of the objects on the list, such as Pluto, are not considered asteroids.)

Thanks, kwami (talk) 20:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would be a trivial task for an automated script: try asking at WP:BOTREQ. Happy‑melon 20:51, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't it be easier to remove from these lists any items which are not "asteroids"? — CharlotteWebb 21:24, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Almost impossible. First, there's no agreed definition of "asteroid", even within the IAU. Secondly, it's a numbered list of minor planets, so removing some would leave a partial list; we'd need to supply tens of thousands of redirects for people looking up the missing numbers. Easier just to use the technically correct term. kwami (talk) 22:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link. I'll see if we get some discussion or debate before putting the request through. kwami (talk) 22:41, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How good is Wikipedia's quality control?

We've started an article called Wikipedia:Quality control, but there's definitely something missing, though I don't have a clue what it is.

The Transhumanist    21:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you mean FlaggedRevisions. How is this relevant to VPT? Happy‑melon 21:51, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there are a lot of things in the "Quality" topic of the editor's index that aren't covered by that page (I think calling it an "article" is a mistake; the term "article" is normally limited to a page in mainspace). More generally, describing the various initiatives to improve quality seems a bit odd to me, since so many things, from WikiProjects to noticeboards to article talk pages to mailing lists to protecting pages, is about improving quality (otherwise, why bother?) So by the time you exhaustively list everything that is done to affect quality, you'll have listed most of what happens here at Wikipedia. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:53, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A Stupid Question

Hello. I've made a bit of a boo-boo (a mistake). I just created the page whose current title is A l tibawi. I wanted the title of the article to appear as A. L. Tibawi. If anyone could correct this for me and/or explain how to do it I would be very grateful. Thankyou. Langdell (talk) 01:40, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I moved to the subject's complete name. Pegasus «C¦T» 01:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rollback option

Please see discussion for more information. - jc37 02:48, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Filter for logs

How hard would it be to add to Special:Log a tickbox for admin logs only? Since the implementation of patrolled pages there are a lot of "mark patrolled" entries cluttering up the logs, which makes it harder to get a sense of an admin's work at a glance. What would be involved? Thanks, Chick Bowen 03:42, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That actually sounds like a good idea. Though perhaps broaden it to having an option for each "user-right package". (I would imagine that looking at just bureaucrat actions or just bot actions, might be nice as well.) - jc37 03:49, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure why we're even storing those automatic entries in the patrol log. I'd think the log would be more useful if it only recorded pages that were deliberately marked as patrolled. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:06, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. The reality is that it's not so much that the pages listed have been patrolled is that they are exempt from patrolling. Chick Bowen 20:59, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would prefer multiple selection for log types, instead of single selection with a list box. — Werdna • talk 03:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can't edit any MediaWiki pages

The MediaWiki pages are protected by default. Why are they? Non-admins want to edit them. -Porchcrop (talk|contributions) 07:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They are protected because if vandalized they would have far reaching negative affects due to there visibility, for example if MediaWiki:Tagline was changed to some string of obscene words every one who visited Wikipedia would see it and as WP gets thousands of views a second such a vandalism would greatly impact our perceived credibility as well as just offending thousands. - Icewedge (talk) 07:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Non-admins can request edits to a MediaWiki page by using {{editprotected}} on its talk page. Graham87 08:21, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Non-admins also probably want to delete pages and block users; a desire doesn't equate to a granting of the ability to do so. The only reason there's a distinction between editors and administrators is that there are several abilities that, if granted to everyone, would cause havoc; editing the MediaWiki namespace is one of them. EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Google Chrome partial page loads

I am constantly getting partial page loading, and this is only happening in Google Chrome, it was happening in Vista (recently downupgraded) to XP and Ubuntu, where I run Chrome on Wine. The same issue occurs, I keep on getting cut off code snippets all over the page, sometimes making buttons like 'save page' not load or have missing/additional text/code in them, and often the top bar disappears altogether. I cannot think but to put this down to an incompatibility between Chrome and Wikipedia after all these reinstalls of different OSes, and I don't see how hardware could be particularly relevant here. Is there a Wikipedia side fix for this, or is it something that Google are going to have to be informed about for fixing in their next version? — neuro 09:46, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I have no such trouble editing with Chrome running under Vista. Some user scripts work a little funky with it, but Wikipedia pages generally come through just fine. —Ashanda (talk) 09:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, not sure what is going on then. I have just had this, got a screenshot. I am going to post more soon, because there are more that aren't necessarily like this one: [2] — neuro 09:57, 4 October 2008 (UTC)


Special:UncategorizedPages

Is anyone else able to access this page recently, I have tried several times over the last few days and I get nothing. Is this a common problem or is it just my computer? - Icewedge (talk) 16:48, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just tried it. Chrome, FireFox, and Safari all show a blank page; IE gives one of two error messages- either one from Wikimedia or it's own default error message. I'm running under Vista if that matters. Weird. —Ashanda (talk) 22:07, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be an invalid title in the results somehow. rev:41673 should prevent the error when the change goes live. In the meantime, the error seems to be in the first entry, so specifying an offset - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:UncategorizedPages?offset=1 should bypass it. Mr.Z-man 23:43, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if it's the page with no title? Anomie⚔ 23:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Same for Special:WithoutInterwiki. --Splarka (rant) 07:02, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Followup: Page with no title has been deleted but those special pages still appear to be broken. --Splarka (rant) 18:24, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It probably wasn't deleted from the querycache table (or its a different page with an invalid title). Mr.Z-man 21:45, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh, damn, those are "Expensive" special pages (curse you miser mode). --Splarka (rant) 23:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tim just synchronized /includes/PageQueryPage.php to rev:41673 (mrzman's patch). It is (was) the empty title. --Splarka (rant) 03:59, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually that rev just passed null to link(), so any bad title would display the same way. I changed it in rev:41726 to display the title from the db, if you want to try get Tim to sync it again :) (there was also an intermediate fix in rev:41677). Mr.Z-man 04:40, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image:JeremyDuncan.png

Image:JeremyDuncan.png is coming up at all for me. When I go see the file source, I get a 404 message. Any suggestions? -- Veggy (talk) 20:24, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks lost. Still exists at archive.org though. Probably should reupload. --Splarka (rant) 07:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. Reuploaded. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:21, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ampersand cannot be deleted

When an article contains "&" in its title, clicking on the "(delete)" link on its AfD does not work; you get a "Wikimedia Foundation Error." For example, Schiel & Denver Publishing (see debate) cannot be deleted using the link. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:22, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A URI on Wikimedia cannot contain an &amp; (neither raw or URLencoded): http://en.wikipedia.org/%26amp%3B ... this is blocked (and has been for around a year). When creating such a delete link, you simply use an &:
(<span class="plainlinks">[{{fullurl:Schiel & Denver Publishing|wpReason={{urlencode: [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Schiel & Denver Publishing]]}}&action=delete}} delete]</span>)
produces: (delete). --Splarka (rant) 07:27, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strange automatic categorisation

For some reason, the page Kutas is being assigned the category "IPA templates", despite being an article, and as such appears in Category:IPA templates at present, instead of {{IPA-hu}}, which is the actual template used on it. I did not see any actual category markers in the article itself and so could not remove them; does anyone here know how one might go about fixing this problem? It Is Me Here (talk) 08:41, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This should fix it. --MZMcBride (talk) 09:20, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that, but I'm afraid Kutas still appears on Category:IPA templates for me, even after purging. It Is Me Here (talk) 10:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's not in the cat for me. Have you bypassed your browser cache? Algebraist 10:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just required a null edit to remove it. You can do the same for the others if you'd like. --MZMcBride (talk) 10:07, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Great, it's fine now. Just one thing, though: why are some IPA templates shown under "T" and some under "I"? It Is Me Here (talk) 10:19, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If they don't have a sort key then they are sorted under "T" for "Template". Some of them transclude the sort key {{PAGENAME}} (a magic word returning the page name without the namespace in front) from a documentation subpage. It should probably be added to the rest. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:44, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

English Wikipedia messed up on Firefox

I just noticed this yesterday. While viewing Firefox on Wikipedia v. 3.0.3, many of the pages do not load the sidebar:

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e124/Nighthawk000/broken.png http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e124/Nighthawk000/broken2.png

I checked the French Wiki, and it is fine. The same pages also work on IE6. I have no idea what is causing this, any idea of what it is or how to fix it?Rcduggan (talk) 12:29, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The skins at Special:Preferences have different page designs but I'm not sure which you have from the displayed part of the window. Maybe you chose a skin without sidebar (but some similar links elsewhere) in your English Wikipedia account. Which skin is it and do you get a sidebar in other skins like the default MonoBook? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Never mind, I fixed it. Cleared out the cache and it worked fine. Thanks for your help. rcduggan (talk) 15:06, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Non-autoconfirmed admin?

Resolved
 – my own stupidity Happy‑melon 12:37, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is this me? I just tried to move a page, but got a warning that I think is used when non-autoconfirmed editors try to move pages... mightily confused! Any suggestions or shall I take it to bugzilla? Happy‑melon 12:31, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I get the same warning with my alternate account. Happy‑melon 12:34, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What page are you trying to move? --Chris 12:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, no worries, I was trying to move a page to an interwiki prefix X-@. I wondered why there were no pages beginning with "TT:"... Happy‑melon 12:37, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Although, that warning is still very confusing... I think I will raise that at bugzilla. Happy‑melon 12:38, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Before being deleted by User:MediaWiki default as "No longer required", MediaWiki:Immobile namespace contained: "Source or destination title is of a special type; cannot move pages from and into that namespace." It's still listed at Special:AllMessages. Would the message have been displayed if it had not been deleted? (Maybe a bold admin would just restore and experiment) PrimeHunter (talk) 13:24, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, the message still exists, it is just at its 'default' value set within the MediaWiki software. Up to version X of MediaWiki, all [[MediaWiki:]] namespace messages had to exist, so they were created by the software when MediaWiki was installed. After the software was updated such that non-existant messages used the 'default' value, all the unnecessary messages were deleted by a maintenance script logging the deletions to that special user account. So if the message was triggered it would display as it appears in Special:Allmessages. I believe that message is used when you try to move pages which are in an 'immutable namespace' (one which has been configured to prohibit moves in and out of it). Happy‑melon 14:28, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One-way sorts

In the Colleges of the University of Cambridge page, the Fixed assets category only sorts one way for me, unlike most of the others which can sort both ways. Is there any way to change this? It Is Me Here (talk) 13:40, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sortable tables are not my specialty but [3] appears to help. Maybe there is a better fix, and the downwards sort appears to be alphabetical instead of numerical. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:22, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For numerical columns with commas, the {{nts}} template must be used to get the sorting to work correctly. {{ntsh}} is useful for rows with non-numeric values in {{nts}}-using columns.[4] More information is available at Help:Sorting. Anomie⚔ 15:57, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much! It Is Me Here (talk) 18:22, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User-friendly editnotice system

I have done some thinking and experimenting regarding editnotices. (That's the header message boxes that are shown above the edit window when you edit a page.) I have figured out how we can make a much more user-friendly system. It will be easier to use and edit for both admins and users, and it can supply several new functions that the current system doesn't have.

I have coded up all that is needed for the new system. I have installed a fully working demo of the system over at {{editnotice loader}}. See also discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Editnotice#Slash style editnotices.

I would like some input from people what they think about the new system. Please discuss this at Wikipedia talk:Editnotice, not here.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:35, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really understand what you've done, but most functionality should be written into software, not hacked together with templates. — Werdna • talk 03:25, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, several users have asked the devs to make this system but the devs said they didn't want to. One reason was that they thought it only fits for more mature Wikipedias such as the English Wikipedia. And then I realised I could do it in template code only. (And it won't cost much server load since it only executes in the edit windows. Compared to most infoboxes and navboxes out there this code is very lightweight, so compared to the page content in the edit preview this doesn't cost much.)
And another benefit is that there are many template coders here that can help out and fine tune this code. If/when we have had a stable version of it for a long time the devs might consider to copy the idea to system code instead. Thus they don't need to spend all the work figuring out how people want it to look and feel. But why should they? It's the same situation as navboxes. Why should we ask the devs to move the navbox functionality to system code when it runs fine as template code? We have many template programmers, but just a handful of devs.
--David Göthberg (talk) 05:23, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Who are these mysterious devs and where are their reasons actually given? --brion (talk) 14:40, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See Krimpet's comment at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 46#Custom edit messages. — CharlotteWebb 15:39, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why should we ask the devs to move the [whatever] functionality to system code when it runs fine as template code? - So other people who use MediaWiki (smaller Wikimedia wikis, Wikia, other users) can use it without trying to figure out which CSS, JS, and half dozen templates to copy from us. Mr.Z-man 16:05, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't yet described what you've actually done. You've gone and given links to a zillion templates, but I still haven't seen a clear description of what you want to do, and what benefits it provides. I get this vague feeling from the reference to Krimpet's comment that it's got to do with using the namespace name rather than the namespace number. If you describe what the system is, then we might be able to work something out in the software end, instead of horrible template hacks. — Werdna • talk 02:11, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Werdna: My message above that started out this section was just an announcement. It has links to three pages that explains it all. I don't want to fill the Village pump with lengthy explanations. (Since it takes a rather long explanation, even though the system when used will be very user-friendly.) So for starters you can follow this link and read what you see there: Template:Editnotice loader. Then you can follow the two other links in my message above to learn more and discuss this.
--David Göthberg (talk) 03:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reference formatter

There's a discussion at Template_talk:Cite_journal#Discouragement_of_.22authors.22_parameter abut discouraging the use of the "author(s)" parameter in citations, and requiring editors to use the "last=..., first=..., last2=..., first2=..., ... .... .... lastN=..., firstN=..." syntax. I understand that databases work better with field-formatted data than with strings that contain a lot of potential data items, but IMO expecting editors to enter an indefinite number of mark-up params will just discourage editors. So if the proposal is to be implemented it must be accompanied by an easy-to-use citation formatter. To me that means a button on the edit toolbar that invokes some Javascript, not a separate and currently unadvertised page on toolserver. The Javascript required would not be difficult, but would be long and fiddly because of the vast range of citation options. I wouldn't consider even starting a specification for it without a commitment that, if such a script's functionality is agreed and passes testing, it really will be implemented. How can one go about getting such a commitment? -- Philcha (talk) 05:45, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One of the other language Wikipedias (French? German?) already has a cite button on their edit toolbar. But for the larger question, I suggest a posting at MediaWiki talk:Edittools, to see what editors who watch that page think. If they're agreeable, then it will happen (because adding an icon isn't such a big deal). As for getting it exactly right, if it's pretty good, and useful, from the beginning, then there is always time to tweak things. I wouldn't expect perfection, or even universal agreement, immediately. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:02, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nostalgia skin

Wikipedia and MediaWiki in general is best viewed, in my opinion, with the Nostalgia skin (which is what I use), but I find that Nostalgia has not been kept up to date with various enhancements and developments that work with the newest skins, particularly MonoBook. I think we should place more emphasis in improving the Nostalgia skin, making it compatible with more scripts meant to be used with MonoBook, particularly with the Wikipedia:Gadgets, and also making Nostalgia correctly display links to the user pages. NerdyNSK (talk) 10:15, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Search box enhancing

Sorry for my very poor English. Our (ru-wiki) technician redirects me here ("prefix list drop down box in search box uses request "opensearch" (see: api.php), which not supports neither marking redirects nor indiaction of list incompletion. Propose to change it probably better in English wiki technical forum"). So, I try to repeat my request here:

  • increase prefixes list (from current 10 entries);
  • for incomplete list somewhat (special entry at list bottom?) indicate this;
  • allow to jump (through abovementioned special entry?) to next/prev list part.

Further enhancement:

  • indicate entries, which are redirects, and show their targets;
  • indicate entries-disambigs.

-- AVBtalk 14:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Editnotices for set-index pages

Resolved.

It's come up at WP:SHIPS that set index pages (such as HMS Agamemnon) are being decorated with editnotices suitable for disambiguation pages. The problem is that set index pages and disambiguation pages operate under different rules. Is there a way around this? Thanks. HausTalk 15:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is from {{Disambig editintro}}, apparently a project of WP:DAB. I've posed the question in a discussion there. — Bellhalla (talk) 19:10, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was asked to take a look at this. I have fixed the problem for those templates that I could find. If anyone finds other "set index article" pages that shows the disambig editnotice {{disambig editintro}} then report that over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#Disambig editintro vs set index articles and we'll fix it.
--David Göthberg (talk) 03:22, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Chess pages will not load

I can't get pages that use Template:Chess_diagram to load. An example is checkmate, which I have not been able to get to load for two hours. Is there a way to get these pages to load, or is there a technical problem? Bubba73 (talk), 18:11, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strange, they loaded just fine for me. Try these two section edit links:[5][6] The former doesn't use the template, the latter does. (I'm just trying to verify that it is indeed the template) EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For me, the first oneloads in a second or two; the second one does not. Bubba73 (talk), 19:43, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the second one does load in about 14 seconds. Bubba73 (talk), 19:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I waited 4+ minutes on the main article and it would not load, even partially. Over the last few months, the diagrams have been getting slower and slower. When it works, I can see each square of the board being loaded. Bubba73 (talk), 20:01, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The image on the Wikipedia main page doesn't load either, but the text does. Bubba73 (talk), 20:07, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Checkmate does not load in 14 minutes. Bubba73 (talk), 20:24, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Check (chess) will load in about 8 seconds, but has only two diagrams. Bubba73 (talk), 20:36, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Chess opening takes more than 50 seconds to load with action=purge (<!-- Served by srv134 in 54.371 secs. -->). Checkmate just dies with "X-Squid-Error:ERR_READ_TIMEOUT". The problem is probably just too many images on the page. Each chessboard is made up of 68 images (64 squares and 4 images for the sides), so on chess opening with 30 boards, there's 2040 images on the page. Checkmate has only 4 more boards, but that's an additional 272 images, plus a handful of other images. It would probably be best if these were done by an extension that generated just one png image per board, similar to the <math> notation. Some other options would be to just use one image for the chessboard, then position the images of the pieces (with a transparent background) over the board with relative positioning. Technically you could do it with no images at all with HTML tables and Chess symbols in Unicode, but the symbols probably aren't well supported and it would probably be easier to use an image for the board than a 10x10 table. Mr.Z-man 21:38, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are perhaps thousands of diagrams in the chess articles. Can such a change be made without breaking the diagrams? Also the individual squares used to be PNGs, but they were changed to the recomended SVGs a year or to ago, if my memory is correct. Bubba73 (talk), 21:57, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We should really be using an extension, not a template. — Werdna • talk 02:04, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can that be done without breaking all of the diagrams? There are about 2,500 chess articles. Not all of them have diagrams, and there may not be thousands of them, but there are certainly many hundred diagrams in the articles. Bubba73 (talk), 02:07, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Canonical namespace change coming: Image: -> File:

Brion has just announced on the wikitech-l list that he's planning to (finally) change the canonical name of the "Image:" namespace to "File:". Please update your scripts and bots, and note that a lot of templates and MediaWiki pages are also likely to be affected. Please note that, if everything goes as planned, we'll only have about one week to fix things before the change goes live. More details in Brion's post and at bugzilla:44. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:35, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I probably should be asking this elsewhere, but shouldn't the change result in Image: being an alternative value, just like how WP: now results in Wikipedia: ? If so, then at least some things won't be broken by the change. -- Ned Scott 02:50, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think this was answered before you asked it, in the email linked above. "This should go smoothly and transparently for most purposes. 'Image:' will continue to be an alias, and perhaps even recommended for inline usage.". Anyhow, this is a good change and it's about time... - Rjd0060 (talk) 03:05, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The problems occur when a script expects to be handed "Image:Example.jpg" as page name, but instead gets "File:Example.jpg". --Carnildo (talk) 04:25, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Aaah, ok. -- Ned Scott 04:33, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, scripts that use the JavaScript variable wgCanonicalNamespace to determine the namespace will be given "File" instead of the expected "Image". Calvin 1998 (t·c) 04:40, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

←Yes, this is excellent! The bots can be updated relatively painlessly, and the namespace's new name should be significantly less confusing to newcomers. —Remember the dot (talk) 05:14, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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