Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 218
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Invisibly populated category redirects
Can anyone work out why Category:1951 events in Europe by month, Category:2007 events in Asia by month and Category:2008 events in Asia by month are appearing in Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories? No contents are displayed, not even delayed caches, and yet they declare themselves non-empty. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:01, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Probably the job queue being slow to update the categorylinks, or (less likely) it having dropped some jobs. When null-edited one of the cats, it disappeared from Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories. Anomie⚔ 12:10, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Is there supposed to be a job for this? Category:1951 events in Europe by month has {{Category redirect}} which tests whether the category is non-empty and should be added to Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories. If the category is emptied without editing the category page or any template it transcludes then I wouldn't expect the wikitext of the category page to be reparsed automatically but I don't know whether it happens. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:25, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, the MediaWiki servers should be re-parsing every page periodically, but they do not do so. See T132467, a long-standing feature request from 2016. (And the related T157670.) As far as I know, a cron job needs to be set up, but it has never been followed through on. I think Wbm1058 is still running a bot on the English Wikipedia to refresh stale pages, and that this query shows the current staleness of pages by date (the maximum appears to be 88 days right now). It is not great to be dependent on a bot for this critical maintenance, and 88 days of staleness is too much. It would be great to know that pages would never be more than X hours or days stale, with X being a small number. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:07, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- I briefly discussed this matter with a Foundation employee at Wikiconference North America in Indianapolis last October. As the English wiki continues to grow, closing in on 7 million articles, it becomes technically more and more difficult to frequently work though the entire database and refresh each and every page, whether they need refreshed or not (the vast majority don't). At my bot's peak performance, I had the refresh lag down to about 30 days for mainspace and 80 days for all other namespaces. After the database was restructured last year, my bots struggled to keep up and the lag times increased substantially. Only recently, they've come back down to 41 and 87 days, and the "new normal" may be 40 and 90 days, rather than 30 and 80. My bots should be considered as equivalent to that "cron job" – basically, I think, if such an internal job were set up, I doubt it would be much more efficient or timely at refreshing links than my bots are. My bots should be viewed as a stopgap; the last line of defense insuring that a link possibly still needing to be refreshed is refreshed after 90 days, and not nine years. The path forward is to identify the links refreshed by my bot that actually needed to be refreshed, determine why they failed to get refreshed before my stopgap bot refreshed them, and then fix that issue in order to refresh them a lot more quickly than my bot refreshes them. To that end, Phabs like T132467 are helpful, and I suggest that a higher priority be placed on T132467 than T157670. I'll look closer at what needs to happen with T132467 – maybe I can develop yet another bot to address that specific issue. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:57, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Probably worth mentioning this issue to the WMF annual plan and the community wishlist since both are open. Snævar (talk) 19:09, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
- I briefly discussed this matter with a Foundation employee at Wikiconference North America in Indianapolis last October. As the English wiki continues to grow, closing in on 7 million articles, it becomes technically more and more difficult to frequently work though the entire database and refresh each and every page, whether they need refreshed or not (the vast majority don't). At my bot's peak performance, I had the refresh lag down to about 30 days for mainspace and 80 days for all other namespaces. After the database was restructured last year, my bots struggled to keep up and the lag times increased substantially. Only recently, they've come back down to 41 and 87 days, and the "new normal" may be 40 and 90 days, rather than 30 and 80. My bots should be considered as equivalent to that "cron job" – basically, I think, if such an internal job were set up, I doubt it would be much more efficient or timely at refreshing links than my bots are. My bots should be viewed as a stopgap; the last line of defense insuring that a link possibly still needing to be refreshed is refreshed after 90 days, and not nine years. The path forward is to identify the links refreshed by my bot that actually needed to be refreshed, determine why they failed to get refreshed before my stopgap bot refreshed them, and then fix that issue in order to refresh them a lot more quickly than my bot refreshes them. To that end, Phabs like T132467 are helpful, and I suggest that a higher priority be placed on T132467 than T157670. I'll look closer at what needs to happen with T132467 – maybe I can develop yet another bot to address that specific issue. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:57, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, the MediaWiki servers should be re-parsing every page periodically, but they do not do so. See T132467, a long-standing feature request from 2016. (And the related T157670.) As far as I know, a cron job needs to be set up, but it has never been followed through on. I think Wbm1058 is still running a bot on the English Wikipedia to refresh stale pages, and that this query shows the current staleness of pages by date (the maximum appears to be 88 days right now). It is not great to be dependent on a bot for this critical maintenance, and 88 days of staleness is too much. It would be great to know that pages would never be more than X hours or days stale, with X being a small number. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:07, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Is there supposed to be a job for this? Category:1951 events in Europe by month has {{Category redirect}} which tests whether the category is non-empty and should be added to Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories. If the category is emptied without editing the category page or any template it transcludes then I wouldn't expect the wikitext of the category page to be reparsed automatically but I don't know whether it happens. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:25, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- This particular category is an easy case to manage. I just ran a script to purge the cache of each member of the category, which quickly reduced the category membership from 90 to 30. Then I noticed that there were still newly-empty categories in this category, so I ran the script again, which reduced membership to 25. There were still newly-empty members, so I ran the script a third time and that kept the membership at 25 as just as many new members arrived as my script had just purged out. Is this category always so active, or is something special happening now to make it more active than usual? I can add this operation to my bot that runs twice hourly, or maybe run it even more frequently than twice an hour; that would keep the membership better, with a minimum number of short-term empty members. – wbm1058 (talk) 01:10, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- Looks like User:JJMC89 bot III is moving a bunch of categories for Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy#Current requests, which are apparently showing up in Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories momentarily. Anomie⚔ 01:19, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes. Basically, there's an ongoing WP:CFD/S process to rename categories of the form "Date events in Foo" to "Date in Foo", that is, to remove the word "events" and one adjacent space. So for example Category:March 1979 events in North America has been moved to Category:March 1979 in North America. I think that it should have been a full CFD and not a speedy, but there you go. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:54, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- Addendum: as I typed the above, Category:March 1979 events in North America was in Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories, and its cat page was listing March 1979 in Canada as a subcat, whereas a visit to Category:March 1979 in Canada showed the cat box containing March 1979 in North America. Visiting Category:March 1979 in North America did not list March 1979 in Canada as a subcat. I tried a WP:PURGE of all three categories, which had no effect (as I suspected it wouldn't), and then performed a WP:NULLEDIT of Category:March 1979 in Canada, which did not itself change, but it did cause both Category:March 1979 events in North America and Category:March 1979 in North America to be corrected, and the former to drop out of Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:04, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- Right, looking at Special:Log/move/JJMC89 bot III, that's the culprit. My understanding is that my "null edit" cache-purging bot enters tasks into the "job queue", or, rather usually executes its tasks nearly instantaneously, and its tasks only spend time waiting in the job queue at times when the system is particularly busy and overwhelmed by too many task requests being pushed at it simultaneously. The fact that my bot's purges are happening right away indicates to me that the page-moving software, which should be purging categories right after it moves them, isn't doing that. Search Phabricator for something like "Special:MovePage needs to purge the cache of Category: namespace pages immediately after moving them". I'm adding this to-do item to my MediaWiki core developers thread. Foundation management hasn't assigned the page-moving code to any employee's responsibilities as I guess they're waiting for volunteer me to push myself into the role. – wbm1058 (talk) 11:23, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- In the meantime, while waiting for Special:MovePage code fixes, maybe User:JJMC89 could enhance his bot to make it purge each category page right after it moves the category. Updating bot code is magnitudes easier than updating MediaWiki code. – wbm1058 (talk) 11:43, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- Looking at the timestamps of Redrose64's example, the category really was non-empty for a few seconds.
- Category:March 1979 events in North America was moved at 2025-01-27 23:41:02. At this point it becomes a non-empty soft redirected category, and
recentchangesindicates it was added to Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories at this time. - Category:March 1979 events in North America had its template updated at 2025-01-27 23:41:04.
- Havana Jam was removed from Category:March 1979 events in North America at 2025-01-27 23:41:08. At this point Category:March 1979 events in North America presumably becomes empty, but the category page isn't reparsed.
- Category:March 1979 events in North America was moved at 2025-01-27 23:41:02. At this point it becomes a non-empty soft redirected category, and
- So for about 6 seconds from 23:41:02 to 23:41:08, Category:March 1979 events in North America really was a non-empty soft redirected category. Based on the
mw.categorizeentries inrecentchanges, it looks like all three of the above edits did immediately update the category links. What didn't happen immediately is the re-parsing of Category:March 1979 events in North America to determine that it was now empty. If User:JJMC89 bot III was going to purge to have an effect here, it would have to have been after the Havana Jam edit emptied the category, not after the category was moved. Anomie⚔ 13:02, 28 January 2025 (UTC)- Oh, I see. This bot is editing at an incredibly high speed. 42 edits at 23:59, 27 January 2025, that's like an edit every 1.4 seconds, a majority of them being page moves. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:14, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- Here is the bot's edit log for the relevant time span. March 1979 events in North America-related activity seems to be co-mingled with Novels with lesbian themes-related activity. What's the algorithm here? Are two separate instances of the bot running in parallel? wbm1058 (talk) 14:14, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- There's some misunderstanding here. A purge doesn't work, it must be a WP:NULLEDIT; and doing that on the moved category isn't any good either, it needs to be performed on the category's member pages. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:12, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: Indeed. I use User:RMCD bot/botclasses.php
function purgeCache($page), which in turn uses mw:API:Purge with|forcerecursivelinkupdate=1, which is more or less functionally equivalent to what you call a null edit. The category's member pages are indeed categories themselves. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:06, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: Indeed. I use User:RMCD bot/botclasses.php
- There can be up to two instances running at the same time, one for WP:CFD/W and one WP:CFD/W/L. This is so the large batches on CFD/W/L do not delay processing of the ones on CFD/W. Usually there is only one running since CFD/W/L is not used most of the time. — JJMC89 (T·C) 08:05, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
- There's some misunderstanding here. A purge doesn't work, it must be a WP:NULLEDIT; and doing that on the moved category isn't any good either, it needs to be performed on the category's member pages. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:12, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- The bot makes a follow-up edit to the category after the move. I've reordered that step to after it recategorizes the contents instead of immediately after the move. That should remove the need to purge. — JJMC89 (T·C) 07:58, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks. An editor User:Gray eyes is creating category soft redirects (e.g., Category:Sports in Gdańsk, Category:Organizations based in Łódź, Category:Sports in Lublin) which are populating Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories. I don't know why these empty soft redirects are populating the non-empty category, nor why they are being created in the first place, given that the template produces a message "Administrators: If this category name is unlikely to be entered on new pages, and all incoming links have been cleaned up, click here to delete." implying that these newly-created categories should be deleted. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
- I had to use this template (Template:Sports clubs and teams in Fooland category header) to create a Category:Sports clubs and teams in Gdańsk. These categories will be automatically emptied. Gray eyes (talk) 06:22, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks. An editor User:Gray eyes is creating category soft redirects (e.g., Category:Sports in Gdańsk, Category:Organizations based in Łódź, Category:Sports in Lublin) which are populating Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories. I don't know why these empty soft redirects are populating the non-empty category, nor why they are being created in the first place, given that the template produces a message "Administrators: If this category name is unlikely to be entered on new pages, and all incoming links have been cleaned up, click here to delete." implying that these newly-created categories should be deleted. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
- Looking at the timestamps of Redrose64's example, the category really was non-empty for a few seconds.
- Looks like User:JJMC89 bot III is moving a bunch of categories for Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy#Current requests, which are apparently showing up in Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories momentarily. Anomie⚔ 01:19, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- OK, now there are hundreds of empty categories in Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories. I'll add a twice-hourly purge/null-edit to my bot, to manage this issue as a stopgap, until the issue with the MediaWiki software is identified and fixed. Any time a category is removed from a page, I think a forcerecursivelinkupdate purge should be done. – wbm1058 (talk) 12:55, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
No deletion log for long-ago-deleted article
When I went to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_discovery, I was surprised to see a MediaWiki:thisisdeleted notice (View or undelete 2 deleted edits? (view logs for this page | view filter log)) but no deletion log entry, nothing like what you'll see if you visit the recently deleted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snape_kills_Dumbledore. (Sorry for external-style links, but the message there is different from the message you see on the edit screen.) Turns out that the article was deleted in 2004, when its entire content was:
{{delete}} I LOVE ALEXANDER DESPATIE
Is this normal behaviour for a page that was deleted so, so long ago and never recreated? Nyttend (talk) 20:28, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes. The current log system dates back to December 2004. Older logs can be found at WP:Historical archive/Logs/Deletion log. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:34, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, indeed. The days when the deletion log was a list that people with deletion privileges maintained by hand. And there was no undeletion mechanism. And the deleted revisions table got cleared by the people who ran the servers every so often. Uncle G (talk) 14:48, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Nyttend: It's easy to check; go to Special:Log/delete, and on the line "(newest | oldest) View (newer 50 | older 50) (20 | 50 | 100 | 250 | 500)", click the "oldest" link. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:42, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
Help with selective transclusion
ResolvedAs pointed out here, this template needs to be edited so that the floating link appears on Wikipedia:Requests for permissions, but not Template:Admin dashboard. Any takers? ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 16:00, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
Global watchlist (for wikis in different languages)
Hi everyone,
I was wondering what the status of using the GlobalWatchlist extension on Wikipedia to have a unified watchlist across different wikis (all Wikipedia, but different languages)?
It seems like there is on-going development work on the extension itself, but I am not finding anything recent on its use for Wikipedia. Is there a trail of this somewhere?
Thanks a lot in advance!
Best, Julius Schwarz (talk) 08:39, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's on Meta-Wiki: m:Special:GlobalWatchlist. Nardog (talk) 09:29, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
- Oh that's neat, thanks a lot! Julius Schwarz (talk) 15:21, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
Proposal: Move User:Enterprisey/easy-brfa.js to the MediaWiki namespace
This proposal is not necessarily to turn User:Enterprisey/easy-brfa.js into a gadget, but rather to simply move it to that namespace. The idea behind this is so that people can go to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/request and just click a button, which would redirect them to that same page plus a parameter such as withJS=MediaWiki:Easy-brfa.js, allowing them to use the tool straight away without having to install it, similar to what we have at DRN. Enterprisey has expressed no objection to this idea off-wiki. JJPMaster (she/they) 01:51, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
- Are you offering to maintain the script? If so, I'll move it. There's a brief earlier discussion at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 19#easy-brfa, where there weren't really any objections. – SD0001 (talk) 15:17, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
- @SD0001: I don't know how I would be able to maintain it as a non-interface-admin, but if I could, then I would agree to do so. JJPMaster (she/they) 14:40, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Enterprisey: any comment? — xaosflux Talk 19:20, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
- Sounds good to me. I appreciate that it'll be maintained :) Enterprisey (talk!) 03:39, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Enterprisey: any comment? — xaosflux Talk 19:20, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
- @SD0001: I don't know how I would be able to maintain it as a non-interface-admin, but if I could, then I would agree to do so. JJPMaster (she/they) 14:40, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
"this section could not be found" notifiactions
I've been getting those little pop-up notifications saying a section cannot be found when saving the creation of said section. That seems ....a little off. Beeblebrox Beebletalks 22:51, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Beeblebrox: It's because you're using templates in section headings. These are never a good idea. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:17, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
- Huh. I knew you aren't supposed to do that in articles, but I guess I thought it was just an MOS thing, not a technical issue. Thanks for the reply. Beeblebrox Beebletalks 18:26, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
unable to add maplink-road to map attribute in Template:Infobox_valley
I'm trying to replace the map attribute in Oak Creek Canyon's Template:Infobox valley with this:
|map = {{maplink-road|from=Oak Creek (AZ).map}}
Unfortunately, when I try I get this:
Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 526: "?'\"`UNIQ--mapframe-0000000D-QINU`\"'?" is not a valid name for a location map definition
It works fine with Template:Infobox river. Any ideas? TerraFrost (talk) 17:08, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
- @TerraFrost The map parameter of {{Infobox valley}} is hardcoded to use {{Location map}}, the infobox fills in the inputs of the location map template with the data from various infobox fields. The map parameter of {{Infobox river}} is much more complex and can take an image, a location map, or a mapframe based map, and therefore it can handle a {{maplink road}} input.
- The error you are seeing is due to the location map template having its parameters filled in with a half-parsed maplink-road, which causes the location map template to try to load a nonsense map title.
- You need to check the template documentation - the infobox system is a bit of a mess and different templates can have the same parameter name doing different things or having different valid inputs. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 19:42, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
Parent categories
An editor has requested a change to the way we display categories in the Category: namespace. The existing system, which looks approximately like this:
does not seem intuitive. @PrimeHunter figured out how to change the existing category footer to something that makes the meaning more obvious:
and to have this only appear in the Category: namespace (i.e., will not change/screw up any articles).
Could we please get this change implemented here? It would only require copying the contents of testwiki:MediaWiki:Pagecategories to MediaWiki:Pagecategories.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:18, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
- This sort of sounds like it would be an overall general improvement - that is not something special for only the English Wikipedia, and for only users with their interface language in en. If so, this should be requested upstream. — xaosflux Talk 01:56, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think it'd be better to do this locally, where it's been requested. If it seems to be a net improvement, we could always suggest it for widespread use (which would require re-translation of the string for all 300+ languages – not something that can happen quickly). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:44, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
- +1 for doing it (it's an improvement), and +1 for doing it locally (no need to wait, and can easily undo the local change if and when upstream decides to do it). DMacks (talk) 19:55, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
- Done The local customisation can be removed if/when a gerrit patch has been merged to change the message across all wikis. – SD0001 (talk) 05:35, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
Thank you WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:37, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- This had to be
Undone because it was pointed out that it creates a problem on VisualEditor – which shows the raw code. – SD0001 (talk) 04:08, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- @SD0001, what do you mean? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:40, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- It was causing VisualEditor to display the page footer like this. A MediaWiki fix would be required to handle this properly. Suggest raising a phab ticket. – SD0001 (talk) 04:45, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- I filed a Phab ticket. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:55, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- It was causing VisualEditor to display the page footer like this. A MediaWiki fix would be required to handle this properly. Suggest raising a phab ticket. – SD0001 (talk) 04:45, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- @SD0001, what do you mean? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:40, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- This had to be
New button in IP contrib page, dead link
Hi, there's a new button in IP contributions page, labeled global contributions, that brings you to Special:GlobalContributions/whatever the IP is, that is broken (use Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1 as an example). I believe this is a new mw feature, as the special page does exist on meta wiki m:Special:GlobalContributions), but not yet on the English Wikipedia.
At mw:Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/Updates in section December it says
"Special:GlobalContributions will be able to display information about cross-wiki contributions from registered users, IP addresses, IP ranges, and temporary accounts in the near future. (T375632)
".
Myrealnamm (💬Let's talk · 📜My work) 21:27, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Myrealnamm This is a known bug, see phab:T385086. The special page only exists on wikis with temporary accounts enabled. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 21:43, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
- great… Thanks for the reference! Myrealnamm (💬Let's talk · 📜My work) 22:00, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
- I have used MediaWiki:Nospecialpagetext to add a message to pages like Special:GlobalContributions/86.23.109.101 which is linked on Special:Contributions/86.23.109.101. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:30, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- great… Thanks for the reference! Myrealnamm (💬Let's talk · 📜My work) 22:00, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
The local page id:Special:GlobalContributions/Taylor_49 is broken since today on all wikis, it says "No such special page You have requested an invalid special page.". The global page m:Special:GlobalContributions/Taylor_49 shows something but says "Error loading data from some wikis. These results are incomplete. It may help to try again." and the displayed information is blatantly incorrect (huge increases in page size far above my merits). This is broken not only for IP but also for registered users. It used to work until ca yesterday thus this is NOT a new feature that "will be able to display information" but an old feature that recently stopped working. Taylor 49 (talk) 21:07, 2 February 2025 (UTC)- Special:GlobalContribs is a new feature. It is not completely developed even if it is deployed to some wikis. And by some I mean about a dozen. It is fine to say it is broken but it is by no means "old". Bugs should be expected in such a case. Izno (talk) 21:43, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- Well I confused the too prominently visible new id:Special:GlobalContributions/Taylor_49 with good old id:Special:CentralAuth/Taylor_49 that still works as it used to. Nothing is broken, just confusing. Taylor 49 (talk) 21:52, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- It is confusing Special:Contributions now has a link to Special:SpecialContributions even on wikis where it's not deployed though. Nardog (talk) 10:40, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Special:GlobalContribs is a new feature. It is not completely developed even if it is deployed to some wikis. And by some I mean about a dozen. It is fine to say it is broken but it is by no means "old". Bugs should be expected in such a case. Izno (talk) 21:43, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- This mostly only works on the meta-wiki right now, it's being worked on in phab:T385086. — xaosflux Talk 13:43, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
Widespread background:transparent breaking dark mode
It appears that background:transparent ended up in many templates and other places, causing problems in dark mode. The text is illegibly gray-on-gray. Some examples I found are:
- [1]
- Template_talk:Old_moves#Extended-confirmed-protected_edit_request_on_29_January_2025_fix_dark_mode
- Template_talk:Photo_requested#Template-protected_edit_request_on_30_January_2025_fix_dark_mode
When background:transparent is removed, dark mode is fixed, and I do not see a difference after switching back to light mode and refreshing. It is not clear what it was originally added for, as the default background is already transparent. I propose that we go over all instances of insource:"background:transparent", and for each, either remove it or add a hidden comment why it is necessary. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 00:57, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- In many cases it simply didn't need to be added. In many others it was added as a default for a parameter, and much of the time before we had ParserFunctions, so there wasn't another option. Otherwise, simple inertia. Its uses can almost always be removed or rewritten to something like
{{#if:{{{background|}}}|background: {{{background}}}}}. Izno (talk) 02:05, 3 February 2025 (UTC)- And in these few, I presume they were probably using
NavFrameoriginally which had a default background that was being overridden. Izno (talk) 02:28, 3 February 2025 (UTC)- Thank you for accepting the ERs and providing the technical explanation! 173.206.40.108 (talk) 02:46, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Please see this MediaWiki page for more detailed advice before proceeding with a bulk task. If you're going to bother doing these edits, please ensure that each instance of
background:is accompanied by acolor:– Jonesey95 (talk) 04:22, 3 February 2025 (UTC)- Also, the search link above understates the issue; searching all namespaces results in 152,000 pages, many of which are transcluded in other pages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:36, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Please see this MediaWiki page for more detailed advice before proceeding with a bulk task. If you're going to bother doing these edits, please ensure that each instance of
- Thank you for accepting the ERs and providing the technical explanation! 173.206.40.108 (talk) 02:46, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- And in these few, I presume they were probably using
- Compare similar discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket#Interested in joining WP:Cricket (from America, even!), but asking for a favor first... Uncle G (talk) 10:36, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
Using a template from another wiki
Is there a way to use a template from another language wikipedia? It is a hassle to have to create a whole infobox just for one article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:19, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Well, some templates have templatedata that define how to change arguments from one template to another template linked on wikidata. ContentTranslate can then use this information and transfer the information automatically. You should still edit the data. Can not tell if that applies in your case since you did not specify which template it is. Snævar (talk) 19:36, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- The template I want is fr:Modèle:Infobox Quartier. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:03, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Templates in one Wikipedia cannot be transcluded in another. Copying the Template code from one Wikipedia and fixing it to translate local namespaces/variables is often needed. The Lua code and magic variables itself should be the same regardless of language, but namespaces might be different. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 20:07, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Why would the Lua code be the same? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:11, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Hawkeye7 Some of the syntax is same, not all; using ChatGPT and correcting it afterwards, came up with {{Infobox neighborhood quarter}}, does this work for you? Will add documentation now...I also noticed {{Infobox Settlement}} exists already ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 20:20, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you! I know about {{Infobox Settlement}} but it is unsuitable. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:22, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- What the? {{Infobox neighborhood quarter}} gives {{Template:Infobox neighborhood quarter}} Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:25, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you! I know about {{Infobox Settlement}} but it is unsuitable. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:22, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Hawkeye7 Some of the syntax is same, not all; using ChatGPT and correcting it afterwards, came up with {{Infobox neighborhood quarter}}, does this work for you? Will add documentation now...I also noticed {{Infobox Settlement}} exists already ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 20:20, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Why would the Lua code be the same? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:11, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Templates in one Wikipedia cannot be transcluded in another. Copying the Template code from one Wikipedia and fixing it to translate local namespaces/variables is often needed. The Lua code and magic variables itself should be the same regardless of language, but namespaces might be different. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 20:07, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- The template I want is fr:Modèle:Infobox Quartier. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:03, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-06
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
- Editors who use the "Special characters" editing-toolbar menu can now see the 32 special characters you have used most recently, across editing sessions on that wiki. This change should help make it easier to find the characters you use most often. The feature is in both the 2010 wikitext editor and VisualEditor. [2]
- Editors using the 2010 wikitext editor can now create sublists with correct indentation by selecting the line(s) you want to indent and then clicking the toolbar buttons.[3] You can now also insert
<code>tags using a new toolbar button.[4] Thanks to user stjn for these improvements. - Help is needed to ensure the citation generator works properly on each wiki.
- (1) Administrators should update the local versions of the page
MediaWiki:Citoid-template-type-map.jsonto include entries forpreprint,standard, anddataset; Here are example diffs to replicate for 'preprint' and for 'standard' and 'dataset'. - (2.1) If the citoid map in the citation template used for these types of references is missing, one will need to be added. (2.2) If the citoid map does exist, the TemplateData will need to be updated to include new field names. Here are example updates for 'preprint' and for 'standard' and 'dataset'. The new fields that may need to be supported are
archiveID,identifier,repository,organization,repositoryLocation,committee, andversionNumber. [5]
- (1) Administrators should update the local versions of the page
- One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Central Kanuri (
w:knc:) [6] 
View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the OCR (optical character recognition) tool used for Wikisource now supports a new language, Church Slavonic. [7]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 00:06, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
Why does searching for an exact phrase not work on a phone?
Take for example: [8] and [9]. If you search for a phrase like this on a desktop (either on the mobile or desktop site), you get the intended result immediately. Search for it using a cell phone (again, either on the mobile or desktop site), and it searches for all of the words individually, and your intended result is nowhere to be found. What gives? Home Lander (talk) 20:24, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Interestingly, I just discovered that clicking directly on these links with my phone does load the results as intended. But if I manually type the phrase into the search, I get a list of random results containing all or some of the individual words I searched for. Home Lander (talk) 20:27, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Home Lander: If your problem is with phrases in quotes like your examples then I guess your phone uses special characters instead of straight quotation marks. Some special characters are ignored by search. iOS has such a feature called "Smart Punctuation". PrimeHunter (talk) 21:05, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Sure enough, I have an iPhone and the quotation mark shown on the keyboard appears to be a standard one, but when entered into the search bar it looks to be curly. I suppose this probably affects all iPhones? If so, would there be a way to make search listen to curly quotes? Home Lander (talk) 21:11, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Now filed as phab:T385525. I don't know if this is up to us or Apple to resolve though (i.e. it might have unwanted side-effects to automatically convert those characters back). Quiddity (talk) 21:20, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Home Lander: You can disable iOS "Smart Punctuation" under Settings, General, Keyboard. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:30, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, that worked like a charm! Home Lander (talk) 00:46, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Sure enough, I have an iPhone and the quotation mark shown on the keyboard appears to be a standard one, but when entered into the search bar it looks to be curly. I suppose this probably affects all iPhones? If so, would there be a way to make search listen to curly quotes? Home Lander (talk) 21:11, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- It seems to work as expected for me, in both mobile Firefox (logged-in) and mobile Firefox Focus (anon). I have to include the quotation marks around the string of text, and specify the prefix, i.e.
"immediate block of sockpuppet ip" prefix=Wikipedia:Administrators(or select the appropriate namespace checkbox) so that it goes beyond article-namespace. - My only guess is it might be due to curly marks, and testing confirms this doesn't work properly (I manually copied curly quotes from the infobox of Quotation mark) and PrimeHunter commented just as I was typing this with the same info! Quiddity (talk) 21:08, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Home Lander: If your problem is with phrases in quotes like your examples then I guess your phone uses special characters instead of straight quotation marks. Some special characters are ignored by search. iOS has such a feature called "Smart Punctuation". PrimeHunter (talk) 21:05, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
Issue with The Wrong Move
Hi, I'm going to try to describe this the best I can. When looking up the movie The Wrong Move, using the search function of Wikipedia, you can see the article and below a small description. There is an issue with the description, it says 1975 West Germany film. But obviously the brackets ([[]]) should not be in the description, since that part is not a link. But I don't know where to update that, either on Wikipedia or Wikidata. Attaching a picture of the issue here, just to be sure I'm clear. Thank you in advance for the help, Cimoi (talk) 05:32, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Cimoi. Sorted (I hope). Someone was trying to use wikilinks in the WP:short description, but they don't work in those. Nthep (talk) 07:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's a good fix for this one article, but if there's an issue with {{Infobox film/short description}}, it could be affecting a large number of articles. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:58, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- It could use {{Delink}} instead of {{KillMarkers}}. Nardog (talk) 08:05, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, Delink works better. Part of the problem is that Template:Country2nationality does not track unrecognized country names. If someone familiar with Lua is able to add a tracking category to that template's module, that would be helpful. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:23, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- It could use {{Delink}} instead of {{KillMarkers}}. Nardog (talk) 08:05, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's a good fix for this one article, but if there's an issue with {{Infobox film/short description}}, it could be affecting a large number of articles. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:58, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you everyone for the fix and the follow-ups to fix this more systematically. I'm happy to now know what this is called and how to look for it! Cimoi (talk) 15:30, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
"Lua error in Module:TFA_title at line 48: assign to undeclared variable 'today'."
As of today, editing any mainspace article (whole page or section), throws this error above the edit window:
What has caused this? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:28, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
I am suddenly seeing the message "Lua error in Module:TFA_title at line 48: assign to undeclared variable 'today'." above the edit window when I edit pages in article space (e.g. Hindu Temple of Wisconsin). Module:TFA_title doesn't seem to have changed recently. William Avery (talk) 08:30, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- I'm seeing it for articles too, but not for this page. Nurg (talk) 08:38, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- @MSGJ: Does this have to do with your change here? S.A. Julio (talk) 08:50, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
The same message appears at Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main without opening the edit window. Nurg (talk) 09:03, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- I edited Module:TFA title to remove an unintended global that was causing the above message. I don't know what triggered the error to occur now. Johnuniq (talk) 09:16, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Apologies, that's to do with my recent edit request here, which added a require to a module that uses the strict mode, therefore making TFA title strict on accident too. Certainly not a potential error case I expected. Aidan9382 (talk) 10:06, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Module:TFA title had a bug which needed to be exposed before it could be fixed. It's good that your edit request unearthed it. Johnuniq (talk) 10:20, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- That said it's probably poor practice for modules used as transitive dependencies to require strict. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:30, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's probably poorer practice for modules not to require strict. Izno (talk) 00:24, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's conceivable that a module could have a good reason to use a global variable, although I have not seen one. However, this module had a bug which was only found because strict was used. That's good. Johnuniq (talk) 01:06, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's probably poorer practice for modules not to require strict. Izno (talk) 00:24, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- That said it's probably poor practice for modules used as transitive dependencies to require strict. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:30, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Module:TFA title had a bug which needed to be exposed before it could be fixed. It's good that your edit request unearthed it. Johnuniq (talk) 10:20, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Apologies, that's to do with my recent edit request here, which added a require to a module that uses the strict mode, therefore making TFA title strict on accident too. Certainly not a potential error case I expected. Aidan9382 (talk) 10:06, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- I edited Module:TFA title to remove an unintended global that was causing the above message. I don't know what triggered the error to occur now. Johnuniq (talk) 09:16, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
Interwiki linking to Moore Wikipedia
Is there a way to make an interwiki link to Moore Wikipedia? The standard way to do this would be [[mos:Soraogo]], but that links to the enwiki MOS. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 02:51, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
{{#interwikilink:mos|Soraogo}}mos:Soraogo Or use#langlink:instead for an interwiki link of the sort Wikidata would produce. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:05, 5 February 2025 (UTC)- Thank you! HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 03:07, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- m:mos:Soraogo is shorter and recommended by Help:Interwiki_linking#Prefixes. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 03:15, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- My understanding from Help:Interwiki linking § Prefix codes for linking to Wikimedia sister projects is that
w:mos:is the suggested prefix string. isaacl (talk) 04:24, 5 February 2025 (UTC)- MOS is a special case in which w:mos:foo doesn't actually work. * Pppery * it has begun... 04:26, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- My understanding from Help:Interwiki linking § Prefix codes for linking to Wikimedia sister projects is that
AfD Statistics for User
We need a little jump start for updating AfD Statistics for User. It was doing fine until recently. Thanks for any assistant you can give. — Maile (talk) 02:24, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- WP:REPLAG as usual. Probably due to T384592. This happens from time to time for a day or two and there's nothing anyone can do about it. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:35, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for the helpful info. — Maile (talk) 02:50, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
FYI - Stil no updates at all. — Maile (talk) 10:54, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
Font changed !?
Is anybody notice that the whole English Wikipedia's font got changed ?
Font size so small , narrow between words , lines and darker.
Did English Wikipedia's css or js changed recently ?
Did I missed something happened in community or Phabricator ?
How can I change that to last version ?Comrade John (talk) 13:14, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- There might be an option in appearance of your preferences. Some skins have different styles for text. APenguinThatIsSilly("talk") 18:45, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- There seems to have been a recent discussion about the wikis styles, but afiak it does not pertain to font size much other than infoboxes. APenguinThatIsSilly("talk") 18:49, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- What browser are you using? Maybe this is the same thing as #Firefox and Monobook above. Matma Rex talk 18:56, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
Redlinks are blue in mobile hatnotes
See Special:Permalink/1260322885 on mobile, where the bluelink in the hatnote actually goes to a non-existent article. Jon (WMF) said that this is intentional, which I think is baffling given that readers and editors have come to expect that bluelinks are supposed to go somewhere extant; they have refused to make any change, so the English Wikipedia will have to do so on its own. I'm therefore seeking thoughts on whether that would be a desirable change – they state that this can be done by either editing the styles CSS page for the module or by creating a skin-specific exemption to the WMF's default (interface administrator needed for the latter).
(Posting here because Module talk:Hatnote has a edit notice saying that I should consider using the village pump instead; will post note there pointing to this discussion). Sdrqaz (talk) 03:51, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- This is something of a continuation of Module talk:Hatnote#Mobile styling, but I've left a more pointed comment on that task. I would recommend having the discussion at the module talk page, not here. Izno (talk) 04:38, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- This also prevents visited links from having the right colour. As I don’t see any reason for this to exist, I re-opened that task and created a patch to remove that link colour override in Minerva. stjn 20:04, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
Creation of new citation template for the U.S. Gov Damage Assessment Toolkit (DAT)
The U.S. Government has a website called the Damage Assessment Toolkit (DAT). This website is an interactive map and database, where the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration uploads information regarding any tornado in the United States between roughly 2011 to 2025.
Note: This was directed to VPT by administrators after a decent discussion on the Wikipedia Discord Server.
Background of issue
The DAT (screenshot of it seen to the right; Image 1 & Image 2) is cited on hundreds of articles, including GAs and FAs. At several GANs/FACs, as well as on general article talk pages (and at the WikiProject Weather talk page), several users have expressed the desire for a separate citation template for the DAT. Why? Well, the screenshot to the right (Image 1) is a good example. The red line and subsequent triangles along the red line represent the U.S. government's information regarding the 2024 Greenfield tornado (92,000 page view article). The red line represents the track of the tornado and the triangles along the red line represent every "Damage Point" documented by the National Weather Service.
Each of these "Damage Point" triangles is clickable and by clicking the triangle, you can see it contains information. Image 3 to the right shows the information regarding a water tower hit by the 2023 Rolling Fork–Silver City tornado. This specific water tower is (1) actually discussed and mentioned directly in the Wikipedia article and (2) used as a photograph on the Tornadoes of 2023#March 24–27 (United States) article. In fact, that photograph is the photograph of it on the DAT. Since the DAT has photographs, the Commons has a stand-alone copyright-related template for it ({{PD-USGov-DAT}}). However, as seen in Image 3, the DAT does not just contain photographs. Specifically, information from the DAT is cited in the article including: The rating ("EF4
") and the comments, "Collapsed water tower, bent just above near base, with anchoring pulled from concrete. Tank contained water, caused crater on ground impact. Potentially compromised by flying debris.
"
Now, why is this a problem? So, editors and readers alike have to manually change the date in the top right corner of the website (Image 1, Image 2) to match the date desired. The DAT is always being updated/changed, since hundreds of tornadoes occur in the U.S. every year. Because of this, the DAT automatically shows only the last week. Everything from more than a week ago is stored and accessible, by anyone, as long as the date is changed. For example, so see the DAT information for the 2013 Moore tornado (263,000-yearly viewed article), users need to change the date to May 19, 2013 to May 21, 2013. After the date is changed, users have to manually zoom into the area desired. The DAT shows the entire U.S. when it is first loaded up. Once loaded, users can zoom (just like on Google Maps) into the desired area.
- To See this, I recommend setting the date from May 19, 2013 to May 21, 2013 and then zooming in on southern Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to see the entire 2013 Moore tornado.
Due to the interactivity of the DAT, there is no "triangle-specific" or even "tornado-specific" URLs to cite; just the base DAT URL from above. This has led to some incidents of reviewers being unable to instantly verify the information and some other user having to explain how they can verify the information (Talk:2024 Greenfield tornado#Failed verification an example of this issue and subsequent discussion, where Sumanuil, a non-weather editor, was unable to verify the information in the article and another user (myself) had to explain how to verify the information).
What is being requested?
Since URL-specific citations are not able to be created, a citation template is being requested for it (even requested in the past at Wikipedia:Requested templates by Departure– in November 2024, which led nowhere).
The main things the DAT is used as a citation for on Wikipedia articles is the following items:
- Tornado Tracks
- Tornado Length {how long was it on the ground for; distance}
- Tornado Width {how wide was the tornado; distance}
- Tornado Track comments {statements by the U.S. government on the tornado; press releases}
- "Damage Points"
- The rating of the location(s) on the Enhanced Fujita scale
- Estimated wind speed at the location(s) {in miles-per-hour}
- Damage Point Comments {statements by the U.S. government on the tornado; press releases}
Is there a way for a template to be made which would allow users to cite the DAT-base URL and have options to specify the date, location, and then options for the different things above? The current citation for the DAT (as seen on the Tornadoes of 2024 article) is this: [1] The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:46, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
- +1 - DAT is likely the most cited resource in the tornado editor community. Without the citation template, it will cause confusion. Wildfireupdateman :) (talk) 16:35, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- @WeatherWriter So the idea is that you'd have a citation template that includes these instructions, along the lines of -
- Information on [track length and wind speed] sourced from the "Damage Assessment Toolkit" database, NOAA (2024). Retrieved 2024-01-20.
To access the DAT report, set the dates to cover [2013-05-19] to [2013-05-21], reload, and zoom in to the affected region. Information is available by clicking on the highlighted markers.
- Information on [track length and wind speed] sourced from the "Damage Assessment Toolkit" database, NOAA (2024). Retrieved 2024-01-20.
- I'm not sure offhand of another one that has detailed instructions like this, but {{cite ODNB}} is an example of a wrapper to a standard citation template to add a standard note about access conditions, and that seems to work reasonably well.
- I can see how you could knock together a citation template for this and call it along the lines of {{cite DAT|type=track length and wind speed|eventstart=2005-05-22|eventend=2013-05-21|year=2024|retrieved=2024-01-20}}. If that sounds suitable, I can draft you up something? Andrew Gray (talk) 23:18, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- Track length and wind speed aren't going to help much at all to anyone verifying. Filtering by starting latitude and longitude and including the event_id parameter if possible would be much more helpful. Departure– (talk) 23:30, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- One more thing: the DAT accepts selecting a single date, from my experience. Setting both the start and end dates to the same date will show all events from just that date. Departure– (talk) 23:32, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Departure– "Track length and wind speed" there is a placeholder - my assumption was you'd put some free text in there to say what details were being sourced. For lat and long - I can see why they'd be useful, but I also can't work out where a user would actually input them into the system, other than by using them to work out where to zoom in?
- I've put together a scratch version at User:Andrew Gray/test - this takes an option for date (single or start/end), "sourcing" (ie what's being sourced here, free text), and lat/long (optional). Event ID is included if known, but it looks like a lot of entries don't have one so I've left it optional as well. Feel free to play around with it! It uses only one parser function (#if) and hopefully that should be reasonably self-explanatory. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:49, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Honestly, the test version you made would probably work. Just a clarifying question Andrew Gray: Does the "sourcing" parameter show or not show to readers? In the two examples on User:Andrew Gray/test, the parameter is "
| sourcing = damage
". In the first example, it displays "Information on damage sourced..." and the second example, marked the same, it shows, "Information on this event sourced...". If I was choosing from the examples, the first option would be the best, since the key thing is for readers. - Also, a second question on the "sourcing" parameter: How exactly would that work? I.e. is there set words (like "Damage", "Wind speed", ect...) or is it free-choice? I'm just trying to figure out how that parameter would work exactly.
- But yeah, that is more or less exactly what we are hoping for! I appreciate the work you are doing to help the tornado editors out! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 23:21, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's free text - "Information on this event sourced from..." where this event is replaced by whatever you add to the |sourcing= ... element. If that element is blank, it just says "this event" (since that seems generic enough to cover most eventualities).
- If you're happy with it then I think you can just go ahead and copy to something like {{cite DAT}} - we can sort out the documentation and so on once you've got a title. Andrew Gray (talk) 00:10, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Andrew Gray: I'm happy with the template! I am not super familiar with template creations, but I went ahead and copied it into {{cite DAT}}. Could you check it over to (1) make sure it works properly now and (2) do the documentation page? I'm trying to watch what you do so I would know how to do this in the future. There is a couple of other weather sources that are unique-enough for their own citation templates, so watching this one's process is teaching me about how to make them going forward. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 02:42, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- Do you want me to quickly test it in an article, assuming you haven’t already? Either way, looks visually appealing. :) EF5 13:21, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Andrew Gray:
Unless I'm doing something wrong, it appears to be broken.EF5 13:50, 5 February 2025 (UTC)- Nevermind, seems to have just been a date issue. EF5 14:06, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- @EF5@WeatherWriter Looks good! I've set up a documentation subpage to tidy up the template a little, and I've tweaked it so it no longer has excess whitespace after the entry (it looked a bit odd on the Selma page). Andrew Gray (talk) 21:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- Nevermind, seems to have just been a date issue. EF5 14:06, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Andrew Gray:
- Do you want me to quickly test it in an article, assuming you haven’t already? Either way, looks visually appealing. :) EF5 13:21, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Andrew Gray: I'm happy with the template! I am not super familiar with template creations, but I went ahead and copied it into {{cite DAT}}. Could you check it over to (1) make sure it works properly now and (2) do the documentation page? I'm trying to watch what you do so I would know how to do this in the future. There is a couple of other weather sources that are unique-enough for their own citation templates, so watching this one's process is teaching me about how to make them going forward. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 02:42, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- Honestly, the test version you made would probably work. Just a clarifying question Andrew Gray: Does the "sourcing" parameter show or not show to readers? In the two examples on User:Andrew Gray/test, the parameter is "
- One more thing: the DAT accepts selecting a single date, from my experience. Setting both the start and end dates to the same date will show all events from just that date. Departure– (talk) 23:32, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- Track length and wind speed aren't going to help much at all to anyone verifying. Filtering by starting latitude and longitude and including the event_id parameter if possible would be much more helpful. Departure– (talk) 23:30, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- Support – The DAT is a highly useful repository of information for tornado events and their impacts. Having a template to more easily cite it, along with a way to cite where within the DAT information was found, would be highly beneficial for both editors inserting the source and readers looking for where the info was found. Chris ☁️(talk - contribs) 04:23, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- +1, this would be extremely beneficial to the tornado-space as a whole. A few articles that use the Damage Assessment Toolkit as a reference:
- 2011 Cullman–Arab tornado (GA)
- 2015 Garland tornado (GA)
- Tornado outbreak and derecho of April 1–3, 2024 (GA)
- 2011 Ringgold–Apison tornado (GA)
I could name several more, but my point is proven. EF5 13:37, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- +1 This came up in the FAC for Belvidere Apollo Theatre collapse - the DAT is a bit of a pain to work with, and it came up for sourcing an image in the aftermath. Ideally, an established reliable source wouldn't require this much explaining to FAC reviewers, so a template is definitely needed. The FAC passed, by the way, so now we've officially got a featured article to add to the articles that would benefit from this template. Departure– (talk) 16:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
References
- ^ Branches of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; National Weather Service; National Severe Storms Laboratory (2024). "Damage Assessment Toolkit". DAT. United States Department of Commerce. Archived from the original on 2020-04-23. Retrieved 2024-01-20.
Created account without visiting the Wiki
I'm not sure where to put this, but I went to m:Special:GlobalContributions/ClueBot NG (because I was bored), showed no results, and then closed it. Immediately after, I got the automatic Welcome message at w:ml:User talk:Myrealnamm-alt from the bot. I never visited the ML wiki directly. It might have to do with the fact that ClueBot NG has that Wiki attached (look for ml.wikipedia.org).
So GlobalContribs searches edits with the user account, not from the system directly, it seems? Something like that. Myrealnamm's Alternate Account (talk) 19:06, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- I tested it in my alternative account User:PrimeHunter2 and the same happened.[10] It's known that local accounts can be created by MediaWiki and attributed to the user without ever visiting a wiki if an edit is imported. Now it can probably also happen without ever editing any Wikimedia wiki. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:04, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- This seems odd. Now I'm gonna have to start searching if we've accidently linked some metawiki script to mlwiki. — xaosflux Talk 20:50, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Pcoombe (WMF): any chance work you've been doing on meta:MediaWiki:FundraisingBanners/LocalizeJS-2025.js could be causing a client to attach to mlwiki all of a sudden? — xaosflux Talk 21:02, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- OK it's not that. — xaosflux Talk 21:12, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- Other thought is that some central notice is providing a link, that some browsers may be opportunistically loading. — xaosflux Talk 21:09, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Pcoombe (WMF): any chance work you've been doing on meta:MediaWiki:FundraisingBanners/LocalizeJS-2025.js could be causing a client to attach to mlwiki all of a sudden? — xaosflux Talk 21:02, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- This seems odd. Now I'm gonna have to start searching if we've accidently linked some metawiki script to mlwiki. — xaosflux Talk 20:50, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- Testing notes. Simply logging on to metawiki did not cause my Xaosflux2 user to attach to mlwiki. — xaosflux Talk 21:11, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- But using globalcontributions did. — xaosflux Talk 21:12, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- I've opened phab:T385752 on this. — xaosflux Talk 21:16, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
Bug with Media Viewer
Sometimes when I click on an image thumbnail, just a black screen appears instead of the Media Viewer, with no way to exit other than reloading the page without the #/media/ section. This happens most of the time, but sometimes it works as intended.
I am on Firefox 134.0.2 on Arch Linux. QuickQuokka [talk • contribs] 11:51, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- This is probably phab:T385297. Izno (talk) 22:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Izno: I do have XTools enabled! And it works with
?safemode=true. QuickQuokka [talk • contribs] 22:03, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Izno: I do have XTools enabled! And it works with
Huggle - default fonts and their sizes
Hi,I have modified the font and size settings in my Huggle and would like to revert to the original fonts (3 different fonts) and sizes. If anyone possesses this information, I would greatly appreciate your assistance. Thank you in advance. Cassiopeia talk 23:09, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- 12pt "Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" [11]. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 00:54, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- 173.206.40.108 Thank you very much. Regards. Cassiopeia talk 00:23, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
Many Unicode scripts won't load
Many of the fonts at Help:Multilingual_support#Scripts won't render properly for me. I'm running the latest version of Microsoft Edge on the most recent update for Windows 10. I first noticed this when Linear B script wouldn't render. I even tried installing two different fonts that support Linear B onto my PC, and nothing changed.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:43, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- I don't know what 'many' is, but it is expected that a large amount of those scripts indeed will not be installed on peoples machines, especially Windows and especially Windows editions for consumers. You can add additional support by going into the Windows installer and adding more language packs, but this will take up additional disk space. And even then, dozens of the scripts listed there will not be available to you (and Android, macOS/iOS and Windows users) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:43, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
Should Wikipedia be generally internet-compliant?
There is an accessibility problem with several language templates on WP, which may display tofu for readers who don't use the most common browsers and OS's. There's often an easy fix, but the designers of the templates are not generally willing to implement them, and in fact may reverse them. The response I sometimes get, as here, is that it's not Wikipedia's responsibility to be accessible to users, but rather the user's responsibility to select an OS and browser that are compatible with the particular article that they're reading. Isn't it the philosophy of Wikipedia that it should be generally accessible? And that articles have similar accessibility to readers, rather than that depending on which templates happen to be used? — kwami (talk) 02:11, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- This is from Template talk:Korean#this template obscures hangul on Firefox. Can you make a short example, maybe in a sandbox. It would have a {{Korean}} example with some simple wikitext to demonstrate the problem. State what appears on your system. If there is an alternative method to display the same text in a way that works, post that as well. Johnuniq (talk) 04:33, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, the lead of the Hangul article has {{Korean|hangul=한글}}, which gives Korean: 한글.
- As I see it, it displays 'Korean:' followed by two squares with the Unicode character codes D55C and AE00 inside.
- I tried signing out, in case it was a problem with my preferences, but that didn't change the display.
- This is the fix suggested on the talk page, with {{lang|ko-Hang| and {{lang|ko-Hani| replaced with {{lang|ko|. With that implemented, I saw 'Korean: 한글' with the hangul characters displaying properly, as had been the case the last time I'd visited the article.
- I thought the problem was solved, but the fix was reverted with the explanation that it's not the responsibility of template creators to make their templates legible for everyone. — kwami (talk) 07:27, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- BTW, with my backup browser, Falkon, the template displays correctly whether I'm signed in or not. Thus it doesn't appear to be Mint that's incompatible with the template, but Firefox, or at least Firefox for Mint.
- I did update my system/browser as well. No effect. — kwami (talk) 07:32, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, this sounds like a bug in Firefox. Do you see tofu in this table?
| code | result | |
|---|---|---|
| ko-Hang | <span lang="ko-Hang">한글</span>
|
한글 |
| ko | <span lang="ko">한글</span>
|
한글 |
- In that case, please report it to their bugtracker. --rchard2scout (talk) 08:50, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, tofu in row 1, hangul in row 2. Thanks. — kwami (talk) 09:20, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- As I replied at Template:Korean, the problem is with the user's settings for the Linux fontconfig-config package not Firefox or Wikipedia. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 10:06, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- How can it be my settings when I haven't personalized them? And why wouldn't they affect other browsers if it's not Firefox? — kwami (talk) 10:27, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- No tofu using the
linuxmint-22.1-cinnamon-64bit.isolive cd. Please verify that youhaven't personalized them
. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 10:37, 4 February 2025 (UTC)- I wouldn't know how to personalize them. — kwami (talk) 10:46, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Oh yeah, updating sometimes breaks things. I had to reinstall Linux after numbers and symbols started turning into emoji in the Wiktionary Reconstruction: namespace, also due to font problems with
lang=set to values outside ISO 639-1. I recommend reinstalling, which would be a faster solutionthan repeatedly having font problems resurface.Actually, you do have a point about {{korean}} not being ISO 639-compliant as specified by Template:Lang#Syntax_and_usage. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 11:08, 4 February 2025 (UTC)- From that template documentation:
The template also supports properly formatted IETF language tags using subtags that identify the language's script, region, and/or variant. [...] For an up-to-date list of available language, script, region, and variant codes, please refer to the IANA's language subtag registry.
And right there in the subtag registry, "Subtag: Hang" is listed. Soko-Hangis a perfectly valid BCP 47 language tag. --rchard2scout (talk) 14:05, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- From that template documentation:
- Oh yeah, updating sometimes breaks things. I had to reinstall Linux after numbers and symbols started turning into emoji in the Wiktionary Reconstruction: namespace, also due to font problems with
- The sudo code had no effect, even after restarting my computer. — kwami (talk) 11:00, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- I wouldn't know how to personalize them. — kwami (talk) 10:46, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- No tofu using the
- How can it be my settings when I haven't personalized them? And why wouldn't they affect other browsers if it's not Firefox? — kwami (talk) 10:27, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- In that case, please report it to their bugtracker. --rchard2scout (talk) 08:50, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- What is the exact version of your Mint and flavors? Same for Firefox? In Firefox's
about:preferences#general> Fonts > Advanced > Fonts for > Korean, does yours has the same as below?- Proportional – Sans Serif
- Serif – Default (Noto Serif)
- Sans-serif – Default (Noto Sans)
- Monospace – Default (DejaVu Sans Mono)
- Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above – Checked
- — 🧧🍊 Paper9oll 🍊🧧 (🔔 • 📝) 15:10, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks! That fixed the issue.
- The defaults were different -- they were all DejaVu, not just the monospace -- though 'choose own font' was checked. I changed the defaults to Noto CJK Korean, and that fixed it. Though why Ko and Ko-Hani should be affected differently when 'choose own font' hasn't changed is beyond me. Nor why Korean should be a problem when Japanese isn't with the same generic font settings.
- Changing 'other writing systems' from the system default ['serif', 'sans-serif', 'monospace'] to Noto also fixed Burmese, another tofu script in the lang templats that displayed correctly otherwise.
- It still strikes me as odd that our language templates override the system default so that scripts no longer display correctly, when not templating text allows the system to display it properly. I would think a language template should improve accessibility, not compromise it. — kwami (talk) 23:07, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's more an issue of the world not being ideal. Whatever WE decide or not, there will always be situations that experience a problem. We can't fix the entire world around us. Sometimes a browser is broken, sometimes the OS, sometimes an installed font, sometimes the config of the user's install etc etc, sometimes the default selection algorithms for font fallback just happens to be less than ideal in a particular situation. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:54, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
White space below navbox
Please see the navboxes at the foot of this page, where two or three line returns separate the two if they're in that order, but not if the order is inverted. I'm not clever enough to see what's happening here, hoping someone else will be. (note: I've just edited them to make them autocollapse, but the space was showing before I did so too). Many thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:52, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Justlettersandnumbers It's because there's a line break at the top of Template:Cattle breeds of Spain, the second navbox template. I've removed it now, should be fine now. Myrealnamm's Alternate Account (talk) 19:14, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks so much, Myrealnamm-alt! Even I should have been able to see that, but I didn't look in the right place. If only all of life's problems could be so easily resolved! Many thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:36, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Justlettersandnumbers: In addition to which, both navboxes had a newline between the "real" template code and the
<noinclude>tag (fixed in these edits). This newline can cause the gap, or accentuate one that is caused elsewhere. Basically, with template transclusion, the whole of the template code is copied to the destination page, after which the noinclude portions are removed, so extra newlines are carried over. This is covered at WP:NOINCLUDE. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:21, 6 February 2025 (UTC)- Thanks so much, Redrose64! I've created a number of templates but I'm a total amateur at it, expert guidance is most welcome! Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:19, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Justlettersandnumbers: In addition to which, both navboxes had a newline between the "real" template code and the
- Thanks so much, Myrealnamm-alt! Even I should have been able to see that, but I didn't look in the right place. If only all of life's problems could be so easily resolved! Many thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:36, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
Firefox and Monobook
Does anyone else who's using the MonoBook skin notice that the text seems slightly...different on today's Firefox update (135)? Maybe a smidge smaller? I can't quite define it but there's a definite visual difference for me. I think. - The Bushranger One ping only 23:52, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Looked it up and apparently this is intentional. Guess I'll have to get used to it. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:21, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- If I'm reading the patches in that bug correctly, it may be possible to restore the old behavior by editing Firefox config. Can you try to visit about:config (see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-config-editor-firefox), and create a preference with the name
gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.force_gdi_classic_for_familiesand a value of type "String" and valueArial,Consolas,Courier New,Microsoft Sans Serif,Segoe UI,Tahoma,Trebuchet MS,Verdana? It may require reloading the pages or restarting Firefox afterwards. I don't actually see any difference on my computer when doing that, so maybe this option for text rendering has already been removed completely, but maybe I just have some other preferences that cause it to have to effect. Matma Rex talk 18:55, 5 February 2025 (UTC) - Another option I found by browsing related bugs is setting
gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.rendering_modeto2(default is-1). This one has an effect for me, I took screenshots for anyone else who's curious:- Default (
-1): https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F58364666 - GDI classic (
2): https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F58364667
- Default (
- The GDI classic mode seemingly applies much stronger font hinting (it tries to snap characters to pixel boundaries on your screen), which sometimes causes text to be significantly wider or narrower depending on the font size, and generally causes it to appear more crisp at the cost of bad kerning. In my screenshots, you can see this effect very clearly in some places, e.g. the "unwatch" tab, the "Download as PDF" link on the sidebar, or the "Symbolism" link in the table of contents.
- Note that unlike the other option, this one will apply to all fonts, and may make some of them look terrible. Matma Rex talk 19:39, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- Eh, the longer I've used it I still notice the difference but it's not enough of a problem to muck about with about:config - I'm getting used to it. - The Bushranger One ping only 23:15, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- I use Firefox and Monobook. Loading the two screenshots into different tabs, and placing our actual article into another tab between those two, allows direct comparison by switching between tabs. Using that method, I find that I have GDI Classic, but I don't remember ever setting that. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:05, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Firefox 135 was only released 2 days ago [12], so it's possible your Firefox is still an older version – you can check that in the menu, Help → About Firefox. Matma Rex talk 21:21, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- I use Firefox and Monobook. Loading the two screenshots into different tabs, and placing our actual article into another tab between those two, allows direct comparison by switching between tabs. Using that method, I find that I have GDI Classic, but I don't remember ever setting that. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:05, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Eh, the longer I've used it I still notice the difference but it's not enough of a problem to muck about with about:config - I'm getting used to it. - The Bushranger One ping only 23:15, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- If I'm reading the patches in that bug correctly, it may be possible to restore the old behavior by editing Firefox config. Can you try to visit about:config (see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-config-editor-firefox), and create a preference with the name
Unused categories script no longer functioning
Hi, I've been using the script User:Qwerfjkl/scripts/unusedCategories.js for almost three years without issue. A few days ago, the script suddenly stopped working, but only here on my laptop at home. At my work desktop, it functions perfectly fine. Any idea can could be causing an issue on my laptop? See also User talk:Qwerfjkl#Unused categories script. ✗plicit 00:51, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- Just as randomly as the script stopped working, it randomly decided to start working again. 🤷🏻♂️ This thread can be archived. ✗plicit 23:48, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
Reply tool breaks LISTGAP accessibility guidance
Hello, I've noticed a lot of MOS:LISTGAP violations in discussions recently (I don't think they started recently, but I've been noticing them a lot recently). Upon investigation, it seems that the reply tool does not seem to respect LISTGAP when it is used to reply to comments - as an example, see this edit. The comment being replied to (mine) had an initial * only... but the reply tool put this comment as double indented with both colons. It should have put it as *: to comply with LISTGAP and be accessible. By breaking LISTGAP it means that, even if this is a one time issue (glitch or otherwise), any future replies will also be breaking LISTGAP.
What I'm not sure of is whether this is a recurring issue with the Reply tool, whether it's only in specific circumstances that it occurs (which is still a bug, imo, and should be fixed), or whether these are one time random glitches/issues. Has anyone else noticed this problem? Is it a recurring pattern that can be identified - whether only in some cases or in all? What's the best way to get this resolved, given it's a MediaWiki feature rather than an enwp gadget/similar? -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:38, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Not ReplyTool's fault - it's only carrying forward an earlier LISTGAP violation, which is the least-bad thing it can do under the circumstances. * Pppery * it has begun... 04:39, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Ah, so because the comment immediately before it was a LISTGAP violation, it continues it? That's... I mean, I see a clear way for it to not have that happen, but I can see it is the least bad thing to do.
- I find it appalling that in 2025 people still don't have the simple care for those of us who may need to use screen readers (which, for the record, does not include me, but does include some of my friends) to use their *s and :s appropriately. I presume the only solution is to make it an actual policy to follow LISTGAP with sanctions if it's not followed.. but that'd be a discussion (that would go nowhere) for VPP if anything.
- Thanks for the reply User:Pppery, this can probably be closed unless anyone else sees any technical problems. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:45, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Changing the list type at a given nesting level causes the wikitext parser to end the current set of nested lists up to the changed list type and start new lists, which results in screen readers making list end announcements followed by list start announcements. So the discontinuity happens once, and subsequent replies at higher nesting levels do not cause extra announcements. However, taking the thread to which you referred as an example, the first level bullet list style resumes after all the subreplies, so there is another discontinuity, creating one extra list end/start announcement to reset from a first level non-bulleted list to a first level bullet list.
- The reply tool could attempt to fix situations like these, but... there are editors who insist on the correctness of their preferred markup (many of whom don't realize that the markup is generating nested lists), and as I recall there were corner cases not being handled well when the development team tried to implement more elaborate solutions, so it chose the current approach. isaacl (talk) 05:54, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
Random proposal
The interface CSS can be edited so the bullet indent is half as wide. The errors exposed by the jagged indentation will make sighted people finally care about WP:*:.
Alternatively, a bot could continuously go over all talk pages and fix stuff like this. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 05:15, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- User:IndentBot ran for a period of time, but is no longer active. Although many common cases can be fixed mechanically, there are many cases that require understanding the thread of replies to devise the best approach to reformat the nested lists. (I miss it as it significantly reduced the amount of fixing I did manually.) isaacl (talk) 05:40, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Bluntly, I can't see any case other than the case where the * is the last case of the indent and is sandwiched between two lower level indents (i.e. it's a "new" bulleted list) where a bot couldn't fix it. But I'm not saying they don't exist. I just think all other cases should be trivial to deal with in a bot's code. Not for me to do, however, with my mediocre Python skills (my coding experienced is in heavily specialized languages that wouldn't lend to building a wikibot). -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 05:47, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Cases that I have to examine carefully include outdents, multiple paragraphs in a bulleted list item, and sublists embedded within a bulleted list item where there is text below the sublist without a bullet. To fix it up while preserving the original appearance as much as possible requires understanding the intent of the markup, and that's something that goes beyond simple regular expression pattern-matching that many bots perform. isaacl (talk) 06:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- I'm annoyed with outdents as a concept in general. They should be handled automatically by the software. It is not hard to say "when the indentation exceeds (number), place a pictoral representation and then reduce the displayed indentation to the initial indentation level". Paragraphs in a bulleted list can be resolved through using paragraph breaks rather than line breaks. Same with text below the sublist without a bullet.Ultimately, if we are tolerating these "methods" of conversation that violate widely accepted accessibility standards... that's our own fault. It's not an excuse for not fixing those methods to comply with accessibility standards, especially when doing so is not hard. As an example, the {{pb}} template would apply a paragraph break to any of the situations you mention without being any where significantly more work for those making the statements. You'll notice I utilized that template in my reply here, rather than a line-break+reindent. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 06:41, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- I fix this stuff all the time and I've written my own guidance page on recommended markup for different scenarios. (Note continuing a bulleted list item after an embedded sublist requires more markup than a paragraph break.) As I alluded to five years ago, I think the most practical solution will be for everyone to use a standard reply mechanism that can manage discussion threads to have the desired structure. I believe the reply tool was to some degree influenced by that discussion thread (by which I mean the overall thread, not my contribution), and is a good first step towards universal improvement. isaacl (talk) 06:59, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, I’ve taken a look at that page and I think it’s a good start. But I doubt there’s much appetite for enforcing it as policy. It makes more work for editors. So all we can do is fix it when we see it for now. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 07:16, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- We also have WP:COLAS, which I frequently link in my edit summaries. It was written by RexxS (talk · contribs), after discussing the matter in a Wikipedia Meetup that included myself. Sadly, RexxS was dragged to ARBCOM for attempting to fix badly-mixed indents in a thread; and they jumped before they could be pushed. But people still don't want to get it; see for example these six edits. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:28, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- As an aside, the arbitration case request for the editor in question did not discuss wikitext markup for discussion threads. The evidence and workshop did discuss edit-warring related to wikitext markup for discussion threads, and the extremely loud argument that ensued. isaacl (talk) 00:55, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- To continue the aside... people should be able to restore accessibility to pages where it does not impact others. Those edit warring to reduce accessibility should be the ones sanctioned - but that's a discussion for VPP. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 01:32, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- WP:TPO is at the guideline level and allows fixing LISTGAP for screen readers. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 01:35, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- As an aside, the arbitration case request for the editor in question did not discuss wikitext markup for discussion threads. The evidence and workshop did discuss edit-warring related to wikitext markup for discussion threads, and the extremely loud argument that ensued. isaacl (talk) 00:55, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- We also have WP:COLAS, which I frequently link in my edit summaries. It was written by RexxS (talk · contribs), after discussing the matter in a Wikipedia Meetup that included myself. Sadly, RexxS was dragged to ARBCOM for attempting to fix badly-mixed indents in a thread; and they jumped before they could be pushed. But people still don't want to get it; see for example these six edits. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:28, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, I’ve taken a look at that page and I think it’s a good start. But I doubt there’s much appetite for enforcing it as policy. It makes more work for editors. So all we can do is fix it when we see it for now. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 07:16, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
automatically by the software
: testwiki:Template:Automatic_outdent_test/testcases- The problem is what will happen if a user wants to reply to an earlier comment that is the same level as a newer outdent. Without automation, a human can remove the outdent. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 09:12, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- I fix this stuff all the time and I've written my own guidance page on recommended markup for different scenarios. (Note continuing a bulleted list item after an embedded sublist requires more markup than a paragraph break.) As I alluded to five years ago, I think the most practical solution will be for everyone to use a standard reply mechanism that can manage discussion threads to have the desired structure. I believe the reply tool was to some degree influenced by that discussion thread (by which I mean the overall thread, not my contribution), and is a good first step towards universal improvement. isaacl (talk) 06:59, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- I'm annoyed with outdents as a concept in general. They should be handled automatically by the software. It is not hard to say "when the indentation exceeds (number), place a pictoral representation and then reduce the displayed indentation to the initial indentation level". Paragraphs in a bulleted list can be resolved through using paragraph breaks rather than line breaks. Same with text below the sublist without a bullet.Ultimately, if we are tolerating these "methods" of conversation that violate widely accepted accessibility standards... that's our own fault. It's not an excuse for not fixing those methods to comply with accessibility standards, especially when doing so is not hard. As an example, the {{pb}} template would apply a paragraph break to any of the situations you mention without being any where significantly more work for those making the statements. You'll notice I utilized that template in my reply here, rather than a line-break+reindent. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 06:41, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Cases that I have to examine carefully include outdents, multiple paragraphs in a bulleted list item, and sublists embedded within a bulleted list item where there is text below the sublist without a bullet. To fix it up while preserving the original appearance as much as possible requires understanding the intent of the markup, and that's something that goes beyond simple regular expression pattern-matching that many bots perform. isaacl (talk) 06:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Bluntly, I can't see any case other than the case where the * is the last case of the indent and is sandwiched between two lower level indents (i.e. it's a "new" bulleted list) where a bot couldn't fix it. But I'm not saying they don't exist. I just think all other cases should be trivial to deal with in a bot's code. Not for me to do, however, with my mediocre Python skills (my coding experienced is in heavily specialized languages that wouldn't lend to building a wikibot). -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 05:47, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
How can a template print a background color?
Generally: when printing an article from Wikipedia, the background colors are removed. There are some templates where the "background-color" is not used for a background but for a meaningful color. Is there some class that can prevent Wikipedia from removing these backgrounds? I know there is "mw-no-invert" to exempt an element from dark mode inversion, but I can't find anything similar for printing.
For example: Template:Legend is used below thousands of maps and charts but only displays blank squares when printed. If you print the article United States, you will get the images, but only the legend that is part of an image. The two {{legend}} templates are blank. This can make some charts and graphs unclear or meaningless when printed. Rjjiii (talk) 02:51, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Also a note: "print-color-adjust: exact; -webkit-print-color-adjust: exact;" works if I add it to the CSS, but seems to be filtered out by TemplateStyles. Rjjiii (talk) 04:20, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Vendor prefixes are 95% unsupported in TemplateStyles (with very few exceptions that I know of).
print-color-adjustjust hasn't been implemented in TemplateStyles, but it has very low support among browsers. Either or both are a decent reason to use inline CSS. Izno (talk) 06:10, 7 February 2025 (UTC)- "Either or both are a decent reason to use inline CSS." What inline CSS though? Inline "background" and "background-color" are ignored when printing. It seems a misuse to use box-shadow or something to fake the background color. Rjjiii (talk) 06:13, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- The inline CSS of interest would be
-webkit-print-color-adjust: exact; print-color-adjust: exact;. ;) Izno (talk) 06:21, 7 February 2025 (UTC)- Oh, thank you! I had a momentary lapse of literacy there, Rjjiii (talk) 06:41, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- The inline CSS of interest would be
- "Either or both are a decent reason to use inline CSS." What inline CSS though? Inline "background" and "background-color" are ignored when printing. It seems a misuse to use box-shadow or something to fake the background color. Rjjiii (talk) 06:13, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Vendor prefixes are 95% unsupported in TemplateStyles (with very few exceptions that I know of).
- On Firefox, Print -> More settings -> Print backgrounds 173.206.40.108 (talk) 06:34, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Template:Pp-extended causes mobile display issue
On mobile view, the first paragraph of an article's lead is displayed above the infobox. Template:Pp-extended now interferes with this, and causes the infobox to be first, requiring the user to scroll below it to read the lead. I believe this issue has only started happening recently. Any idea why this is? — Goszei (talk) 07:06, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's only on some articles, like Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu. It is resolved by removing the template, but perhaps the problem lies elsewhere. — Goszei (talk) 08:36, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Allow HTTP connections for older devices/operating systems
one of Wikipedias goals is to allow anyone to access information, and restricting it to devices that are new enough severely restricts those who may not have the money or technical knowledge to upgrade their software or download new certificates. One significant issue is old IOS devices like the original iPad, with it being stuck on iOS 5 it never got the certificate updates needed to access newer websites. I propose we have a read only version of wikipedia that works on devices with old software. One of the initial reasons for the blocking of HTTP connections was to prevent censorship, which is a noble goal, but it effectively censors the entirety of wikipedia for people who cant access it over HTTPS. I would not oppose a small notice at the top of the page about the disadvantages of connecting over HTTP, however Mgjertson (talk) 16:22, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Mgjertson This has 0% chance of being implemented, because it would make every connection to the site vulnerable to Downgrade attacks (this is the same reason HTTPS with insecure cyphers is also disallowed). Even if you could connect a 15 year old mobile browser is not going to be able to display the site properly because it won't support modern HTML, CSS or javascript. I can't remember where they are (it might be in a phab task), but the WMF did publish statistics on the number of attempted connections with HTTP/HTTPS with outdated cyphers, and the number was tiny, I think it was about 0.2% at the point they turned TLS 1.1 support off. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 16:58, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- wikipedia really isn't an intensive site. Even if some things are broken, it at least lets people read it Mgjertson (talk) 19:49, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's not about breaking the website functionally, it's about making it insecure for literally every other reader. Meaning people could snoop on the reading that you do. Izno (talk) 00:29, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Oppose. Old devices can click past the certificate warning or use Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks 173.206.40.108 (talk) 01:38, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- a 15 year old mobile browser is not going to be able to display the site properly because it won't support modern HTML, CSS or javascript - not really. Monobook works great even with browsers not supporting HTML 5 and CSS 3. Tested with netsurf. 5.228.112.228 (talk) 09:15, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- wikipedia really isn't an intensive site. Even if some things are broken, it at least lets people read it Mgjertson (talk) 19:49, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Oppose - there's too much censorship nowadays, so it's just not safe for many people across the globe to browse the web without HTTPS. Even using outdated TLS versions and cyphers is more secure than using HTTP. 5.228.112.228 (talk) 09:29, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Tool for listing template param usage
Is there any tool to list pages that transclude a specific template and use (i.e. do not leave it empty) a specific parameter of that template? Janhrach (talk) 19:41, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- For any template with a TemplateData section in the documentation, click the "monthly report" for this information. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:44, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you, the tool does what I wanted, but unfortunately the template in question doesn't have TemplateData. Is there any other similar tool? Janhrach (talk) 19:56, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Janhrach Easiest way is to add TemplateData and wait until the next monthly report to run. If there is a particular parameter you're interested in, you can add a tracking category, e.g.
{{#if:{{{FOO|}}}|[[Category:Pages using template BAR with parameter FOO]]}}You'll still need to wait a while (anywhere from hours to weeks) for all pages that use the template to update unless you force a null edit on each page using something like User:Ahecht/Scripts/refresh. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:32, 3 February 2025 (UTC)- Thank you. Janhrach (talk) 14:30, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Janhrach Easiest way is to add TemplateData and wait until the next monthly report to run. If there is a particular parameter you're interested in, you can add a tracking category, e.g.
- Thank you, the tool does what I wanted, but unfortunately the template in question doesn't have TemplateData. Is there any other similar tool? Janhrach (talk) 19:56, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
2022 FIBA Under-18 Women's Asian Championship
I would like to report some strange things happening with this article: 2022 FIBA Under-18 Women's Asian Championship. I wanted to move that page to 2022 FIBA U18 Women's Asian Championship (official tournament name as used by FIBA) but I hadn't permission to do so. There is also a draft redirect (Draft:2022 FIBA Under-18 Women's Asian Championship), which does not redirect to this article, but to FIBA Under-18 Women's Asia Cup. I don't know what to think about it. Could some specialist fix it? Thanks in advance. Maiō T. (talk) 20:30, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Maiō T.: In my opinion, I believe that Under-18=U18, U18 is the nickname only. I don't think it's a right decision to move the page. Thanks. Stevencocoboy (talk) 02:21, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- No, Steven. I've been working with youth championships for some time and since 2017, all continental championships have used an official name without the word "under". See the following examples:
- So my goal is to unify the names of all basketball championships since 2017. Maiō T. (talk) 12:07, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- I have moved the article for you — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:28, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you Martin. Maiō T. (talk) 13:54, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Maiō T.: I know what you have done. But I don't think it's any difference between of them. If the event title is change, like Asian Championship change to Asia Cup, I suggest your propose. But Under18 change to U18, it isn't any different because 'U' is the nickname only and the meaning is 'under'. Both of them can acceptable. For me it's unnecessary move the page. I'm worried about you may perseverance in here and have a little bit obsessive-compulsive disorder. Thanks. Stevencocoboy (talk) 02:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you Martin. Maiō T. (talk) 13:54, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- I have moved the article for you — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:28, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
References do not link to sources, #ref
In HMS Warspite (03) are lots of references formatted <ref>[[#refBallantyne2013|Ballantyne, 2013]], p. 29.</ref and similar. They produce blue-linked "Ballantyne 2013" in the reflist, but clicking on it does nothing. Is there an obvious fix? I've never used the #ref thing, and rarely seen it. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 23:56, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's just a manual WP:ANCHOR. I've never seen this citation style 173.206.40.108 (talk) 00:04, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Remove
reffrom Ballantyne, 2013 → Ballantyne, 2013. You could switch to{{sfn}}or{{harvnb}}but that requires modification of the target long-form citation templates (remove|ref=...). - —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:08, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's a citation style that's been used, by as far as I can tell, a minority of hardcore anti-template purists. It's an absolute blight, and those anchors are often broken the vast majority of the time. I personally convert them to proper {{sfn}}/{{harvnb}}-like templates when I can. It's never been an issue. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:13, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Trappist the monk: thank you, it worked, and @Headbomb: it's tempting, much as I loathe sfn it's nowhere near as horrible as this hashed-up hashtag malarky. DuncanHill (talk) 00:39, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Template:Ref and Template:Note support anchor links starting with ref, although they look ancient. Snævar (talk) 01:54, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- They are ancient, see Wikipedia:Footnote3 which was marked "historical" way back in 2009. As for "hashed-up hashtag malarky", it's not "hashed up", the hash character has been the standard way of linking to an anchor since 1992, possibly earlier. It certainly predates Wikipedia, so is not something we invented (unlike, say. the use of double square brackets to make a link). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:38, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
"It's an absolute blight..."
I couldn't agree more. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:35, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- I agree with Headbomb, and I've never understood the thinking that has as somehow easier to write (when it is in fact, as we can see, far more difficult to write, to write correctly, and to maintain — I could do it, but then I understand HTML; when the point of wikitext is that it does not necessitate expansive understanding of HTML for writers who are not like me.) than
<ref>[[#refBallantyne2013|Ballantyne, 2013]], p. 29.</ref>
which is only a few vertical bars, an "sfn", and some different brackets from the{{sfn|Ballantyne|2013|p=29}}
that one would write in an old-style paper article anyway. Indeed, whem someone from the paper world comes along writing the third, converting it to the second shows up as just a few punctuation changes in the diff, because all of the authors, years, and pages (and even the "p"s and "pp"s) match; making it easy to see that one has not messed up the conversion from paper writing to wikitext writing. Uncle G (talk) 06:15, 8 February 2025 (UTC)(Ballantyne 2013 p.29)
- The only reason for this "no templates purism" went away years ago. A proliferation of these templates used to really bog down the rendering of a page and stress the servers, and even exceed limits on template expansions on lengthy articles. Then we converted to LUA modules for this stuff, and it sped up by a huge amount and stopped coming anywhere near the limits. It was a very great difference, and any thinking that these templates should be avoided because they are expensive in large numbers went away after I created the LUA versions which is approaching a decade and a half ago now. Uncle G (talk) 06:36, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
Palestine
Once again, Special:WantedCategories is infested with several redlinks caused by the bot-move of a template-generated and template-transcluded category, where the implicated template imports its category generation from a module I can't edit. They all relate entirely to the move of "State of Palestine" categories to the straight unmodified form "Palestine".
- Category:Politics of the State of Palestine
- Category:Buildings and structures in the State of Palestine by type
- Category:Organizations based in the State of Palestine
- Category:Political movements in the State of Palestine
- Category:Socialism in the State of Palestine
- Category:Sports in the State of Palestine
There were also three cases where the use of {{YYYY in nationality sport category header}} on a "YYYY in Palestinian sport" category was generating a redlinked "YYYY in the Palestinian territories" category instead of the "YYYY in the State of Palestine" category that already existed in all three cases, where all other categories of the "in the Palestinian territories" form existed as redirects to the "in the State of Palestine" form rather than content categories in their own right — so I accordingly had to create the following three categories as category redirects to the existing form, but they still need to be emptied out in ways I still can't fix myself because module.
- Category:2021 in the Palestinian territories
- Category:2023 in the Palestinian territories
- Category:2024 in the Palestinian territories
But since all of this is module-farmed stuff I can't fix since I don't have module-editing privileges, I need somebody to get these categories cleaned up. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 16:21, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- The redirects were already fixed (I think the pages just needed a WP:NULLEDIT). I've fixed all of the remaining ones except "sports", which requires a subcategory to be renamed, which takes two days to process. * Pppery * it has begun... 17:05, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
"Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" preference does not work on mobile
ResolvedAs far as I can tell, the "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" preference does not work in the mobile view. (For example, when I clicked "publish" on this edit without a summary in the mobile view, I wasn't prompted in any way, but when I switched to the desktop view and tried to make another edit without a summary, I got the expected prompt.) Since quite a few users edit Wikipedia on their phones nowadays, I think it would be useful to enable this prompt for mobile views. I guess this will require some software changes and thus a Phabricator task. — Chrisahn (talk) 00:23, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- This is a known issue, see phab:T232891. — xaosflux Talk 01:24, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks! I searched Phabricator for "forceeditsummary" and didn't find that issue. I should have tried another search. :-) — Chrisahn (talk) 01:32, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
TOC numbering in Vector-2022
I had the following code on User:CX Zoom/common.css to show numbering on Vector-2022's TOC:
.vector-feature-zebra-design-disabled .vector-toc .vector-toc-numb {
display: initial;
color: black;
margin-right: 4px;
} /* Vector-2022: display missing numbering on TOC */
But this hasn't been working for quite some time now. What is the fix for it? —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 10:29, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- @CX Zoom Elements with the
vector-feature-zebra-design-disabledclass no longer exist. Try the following instead:Note that the.vector-toc .vector-toc-numb { display: initial; }
colorspecification should be dropped to ensure dark-mode compatibility, and whilemargin-rightis optional, I personally don’t think it's necessary. Dragoniez (talk) 13:01, 9 February 2025 (UTC)- Thanks, this works! —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 13:21, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) @CX Zoom: As far as I am aware, Vector 2022 numbers the TOC entries by default. Perhaps you have some other setting that suppresses the numbering? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:02, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- No no, they removed it for some reason. Try logging out and see the TOC. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 13:11, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
TemplateStyles not just for templates anymore
Courtesy link: Help talk:Table/styles.css § Added to table help template surrounded by includeonly tags.
It's clear that CSS style pages invoked using <templatestyles src="ns:Foo/styles.css" /> are no longer limited to the Template and Module namespaces, and some guidance about this would be helpful to editors faced with creation and maintenance of style pages in other namespaces.
A question came up at Help talk:Table/styles.css about whether to use template {{Uses TemplateStyles}} in the header of Help:Table or not, given that Help:Table is not a template. I opined that yes, we should use it, because usage of styles.css has gone well beyond Template and Module space (although the template wording does not currently lend itself well for use in Help space).
Some stats on other namespaces that use TemplateStyles
|
|---|
|
Namespaces other than Template and Module that use template {{Uses TemplateStyles}}: Also, pages entitled |
Initially, this raises the issue whether we should write another "Uses" template or perhaps better, just adjust the verbiage "This [template|page|{{{param}}} ] uses...", either automatically via namespace detection or via parameter, and adjust the doc: "This template is used to show that [templates|pages|...] have been converted to use TemplateStyles." Secondarily, is there a guidance page somewhere on use of styles.css pages? If there is, it is not linked from {{Uses TemplateStyles/doc}}.
Given the wider adoption of styles pages beyond template space, maybe it shouldn't have been called TemplateStyles to begin with, but that is 20-20 hindsight, and I realize why it was, and I am not advocating for a change to the TemplateStyles declaration. However, I would like to see help, doc, and project pages aimed at editors stop using the term Template styles exclusively, and replace it with something like, "pages with an accompanying CSS styles page" or the like.
Additionally, some central project or Help page on use of CSS style pages should be created if it doesn't already exist and on that page we should include a section with guidance on what namespaces should, may, should not, and must not use accompanying styles.css pages. For starters, I am assuming that Help, Wikipedia, Portal, their associated talk pages, and Talk may, and probably main and Draft should not (maybe, must not?).
In the meantime, I plan to add {{Uses TemplateStyles}} to Help:Table for now, and possibly come back later and alter the template wording to better handle non-template namespaces, unless there is some objection. Mathglot (talk) 21:16, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
Listed at: Help talk:Template, WT:WikiProject Templates, Template talk:Uses TemplateStyles. Mathglot (talk) 21:32, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- VisualEditor can only edit templatestyles transclusions, not add them. That is why I prefer to put templatestyles into templates and then transclude the templates into other namespaces (other namespaces than template and module). Snævar (talk) 22:08, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks; good to know about VE limitations, but I am more concerned with the general case involving non-template namespaces, of which there are plenty of examples (see above). Mathglot (talk) 22:18, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:TemplateStyles is the guideline on use of templatestyles. If, as with Help:Table, the styles are applied to parts of the page outside of a transclusion (notwithstanding "
The style must apply only to the associated template's output
"), then I agree it would probably be sensible to include {{Uses TemplateStyles}} or similar either on the page itself (not an article) or its talk page, or to include a note about that in a hidden text comment next to elements in the page where the style is used (if not in close proximity to the templatestyles tag). - I certainly agree that there shouldn't be (and aren't) CSS pages directly in article space (since they aren't articles). If there are legitimate and exceptional reasons for a single article to have extra CSS not attached to a template, then the CSS page should still be in another namespace, like how Main Page has Wikipedia:Main Page/styles.css.
- Meanwhile, quite a few article contain the raw wikitext
<templatestyles, probably due to subst'ing templates that aren't meant to be substituted. SilverLocust 💬 22:52, 8 February 2025 (UTC)- In some cases yes. In most other cases the use will be because of trying to dodge issues pertaining to WP:PEIS, where the parent template(s) would otherwise cause a hit to the expansion limit (and such cases should probably have intext comments to be clear that's why they are there). Izno (talk) 00:00, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- So you created Help:Table/styles.css then added it to Template:Table help, instead of putting it at Template:Table help/styles.css? Much like Scribunto module
#invokes, I think in most cases it would be much less confusing for non-technical editors if stuff like that remains wrapped in appropriate templates. Anomie⚔ 14:01, 9 February 2025 (UTC)- @Anomie: I added it to Template:Table help as a way to instantly be able to use the CSS styles on all table help pages with that template. But if it will work in Template:Table help/styles.css, then that sounds better. Plus then we could use Template:Uses TemplateStyles to link to it from the template.
- I would still like a link to the CSS page on all the table help pages, as described by Mathglot. So table editors know where the CSS is coming from, and get more info on it.
This page uses:
Template:Table help/styles.css
- Maybe Template:Table help can show the CSS styles link on all pages where it is found. "This page uses..." instead of "This template uses..."
- Via includeonly tags to that secondary link box.
- --Timeshifter (talk) 16:05, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
Minor Planet Center blocks links from Wikipedia
ResolvedFrom Nux:"Harvard/Smithsonian/NASA founded institution blocks Wikipedia for whatever reason. If someone can help please see here: Template talk:Minor Planet Center#Links from Wikipedia are blocked."
Setting Wikipedia's Referrer-Policy header (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Referrer-Policy) so visits from Wikipedia cannot be distinguished from other visits may help. Doing this, however, will need (one-liner!) help from WMF Engineering team to set that header to "no-referrer".
It seems entirely reasonable to block the Referer (sic) header via this method, in the interests of reader privacy. Could someone please do this? — The Anome (talk) 08:45, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- If memory serves, setting up the referrer system we have now was a conscious choice - see eg the discussion at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T87276 - so simply turning it off might have unforeseen/undesirable effects. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:10, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- The previous discussion at Minor planet center actually says this is a European problem, with a user in the US not being affected and several Europeans being affected. If that is true, then changing the referrer is not going to change the Harvard/Smithsonian/NASA block. Snævar (talk) 10:35, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- I think discussion of the technical details should take place at Template talk:Minor Planet Center#Links from Wikipedia are blocked, not here. Having multiple discussions will increase the confusion. For example, there's a new (12:05) comment by zzuuzz which shows that the problem has to do with the referrer. — Chrisahn (talk) 14:09, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- I contacted the Minor Planet Center help desk and got a response an hour later (on a Sunday!): "This was a temporary measure. We were being overwhelmed with database requests from Wiki. The situation should be back to normal now." I tried the link and the curl command, both work for me. — Chrisahn (talk) 16:28, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
(Still) getting semi-logged out.
By "semi" I mean I only have to click "log in" to get back in, not fill in my password or anything. But still annoying to have Vector2022 constantly flash onto my screen and have to log in in a separate tab so my IP address isn't logged. I'm on Firefox on a Mac. This seems to come in waves: it's bad for a few days and then mostly seems to go away, and then comes back. Cremastra (talk) 21:28, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- This is happening nearly once every three minutes, I swear. Cremastra (talk) 22:08, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- I think screen recording your circumstances will explain the problem better. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 12:16, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, once it starts happening today I'll try to get a recording. Cremastra (talk) 14:26, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Here it is:
-
- Logged in in "edit mode" on an article.
- 0:06–0:09: I refresh the page.
- 0:10–0:15: switch to reading mode. Still looks as if I'm not logged in.
- I click the log-in button and my usual view is restored.
Cremastra (talk) 16:10, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, once it starts happening today I'll try to get a recording. Cremastra (talk) 14:26, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- I think screen recording your circumstances will explain the problem better. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 12:16, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Make sure you use the "keep me logged in" option when logging in. If that doesn't help, you can try disabling ETP for Wikipedia - the site doesn't contain any actual trackers, but Firefox is probably picking up the central login system as one.
- Hopefully the ongoing update of the login system will improve this, although there can be lots of different causes for login issues so it is hard to say. Tgr (WMF) (talk) 13:18, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- Okay, thanks. Cremastra (talk) 13:22, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
Simple Article Summaries: research so far and next steps
The Web team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been working to make the wikis easy to engage and learn from so that readers will continue coming back to our wikis frequently. One of our projects is focused on experimenting with ways to simplify and summarize text. Now, we wanted to share some research results. Soon, we will be asking you how to make it possible for you to moderate a new feature, and how to test it.
Background
For a few years now, the Wikimedia Foundation Research team has been studying text simplification models as part of their program on addressing knowledge gaps.
Some Wikipedia articles are written at a high reading level. For example, according to the Flesch–Kincaid method, the lede of the English article on Dopamine scores at a college graduate level. Meanwhile, the average reading level for adult native English speakers is that of the level of 14–15-year-old students (US 9th grade), and it may be lower for non-native English speakers who regularly read English Wikipedia. The same applies to many other language versions of Wikipedia.
Many readers need some simplified text in addition to the main content. In previous research, we heard that readers wanted to have an option to get a quick overview of a topic prior to jumping into reading the full article.
There are projects that simplify content already, such as Simple English Wikipedia or Basque Txikipedia. However, these are difficult to grow – they are only available in a few languages and ask editors to rewrite content that they have already written, which can feel very repetitive. We wanted to look at ways to make this process easier, by automating summaries.
Summary prototype and testing
In late 2024, we decided to test a feature driven by the findings of this research. We built a prototype that showed summaries generated by the text simplification model at the top of the page. The summaries are made by a model that takes the text of the Wikipedia article and converts it to use simpler language.
We tested this prototype in two ways: qualitatively through user interviews, and quantitatively through a browser extension (which let users interact with the feature in their daily use of Wikipedia).
The prototype received positive results in both tests:
- Users are interested in the feature (as measured through initial engagement with summary feature) – Out of all pageviews where summaries were displayed, 8.09% of pageviews had a summary opened. This is a lot – for reference, we can compare to the article recommendations experiment, which received a clickthrough of 0.5% for a feature idea of similar prominence.
- Users reported positive experiences (as measured by the answers to the "was this useful?" question) – 75.2% of all clicks selected "yes", 24.8% of all clicks selected "no".
Next steps
We would like to do a wider test as well as discuss ways for editors to contribute or moderate these summaries. We are currently figuring out what this process would look like - potentially starting with something like a gadget or beta feature on interested wikis. We will come back to you over the next couple of weeks with specific questions and would appreciate your participation and help. In the meantime, for anyone who is interested, we encourage you to check out our current documentation.
Thank you! OVasileva (WMF), SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 15:11, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
Visual glitch in 2017 wikitext editor
Hi all, I'm seeing a visual glitch in the wikitext editor as of the last couple of days and the folks at WP:Help desk suggested I post here.
Here's a screenshot of the glitch (right, top image) - the green text is not clickable - actually, it appears that it can be edited, but the cursor does not show when clicking inside the green text.
On Safari (right, second image) the visual glitch is still present though slightly different, once again the green text is editable but the cursor is partially or completely obscured. The top of the cursor only is visible in the screenshot in the web.archive.org URL, the rest of the cursor is cut off.
Any ideas what might be causing this? I tried turning off ad blockers just in case, but it appears to be an unrelated issue. Thanks! Caleb Stanford (talk) 22:35, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- See phab:T384908. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 11:25, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Sjoerddebruin: Ah perfect, many thanks for the reply, glad this is being worked on! Caleb Stanford (talk) 17:16, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-07
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
- The Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) has published a draft of their recommendations for the Wikimedia Foundation's Product and Technology department. They have recommended focusing on mobile experiences, particularly contributions. They request community feedback at the talk page by 21 February.
Updates for editors
- The "Special pages" portlet link will be moved from the "Toolbox" into the "Navigation" section of the main menu's sidebar by default. This change is because the Toolbox is intended for tools relating to the current page, not tools relating to the site, so the link will be more logically and consistently located. To modify this behavior and update CSS styling, administrators can follow the instructions at T385346. [13]
- As part of this year's work around improving the ways readers discover content on the wikis, the Web team will be running an experiment with a small number of readers that displays some suggestions for related or interesting articles within the search bar. Please check out the project page for more information.
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MediaWiki message delivery 00:09, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
Are .svg files served to wikipedia directly (not from commons) sanitized?
SVG files loaded onto commons are checked for vulnerabilities however weather that is the case for svg uploaded directly onto wikipedia itself is not known. Throwaway 55216 (talk) 11:49, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- I'd imagine they are checked in the same way, because it's the same software and back end. It would be useful to know exactly what sanitization rules are used: there seems to be some information at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:SVG. The key thing to note here is that Wikipedia only ever serves externally-generated SVG files within pages in a rendered form as a PNG raster file, greatly reducing the possibility for attacks on end user browsers. Hopefully the SVGs are rendered in a suitably secure sandbox environment, on top of the sanitization checks before rendering.
- By the way, there's no need to create multiple throwaway accounts, you can just create a single account and stick with it. I've blocked your multiple throwaway accounts, since users are only allowed a single main account, but because you are clearly here for constructive reasons, I've altered your account blocks to enable you to create another account; but please only create a single account, and stick with it. — The Anome (talk) 12:36, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki/blob/master/includes/upload/UploadBase.php#L1621 (it should be noted that this validation uses XML parsing rules not HTML. There are subtle differences between the two which might alter how the SVG is interpreted if it was inserted directly into an html document instead of being rendered standalone) Bawolff (talk) 18:08, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Note: the OP has since been blocked, for abusing multiple accounts. Their first mention of this matter seems to have been at Talk:South Africa's genocide case against Israel#.svg link likely containing malware embedded within page, and there have been several other similar posts by this user, so WP:MULTI also applies. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:31, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Ah. I thought this was in the context of #Next steps towards OWID visualization within MediaWiki which is why I mentioned HTML vs XML serialization which might be relevant to that discussion, but isn't to the other one. Bawolff (talk) 23:03, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- AFAIK, we don't render any user-generated SVG, "sanitized" or otherwise, directly into browsers; that would be a security nightmare. — The Anome (talk) 11:05, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- Currently, that is correct. We might end up doing it in the future (phab:T5593). Browsers have reasonable sandboxing (no external fonts or javascript) for SVGs included in
<img>tags, but some amount of additional sanitizing work in MediaWiki, especially for old files, is probably a good idea. There are likely still some number of pre-sanitization files that may include javascript and/or remote fonts, which currently still run when viewing the source SVG (phab:T117618). Figuring out how to make translation and fonts work consistently is likely a bigger problem. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 00:21, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- Currently, that is correct. We might end up doing it in the future (phab:T5593). Browsers have reasonable sandboxing (no external fonts or javascript) for SVGs included in
- AFAIK, we don't render any user-generated SVG, "sanitized" or otherwise, directly into browsers; that would be a security nightmare. — The Anome (talk) 11:05, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- Ah. I thought this was in the context of #Next steps towards OWID visualization within MediaWiki which is why I mentioned HTML vs XML serialization which might be relevant to that discussion, but isn't to the other one. Bawolff (talk) 23:03, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
Uptick in non-minor edits being marked as minor
I wasn't sure where to post this, but I noticed there has been a big uptick in new editors marking non-minor edits as minor. This has even included additions or large blocks of text. Is there a reason behind this? TornadoLGS (talk) 22:33, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- Can someone compile a quick statistic of "percentage of registered users' edits marked as minor" for this month vs., say, the first 10 days of February 2024 and 2023? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:56, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Here you go. (Though, it turns out a whole lot of those are bots' fault.) —Cryptic 05:55, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- And here is per-month since Jan '23. I don't see any meaningful trend, either way of looking at it, but between bots, vandalism rollbacks, and massive AWB runs, anything else might get lost in the noise. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:40, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you very much!
- The "uptick" is probably mostly subjective. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:46, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- I was wondering if there was something making it so the "minor edit" checkbox was being checked without an editor meaning to. Like by a script or some default setting. TornadoLGS (talk) 23:35, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you very much!
- And here is per-month since Jan '23. I don't see any meaningful trend, either way of looking at it, but between bots, vandalism rollbacks, and massive AWB runs, anything else might get lost in the noise. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:40, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Here you go. (Though, it turns out a whole lot of those are bots' fault.) —Cryptic 05:55, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- A possible solution to this, at least a solution I've dwelled upon for a while before this thread was started, is as follows:
- The little box saying 'This is a minor edit' could instead do something like what follows: This is a minor edit
More info - with the 'more info' popup not opening a new tab, but summarizing what a minor edit is (with the full link, of course) JayCubby 02:20, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- I had also wondered if an edit filter could work where it gives a gentle message for new users if an edit changes content by more than a certain number of characters. TornadoLGS (talk) 04:52, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- I've noticed that lately AN hasn't gotten a lot of traffic. You might consider posing your requests at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) and see if anyone who frequents that board can respond to all of your queries as this seems to involve technical expertise, not adminning expertise. Liz Read! Talk! 05:01, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you @Liz:, done now. JayCubby 05:12, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- No, AbuseFilter will not work. AbuseFilter has a throttle that gets triggered if too high of a percentage of edits get hit with it. This percentage is 5%, so compared to the percentages Cryptic provided, a abuse filter would shut itself down 6-9 times a day, dependant on the month. Snævar (talk) 06:40, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Could multiple abuse filters be made to only trigger for certain users, e.g. only IP users, users, autoconfirmed users, extended confirmed users, depending on which filter, and would that maybe solve the 5% problem? The downtime would be lower that way, I assume. Adam Black talk • contribs 06:52, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- I've been told in the past by people who know more about AbuseFilter than I do that this is a common misunderstanding of throttling. Looking at mw:Extension:AbuseFilter § Emergency throttling, it appears to only apply to recently-edited filters and only prevents blocking and rights removal, neither of which we do on enwiki. I'm also not convinced that "minor edit by a new/unregistered user that changed more than a few bytes" would hit 5% anyways. That said, I'd oppose a filter as overkill. Mislabeling as minor is a relatively, well, minor problem; on the other hand, people abandoning good edits because they got a warning message and they didn't understand how to resubmit the edit or got demoralized, is a very real problem we see all the time. Ultimately, the concept of "minor edit" works on good faith, and if you're not comfortable deferring to your colleagues' self-designation of what's minor, you shouldn't check the boxes that say to trust that. I don't mean that derisively; I've always selected "show minor edits" on my watchlist for this exact reason. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 07:01, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, I wasn't clear on why some editors were interested in why or how often editors checked the "minor edit" box but it must have something to do with Watchlist filtering. To me, it seems like an afterthought that I sometimes check off and other times forget to check off. Liz Read! Talk! 07:20, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- I think we should rename "hide minor edits" to "hide edits marked as 'minor'" to manage expectations better. Most of my minor edits are not marked as minor and I do not care how other people use that box. —Kusma (talk) 07:53, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- The current wording in the filter dialog is "Minor edits: Edits the author labeled as minor" (MediaWiki:rcfilters-filter-minor-label + MediaWiki:rcfilters-filter-minor-description). -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 08:02, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Ok, but then I don't see why anyone using that filter is complaining. —Kusma (talk) 08:12, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- The current wording in the filter dialog is "Minor edits: Edits the author labeled as minor" (MediaWiki:rcfilters-filter-minor-label + MediaWiki:rcfilters-filter-minor-description). -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 08:02, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Perhaps just a logging-only filter, if we don't have one already? Large edits marked as minor is a red flag to me and seems worth highlighting for people doing anti-vandalism work. But I was sure we already highlighted that, for just that reason. --Aquillion (talk) 13:00, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- I started editing again very recently, and the edits were classified as minor by default without me noticing. Interestingly, the edit on this page is not pre-selected as minor, no idea why. Maybe the default is different depending on the language? --Entinator (talk) 19:42, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- ...I don't think there's any reason that 'This is a minor edit' should be ticked by default at all? - The Bushranger One ping only 05:11, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- I started editing again very recently, and the edits were classified as minor by default without me noticing. Interestingly, the edit on this page is not pre-selected as minor, no idea why. Maybe the default is different depending on the language? --Entinator (talk) 19:42, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- I've noticed that lately AN hasn't gotten a lot of traffic. You might consider posing your requests at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) and see if anyone who frequents that board can respond to all of your queries as this seems to involve technical expertise, not adminning expertise. Liz Read! Talk! 05:01, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- I had also wondered if an edit filter could work where it gives a gentle message for new users if an edit changes content by more than a certain number of characters. TornadoLGS (talk) 04:52, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- We should delete the entire "minor edit" feature. In theory, it has some value. In practice, it's so often ignored, used incorrectly, or just plain intentionally abused, it has long since ceased to be useful. RoySmith (talk) 02:02, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
Black rectangle instead of image
The image on Nadín Ospina appears as a solid black rectangle when I view it on my desktop (Edge + Vector Legacy (2010)) If I click on the rectangle it takes me to the image file, which I can see, and I can see it on my phone. I've tried zooming in and out, and rebooting my PC, but it is still a black rectangle. I this a known problem? - Arjayay (talk) 09:49, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- This happens when the original image has incorrect or missing metadata for the color transform or something. Someone with some skill in image editing, will have to pull that image through an image editor to fix it and upload a new version. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:11, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- Academic, since the image has been deleted as a copyvio. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:43, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
Next steps towards OWID visualization within MediaWiki
We at Wiki Project Med have built a method to visualize Our World in Data with all material coming from Commons. You can see it functional at mdwiki:WikiProjectMed:OWID#Way_3_(current_effort).
Wondering if we can get this and this copied to EN WP so we can begin testing here.
On MDWiki you should be able to:
- scroll through the years of data,
- if you put your cursor over a country it should highlight and give you the name,
- if you put your cursor over the ranges bar, it should highlight all the countries in that range,
- if you click on a country it should pull up a graph of how data has changed in that country over time
- if you select a region of the world it will zoom into that region
It is built from about 500 seperate images. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:06, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
- We are working on improving functionality on mobile as currently this is poor. Just wanting to begin testing here, it is not ready for us in mainspace. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:15, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
Technical steps to get this working on enwiki
Hey Doc James. What are the exact technical steps to do this? Having these steps would make this more actionable. Are these the steps?
- owidslider
- copy [19] to MediaWiki:Gadget-owidslider.js
- copy [20] to MediaWiki:Gadget-owidslider.css
- copy [21] to Template:Owidslider, and modify it to include a tracking category
- copy [22] to Module:Owidslider, and modify the tracking category it outputs to be Category:Pages using gadget owidslider (lines 48 and 215)
- create tracking category Category:Pages using gadget owidslider
- add
owidslider [ResourceLoader|default|categories=Pages using gadget owidslider]|owidslider.js|owidslider.cssto MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition, which will create a mw:Template gadget
- ImageStackPopup was already imported previously, no action needed
Clicking around the images on the right at https://mdwiki.org/wiki/WikiProjectMed:OWID#Way_3_.28current_effort.29, it looks like this is a gadget to create color-coded world maps, with each country getting its own color depending on the data, that also has a year scale at the bottom, and hovering over each year in the scale changes the data on the world map? –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:13, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes those would be the next steps.
- Basically there are ~13,000 of these graphs under an open license created by Our World in Data.[23] The gadget in question allows one to move through years of the data visualized by heatmap and than click on specific countries to view of graph of how the data changes for that country over time.
- What one is doing is moving through images that are stored on Commons. You can see all the individual images here.[24] We used to build these from the underlying data itself but the WMF killed that when they killed graphs. We also build similar functionality in two other ways which were mostly rejected by the WMF.
- Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:25, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Please keep template gadget categories consistent (Category:Pages using gadget xxxxxxxxx). — xaosflux Talk 03:15, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Agreed. Doc James, I see the category is currently placed by the module code [25], on lines 48 and 215. Could that be hoisted out so it is placed by the template instead? That'd make it easier to copy paste module updates from mdwiki without messing up the tracking category. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:20, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- For sure. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:26, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Agreed. Doc James, I see the category is currently placed by the module code [25], on lines 48 and 215. Could that be hoisted out so it is placed by the template instead? That'd make it easier to copy paste module updates from mdwiki without messing up the tracking category. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:20, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Bug and feature ideas
A couple issues that jump out at me in my quick testing, but that may not be blockers, are:
- At high browser zooms, when you click on the image, it vertically overflows off the screen, and the vertical scroll bar is scrolled to the bottom by default. I think it'd be more intuitive to have it scrolled to the top by default.
- It doesn't appear you can link these rich images in a URL like you can a normal image. That'd be a cool feature to add. I'd like to be able to drop a link here in this discussion to a specific rich image, then the user clicks it and it loads. This is supported for normal files/images in MediaWiki.
- The loading 0%, loading 1%, etc. thing at the bottom right of the image takes a long time to load, around 60 seconds, on first load. On second load, it is much quicker. It is unclear what it is loading though. I was able to click around the year slider at the bottom and still have it work, even while it said "loading".
–Novem Linguae (talk) 01:13, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Working to fix this I think, can you send an image of what you mean? Are we talking wide or verticle narrow monitors?
- Not sure what you mean?
- It is loading all the individual images that the tool requires to function. As mentioned the problem with this solution to the issue is that it is data heavy. One of the next steps is to improve load time by only loading the world overview to start with and not the subregions.
- Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:28, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- To clarify #2, I mean that if I go to Buff Cobb and click on the first image, the URL changes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buff_Cobb to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buff_Cobb#/media/File:Buff_Cobb_1957.JPG. But if I go to https://mdwiki.org/wiki/WikiProjectMed:OWID#Way_3_.28current_effort.29 and click on the first image, the URL stays the same. I have no way to share the image URL here in a way that will instantly load it. Hope that makes sense. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:35, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Ah sure yes can add that Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:57, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- To clarify #2, I mean that if I go to Buff Cobb and click on the first image, the URL changes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buff_Cobb to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buff_Cobb#/media/File:Buff_Cobb_1957.JPG. But if I go to https://mdwiki.org/wiki/WikiProjectMed:OWID#Way_3_.28current_effort.29 and click on the first image, the URL stays the same. I have no way to share the image URL here in a way that will instantly load it. Hope that makes sense. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:35, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Consensus
Do folks on enwiki want this? To me, it seems a little heavy, but that can be mitigated by making it a mw:Template gadget. Is probably OK to install. Other thoughts? –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:42, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Note that we already have ImageStackPopup deployed as a template gadget. Fine with deploying OWID as a template gadget too. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:22, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- I don't think this extremely long loading time meshes very well with the rest of our pages. — xaosflux Talk 03:17, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- We are working to improve how fast it works by only loading the bits people click on. Plus this is how fast it works on MDWiki and EN WP is way more powerful. Would be useful to be able to test it here on EN WP to see how fast it is here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:49, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Doc James: Strong oppose This is like a
DDoS attackagainst enwiki. The first example made 226 requests, whichwould normally set off firewall alertsseems excessive. Furthermore, it downloaded 35.51 Mb without warning. What about mobile data users? - Here is what should have been done: Just use a c:Category:Interactive SVG. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 11:08, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- You can do this with an interactive SVG? How?
- What are the rules about sizes. COVID19 pandemic is 2.2 Mb. We are looking a decrease the initial load by 6 to 8 fold as mentioned above. Plus this only loads when people want an interactive version.
- Loading todays feature picture is 7.7 MB. I imagine we could stipulate how much will be loaded before people progress. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:39, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Why not?
scroll through the years of data
File:Colonisation2.svg but with the scroll detection from [26]. Basically, interactive SVG can hide/show anything on scroll, click, or hover.if you put your cursor over a country it should highlight and give you the name
Last example of [27] for the tooltips, and the countries in File:Evolution_of_the_European_Union_SMIL.svg for the highlightingif you put your cursor over the ranges bar, it should highlight all the countries in that range
Change click to hover in the timeline above File:Evolution_of_the_European_Union_SMIL.svgif you click on a country it should pull up a graph of how data has changed in that country over time
Same as 1, just change to a new image like in File:SVG feDisplacementMap Demo.svgif you select a region of the world it will zoom into that region
I didn't see this in the first example, but it's the same idea as 4
- It would load instantly. Data savings come from using
<defs>to not repeat country shapes. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 12:31, 7 February 2025 (UTC)- Nice thanks. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:52, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- I was focusing more on load time and request count. But as requested, let's look into sizes: File:Death-rate-by-source-from-indoor-air-pollution,World,1990.svg is 162 KB (Firefox, uncompressed, rounded up). Most of it is country shapes, which don't need to be repeated 226 times.
25% appears to be repeatedcan't find this, might have incorrectly downloaded, but let's ignore that optimization for simplicity. Interactivity code should be around the same 52 KB as the gadget. 31 years of data is 157 KB (description).<span class="attribute-name"> ... <a class="attribute-value"> - In total, 162 + 52 + 157 = 371 KB. A max of 3 MB should be more than enough. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 13:24, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- We did not make the svgs but simply downloaded them from OWID. But could definitely look at more efficient processing of them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:24, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Why not?
would normally set off firewall alerts
. Are you speaking generally or do you have knowledge of how WMF's firewalls work? By the way you may want to login if you want us to take you seriously. It's hard to judge your mediawiki technical experience when you are using an IP account. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:00, 7 February 2025 (UTC)alerts
hence I was talking about corporate outbound firewalls, not mediawiki.- Looking at mediawiki limits now, they appear to be unlimited or near-unlimited (although the requests weren't to thumb{,_handler}.php, so probably unlimited).
hard to judge
It's OK to ignore anything I didn't cite. I'll just strike that part. Aside from the technical details of the potential solution, the rest can be considered to duplicate what Xaosflux and Sohom Datta said. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 15:32, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Strong oppose - This is not well designed, a few issues immediately popup:
- Extremely high resource usage - Clicking on the first example loads 56 concurrent requests (amounting to a total of 23.9 MB transferred) for images despite there being no significant interaction with the slider itself. In certain cases, the resources never finish fetching and the loading percentage ticker proceeds extremely slowly (even on my beefy laptop connected to fairly fast campus internet). -- Additionally, if these images haven't been rendered before, this level of resource pre-fetching might be prone to creating a outage on the image rendering backend of Wikipedia (Thumbor)
- Buttons - After clicking around a bit, I was somehow able to get 4 progressive back buttons to show up on the top of my screen. In certain cases, these buttons would be rendered just outside my viewport making it impossible to navigate using the back button. I also wonder why the "return to article" is a progressive call-to-action as opposed to being a quiet cross on the left side as is customary in the OOUI/Wikimedia design language.
- Unselectable text - The explanation given under the pictures cannot be selected or highighted/copied normally without having to select the whole page. The read-more link doesn't appear to work as well.
The second and third issues are potentially fixable, the first being the reason, I'll be strongly opposing this request. Sohom (talk) 12:40, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yah per the starting comments "Just wanting to begin testing here, it is not ready for us in mainspace" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:58, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Doc James I guess then my question would be along the lines of "why on enwiki"? -- What feature on enwiki do you plan to test against? Sohom (talk) 14:00, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- How fast it works for one Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:59, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Doc James I guess then my question would be along the lines of "why on enwiki"? -- What feature on enwiki do you plan to test against? Sohom (talk) 14:00, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Strong oppose For two reasons:
- Firing this sheer number of requests is really unsustainable honestly, as well as having to upload 100s to 1000s of SVGs for every single graph state.
- Security vulnerabilities: One of the reasons we don't allow inline rendering of SVGs in MediaWiki is because it is a potential XSS vector. This gadget bypasses this and now as soon as someone finds an SVG XSS filter evasion in MediaWiki, they can run JavaScript on the victims computer when they open the graph, simply by uploading the vulnerable SVG to the Commons image for the default year.
- I appreciate the effort of MDWiki for trying to utilize the OWID graphs, however I don't think this is the way to do it.
- Dylsss(talk contribs) 19:15, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- We have a tool that does the batch uploads. So not an issue. We could load images as people request/move through the content to decrease requests. Not sure how it will effect functionality. We were looking at just using https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ImageMap as built by User:Tim Starling. Not sure if that would solve the security concerns. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Also do we not run appropriate sanitisation of svg uploads to Commons to prevent this? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:03, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Okay confirmed with someone who was on the security team that svgs are indeed sanitized on upload. And thus one should not be able to replace one we use with a malicious one as outlined. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:29, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- We have decreased the data amount 7x by only loading a single region initially. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:11, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- Okay confirmed with someone who was on the security team that svgs are indeed sanitized on upload. And thus one should not be able to replace one we use with a malicious one as outlined. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:29, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Also do we not run appropriate sanitisation of svg uploads to Commons to prevent this? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:03, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- We have a tool that does the batch uploads. So not an issue. We could load images as people request/move through the content to decrease requests. Not sure how it will effect functionality. We were looking at just using https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ImageMap as built by User:Tim Starling. Not sure if that would solve the security concerns. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
Can't fix duplicate sources
SpaceX Starship has a lot of duplicated sources such as Cite error: The named reference "Sesnic-2021" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
However inspecting the code I can't find this duplicate definition (there are multiple such cases in the reflist). What am I missing? Thanks {{u|Gtoffoletto}} talk 19:05, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Gtoffoletto, SpaceX Starship is transcluding sections from SpaceX Super Heavy and SpaceX Starship (spacecraft) both of which have references with the same names. So, when they appear in the same article, you're getting the cite error message. Nthep (talk) 19:20, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- thanks! Quick fix is to change the references to something more unique? {{u|Gtoffoletto}} talk 20:43, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Gtoffoletto yep. You'd need to choose one of the articles content is transcluded from and create a totally unique set of reference names. I'd suggest leaving a note on the talk page as to why, in case someone else thinks you're doing some sort of cosmetic edit. Nthep (talk) 09:52, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- thanks! Quick fix is to change the references to something more unique? {{u|Gtoffoletto}} talk 20:43, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
large categories
Hello. Similar to Category:Biography articles of living people what are some categories that contain either article pages, or their talk-pages? the linked category has approximately 1,167,004 pages. I am looking for categories with 100k + articles. Recursive/container categories would be welcome too. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:12, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- You may find Special:MostLinkedCategories helpful. — MusikAnimal talk 18:54, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- @MusikAnimal: thanks. This is indeed helpful. I may have a question for you after a couple of months on a different matter. See you around. —usernamekiran (talk) 19:28, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
Recent style change overnight perhaps?
I have Modern skin. I work on Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Chrome. Firefox and Edge have always served me well, and look identical in their edit screens. Something weird happened with both Firefox and Edge edit screens overnight. As of this morning, they both seem to have synchronized with Chrome. Teeny type with backgrounds of purple (lavender), yellow and white. The edit window type style is much smaller, requiring me to use a magnifying glass. How did this happen? — Maile (talk) 22:11, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
Articles with math errors - articles fall into a category for no apparent reason
I've recently noticed the Category:Articles with math errors with ~20 articles in it. Found out some of them actually were displaying red messages about some LaTeX/MathJax syntax errors, but the math appeared correct when I inspected the source and the edit preview was OK even though I didn't touch the <math> tags' contents. Purging the page with the asterisk-link did not help, but the null edit cleaned up the situation. So I started to pick those pages one by one and apply null edits to them. After a few such actions I started to make micro-changes (adding or deleting some space) just to leave a track in their history. You can see them in my contributions list 8–10 Feb 2025. This cleaned up the category.
Two days later I looked at it again and to my surprise I found another four or five articles in it. Today it's nine. And none of them displays any maths error.
How do they get there?
What's even more strange, the pages listed in the category do not display the link to it in their 'Categories:' footer...
What am I missing??? --CiaPan (talk) 08:32, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- There are currently 8 pages in the category. One of them (Wick's theorem) is currently showing an error (please do not purge the article until others have had a chance to inspect). It is showing:
- Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin):
- Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.")
- from server "http://localhost:6011/en.wikipedia.org/v1/":):
- {\displaystyle \hat{a}_i^\bullet \,\hat{a}_j^{\dagger\bullet}= \hat{a}_i\, \hat{a}_j^\dagger \,- \mathopen{:}\,\hat{a}_i\,\hat{a}_j^\dagger \,\mathclose{:}\, = \delta_{ij} \hat{\mathbf 1}}
- My guess is that a reader viewing the page is causing it to be rendered at a time when some server overload means that the math extension is unable to do its work. Someone here may be able to comment on whether a cause is known or, if not, how it should be reported. Johnuniq (talk) 09:10, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Johnuniq: The Wick's theorem article did not show me the error you saw, neither when I looked at all of them during writing my questions above, nor now, when I saw your comment and verified the page. Possibly our browsers use different caching servers and mine delivers a complete version while yours keeps the result of some partially failed processing...? --CiaPan (talk) 12:07, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
BTW, if you see a text with the math processing error, do you also see a link to the category at the bottom of the article? --CiaPan (talk) 12:10, 13 February 2025 (UTC)- Yes, the article displayed the error message I quoted and showed it in the hidden error category. Johnuniq (talk) 00:01, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Johnuniq: The Wick's theorem article did not show me the error you saw, neither when I looked at all of them during writing my questions above, nor now, when I saw your comment and verified the page. Possibly our browsers use different caching servers and mine delivers a complete version while yours keeps the result of some partially failed processing...? --CiaPan (talk) 12:07, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- A purge only updates the page itself including which categories are listed at the bottom of the page. A null edit or other edit also updates the link tables which control whether the page is listed on category pages. Some automatic actions can also cause a purge or something equivalent without updating link tables, or they may be updated with a long delay. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:23, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter: Ah, OK, so this explains the asymmetry in linking between the article and a category. Thank you. :) CiaPan (talk) 12:15, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Johnuniq and PrimeHunter: Looks like the category got emptied... --CiaPan (talk) 15:35, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- This problem is reported in T270348, I don't think anybody has figured out why it happens yet. Matma Rex talk 16:10, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Matma Rex:
Thank you for the Phab link and your comment. I really don't know, how to comment this situation. I guess, I'm going to drop this topic... --CiaPan (talk) 07:53, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Matma Rex:
Maplink & Wikidata
I am trying to replicate Template:Maplink#Raw_Wikidata_query_examples, but with other data. I have this query that returns a map in the Wikidata Query Service. However, it does not if I put i into User:Dajasj/sandbox. I noticed that the example returns the Q-numbers of the articles, but even that does not give me a map. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong or clarify what the query should return? Thanks in advance! Dajasj (talk) 13:27, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- I cases like this. Simplify it until it works, then make it more complex again. It seems there is syntax error somewhere (probably due to templates and sparql syntax getting mixed). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:10, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @TheDJ, thanks for your advice! I tried that, see the second example on User:Dajasj/sandbox. This was the most simple version I could make, which I think is similar to the example. However still two things happen that are unexpected: not all municipalities show up (see here what the query does) and the one that does, has a shape that is not even available on that Wikidata page as far as I can see (d:Q849566 only has c:Data:Ten_Boer_(1841).map). So that's why I am already confused what my query should return. Dajasj (talk) 11:25, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- (You also mention a syntax error, did you see an error message somewhere that I might have missed?) Dajasj (talk) 11:28, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @TheDJ, thanks for your advice! I tried that, see the second example on User:Dajasj/sandbox. This was the most simple version I could make, which I think is similar to the example. However still two things happen that are unexpected: not all municipalities show up (see here what the query does) and the one that does, has a shape that is not even available on that Wikidata page as far as I can see (d:Q849566 only has c:Data:Ten_Boer_(1841).map). So that's why I am already confused what my query should return. Dajasj (talk) 11:25, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
Thumbnail background
The English Wikipedia used to have white background for thumbnail images with transparency. It was specified explicitly in MediaWiki:Common.css from 2010 until 2017, when that style was removed locally because is was implemented globally (T154077). However, relatively recently that global style for the white background disappeared, so all transparent thumbnails became gray (here and on other Wikipedias as well). I guess that this change was related to introducing the "dark theme" but could not find any explanations why it must result in reducing the contrast in both cases instead of using the appropriate theme-dependent background (white/black, same as the page itself). Does anybody know the story behind this change and whether it was intentional? Is it possible to make specific thumbnails appear "opaque" (having background = page color) without modifying the files? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 22:51, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- The background for images ended up being 'background-color-interactive-subtle', which is, as you guessed, a dark theme color variable - change 3. That change had two preceding changes - change 1 and change 2.
- You could override the style in a similar way english wikipedia did originally in common.css, just add additional declarations to it to make it apply to one image only. Snævar (talk) 23:17, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
Plain In {{stack}}With class=skin-invert- Could you please clarify how to override the background for a specific thumbnail?
- The only relevant thing I've found in the documentation is
class=skin-invertto allow "inverting" the image colors in the dark mode (technically, applyfilter: invert(1) hue-rotate(180deg), which should be equivalent to inverting the luma). This, however, is also problematic because the dark-mode background is inverted with the image, and it actually is redefined to hard-coded value#c8ccd1, which makes the gray line in this example image practically invisible (what is even more weird, when I've tried to place these images inside{{stack}}or{|class="floatright" ..., their backgrounds in the dark mode became very different). This particular image is perhaps not an example of how to make good images but it is kind of illustrative in the sense that many images with transparent background are intended to be displayed over white background (or that the user will choose the background wisely) rather than arbitrary shades of gray. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 07:08, 12 February 2025 (UTC)- Like this - use a unique class each time:
- <div class="potato">[[File:Example.png|thumb]]</div>
- with the following CSS:
- Snævar (talk) 14:09, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
.potato figure[typeof~='mw:File/Thumb'], .potato figure[typeof~='mw:File/Frame'] { enter css values here }
- OK, but where "the following CSS" should go? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 21:38, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- Probably this is something we could ask to change upstream. Izno (talk) 00:14, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- I also hope so. Would you please take care of this? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 07:08, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
49-state US flag
I happened to be looking at File:US flag 49 stars.svg, and I noticed it's included in a lot of Olympic athletes' pages, including ones too young to have competed in the 1960 Olympics, the only one where it would be appropriate. Is this incorrectly included in a template somewhere? I tried to go down the rabbit hole of Olympic template inclusions but quickly got lost.—Chowbok ☠ 22:01, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- The flag is updated on July 4 following the admission of new states to the Union since the previous July 4. Alaska was admitted on January 3, 1959 and Hawaii on August 21, 1959 so the 49-star flag was in use from July 4, 1959 until July 3, 1960. The 1960 Summer Olympics took place in August-September 1960, by which time the 50-star flag was in use. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:05, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Chowbok: As the edit notice for this page says: "Where did you encounter the problem? Please add links when possible." The flag had 50 stars at the 1960 Olympics but 49 at the 1959 Pan American Games so it could for example be articles displaying {{Footer Pan American Champions 4x100m Men}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:06, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- I checked the first article in the WhatLinksHere list, which was Brian Boitano; its only use of the 49-star flag was from the transclusion of {{NavigationOlympicFigureSkatingChampionsMen}}. That template uses it just once: for the American winner of Figure skating at the 1960 Winter Olympics – Men's singles, an event that took place in February 1960. This all seems correct to me. jlwoodwa (talk) 02:26, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- Aha. I gotcha. Thanks!—Chowbok ☠ 02:58, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
Petscan dead?
ResolvedWikipedia:PetScan seems not to be running any more. Is this a temporary glitch, or something more serious? It's part of several workflows I'm currently using. — The Anome (talk) 13:08, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Try this page. This external volunteer run tool has been having some recurring issues. — xaosflux Talk 20:50, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- This appears to be up again. — xaosflux Talk 19:26, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux — Reporting PetScan Not running today for past sereral hours; was Okay yesterday. Error This web service cannot be reached. JoeNMLC (talk) 16:44, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- The link to report errors about that is in my comment above. That utility is not managed by the English Wikipedia. — xaosflux Talk 17:20, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux — Reporting PetScan Not running today for past sereral hours; was Okay yesterday. Error This web service cannot be reached. JoeNMLC (talk) 16:44, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
Link to Edit count/Pie chart, no longer working
My Edit records link, no longer functions properly. GoodDay (talk) 13:36, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Is that an old link? The url should look like this
https://xtools.wmcloud.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/X201. Alternatively, go to the bottom of your Contributions page and click Edit Count. - X201 (talk) 14:23, 4 February 2025 (UTC) - I was required to sign in but after that your link worked. There was a warning on replication lag, which could be causing issues. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:41, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Tried again @X201: & @ActivelyDisinterested:, by updating to [28], still won't work. It keeps telling me to log in to continue. GoodDay (talk) 01:31, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- still won't work because "For performance reasons, the requested data is only available to logged-in users" thus you would login to continue. -- GreenC 18:06, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- Tried again @X201: & @ActivelyDisinterested:, by updating to [28], still won't work. It keeps telling me to log in to continue. GoodDay (talk) 01:31, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
reqphotos & maps
Is there any way to take articles which are tagged with {{photo requested}} and display them in an interactive map? I've poked around the reqphoto pages, but didn't come across anything. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 19:52, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- Wiki Loves Monuments does that kind of stuff. Some places in the photo competition have a coordinate, that gets stored in a sql database. That database is then used to show the places on a map.
- Sorting pages transcluding "template:photo requested" with locational categories would be orders of magnitude simpler. Snævar (talk) 19:22, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes. Navigate to the most relevant subcategory in Category:Wikipedia requested photographs by location and use the "Map all coordinates using OpenStreetMap" option. – SD0001 (talk) 09:25, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's terrific! Exactly the sort of thing I was looking for, thanks!! — Fourthords | =Λ= | 18:36, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
Wikidata help
Hello, I noticed that many of enwiki's Korea-related articles lack Hangul-script redirect, like 주체 for the transliterated title Juche. I already got Petscan to give me a list of articles in Category:Korea that transclude hangul templates https://petscan.wmcloud.org/?psid=31871180]. From this list, what would be the simplest way to get their respective Korean titles?
I imagine I would use Wikidata for this, but I only know basic python. Ca talk to me! 12:29, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- Petscan is down again, as it seems wont to be; but if what you did to get your list of pages can be done in a single local database query - some things Petscan does can't, like pulling from a pagepile or from Wikidata - I can turn that into a list of interlanguage links. I take it you looked for mainspace pages in the Category:Korea tree transcluding any of a list of templates? Which ones? What max depth? Any other constraints? Or if you made a copy of the list before Petscan died and link to them all from a user subpage, I can work from that. —Cryptic 17:48, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- ...and it's back up. quarry:query/90806 → User:Ca/ko links. —Cryptic 03:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you very much! Ca talk to me! 06:57, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- ...and it's back up. quarry:query/90806 → User:Ca/ko links. —Cryptic 03:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
Interlanguage link issues
In the page Oura Health there is an instance of an Interlanguage link, per:
- {{Interlanguage link|English article title|language code|Title in foreign language}}
In this case, it is:
- {{ill|io-tech|fi|io-tech}}
Per:
- Laine, Petrus (2024-10-04). "Oura Health julkaisi uuden sukupolven Oura Ring 4 -älysormuksen" [Oura Health launches new generation Oura Ring 4 smart ring] (in Finnish). io-tech. Retrieved 2025-02-14.
While this page does not exist in the English Wikipedia, it does exist in Finish Wikipedia project, however, it shows as a redline link (page does not exist). So, since there is no corresponding English Wikipedia page, it occurred to me to delete the English title, per:
- {{ill||fi|io-tech}}
But this produced an error.
At Template:Interlanguage link page, there is a note below:
Non-existent foreign articleOn Wikipedia, links to nonexistent pages normally show as red links. There is no way for this template, or any code on Wikipedia, to check whether an article on another language's Wikipedia exists. Links to all foreign-language articles, including nonexistent foreign-language articles, show as blue links.
... yet it shows as a red link...
Typically, one would add an Interlanguage link precisely because no corresponding Wikipedia page exists in the home language (in this case, English) - yet it appears that in order to link to another Wikipedia language page one is required to supply the name of the (non-existent) English Wikipedia page. This would appear to be a Catch-22 situation.
The implication would then appear to be that it is necessary to create an English Wikipedia page to address this issue - but that would not only require undue effort on behalf of editors, but it would also defeat the purpose of linking to another Wikipedia project page.
Surely, there must be a simple and intuitive way to link to other language Wikipedia pages - no? Enquire (talk) 00:52, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- It is perfectly acceptable to have a red link when the English Wikipedia would benefit from having an article on that topic. Having a red link for the English WP associated with an interlanguage link may be regarded as a request for the creation of an article on that topic in the English WP. Alt.Donald Albury (talk) 02:12, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- I support encouraging editors to create pages in new Wikipedia that mirror pages in other languages - but I would have expected that Interlanguage links would take the Wikipedia reader to the referenced other language Wiki page. As is, visitors would be forgiven by thinking that the link is broken and/or that no such page exists. Enquire (talk) 06:41, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- I can see that the blue link that is the interlanguage link after the red link is may not be sufficiently obvious. Perhaps that link can be made more obvious to the casual reader, but I'm not sure what would work. Alt.Donald Albury (talk) 07:15, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- Red links are not prohibited. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:48, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- Now I see it. I support encouraging users to create Wiki articles in their home language but, as @Alt.Donald Albury noted, the cited ILL is not at all obvious - I admit that I, myself, did not notice that before I started this thread. That maybe is (in part) because, in this instance, due to kerning, fi appears quite narrow.
- In consequence, I would like to propose that the ILL template be modified. Currently, as in this example, the ILL renders as:
- io-tech [fi]
- Instead, I propose that the template be amended to render as follows:
- io-tech [fi:io-tech]
- In this way it is quite clear that, while an English Wikipedia page does not exit (red line link) that a Finnish Wikipedia page does. Also, this would evidence reciprocity in as much as the syntax for the (red line) English page (which does not exist) is the same as for the Finnish page (which does exist). Enquire (talk) 20:35, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- I would prefer io-tech [finnish], getting "finnish" from the "fi" language code is easy with {{#language:fi|en}}. Snævar (talk) 21:56, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- Það myndi líka virka. [That would also work.] Enquire (talk) 22:40, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- Recall that the displayed text should be readily understood by readers, and so personally I don't think the literal interlanguage wikitext link should be displayed. I suggest (Finnish) would be simplest (using
{{#language:language_code|en}}as suggested by Snævar to generate the language). isaacl (talk) 00:49, 16 February 2025 (UTC)- Either way would address the issue. As is currently, it is not clear and intuitive as to how to access the available (existing) interlanguage Wikipedia article. Note, there would be no need to invoke an interlanguage Wikipedia page if the home language (in this instance, English) page existed - and so, it follows, that the link to Wikipedia page that actually exists (in this instance, Finnish) is clearly identified.
- Enquire (talk) 01:16, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- The purpose of keeping the interlanguage link small, similar in size to the ubiquitous reference numbers, is presumably to not interrupt the flow of prose when used in article text while also indicating to readers that there is something additional to the text they may want to look at. Creating a large "(Finnish)" or similar would affect readability, as well as not fixing the stated problem. The most likely way a reader would interpret anything written in the same size and formatting as normal prose is as prose, which in this case would be thinking that "(Finnish)" means that "io-tech" is a Finnish word. CMD (talk) 03:07, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- It is not really about the length, but rather about how long the reader lingers on the Finnish language code vs. the language name. It may be common for people from United States or New Zealand (apparently) to learn about language codes, but language codes are not taught in grade school or at a secondary education level where I come from. I do not think understanding language codes is something that is taught in Europe. Language codes are definitely one of the things I have learned by being on Wikipedia. As such, an non Wikipedian reader that is European would linger more on the language code, and gets interrupted by it, than he would with the language name. Snævar (talk) 09:43, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- The purpose of keeping the interlanguage link small, similar in size to the ubiquitous reference numbers, is presumably to not interrupt the flow of prose when used in article text while also indicating to readers that there is something additional to the text they may want to look at. Creating a large "(Finnish)" or similar would affect readability, as well as not fixing the stated problem. The most likely way a reader would interpret anything written in the same size and formatting as normal prose is as prose, which in this case would be thinking that "(Finnish)" means that "io-tech" is a Finnish word. CMD (talk) 03:07, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- I would prefer io-tech [finnish], getting "finnish" from the "fi" language code is easy with {{#language:fi|en}}. Snævar (talk) 21:56, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- I support encouraging editors to create pages in new Wikipedia that mirror pages in other languages - but I would have expected that Interlanguage links would take the Wikipedia reader to the referenced other language Wiki page. As is, visitors would be forgiven by thinking that the link is broken and/or that no such page exists. Enquire (talk) 06:41, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- If you want to create an interlanguage link without an en.wiki redlink, use the applicable iso code as a namespace. For example,
[[:fi:io-tech|io-tech]]makes io-tech. The ill template is specifically intended to create an en.wiki redlink, which may prompt an article creation, and then to hide the interlanguage links automatically when the redlinked article is created (without articles using ill to link to the former redlink needing to be edited). CMD (talk) 03:13, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
Diff presentation change
ResolvedI'm seeing a dramatic change in the presentation of diffs, hiding the wikitext code in favor of something probably closer to VE (I don't know since I've never looked at VE).
- Did I miss discussion about this?
- Is there a user pref that I can use to return to the old way?
―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 08:00, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- Sounds like mw:VisualEditor/Diffs. Unless you've hidden or otherwise restyled them, there should be enormous "Visual" and "Wikitext" buttons wasting your screen space towards the upper right. Click on the Wikitext one. —Cryptic 08:44, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- Lol. Stray click, I guess. What would I do without VPT? ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 09:06, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- I agree with
wasting
and this would be better as a user pref, which would prevent future occurrences of this same error, this same confusion, and this same VPT thread. But whatever, that's a discussion for a different time and a different page. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 09:21, 16 February 2025 (UTC)- If you use MonoBook skin, and can wait some hours, I can dig up all the little tweaks that I have made (mainly in my user style sheets) in order to keep my diffs looking exactly the same as they did in 2009/10. I started doing this when Vector was dumped on us: some of its features occasionally spill over to MonoBook. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:44, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- I don't use Monobook, but in any case I dislike personal tweaks and prefer to remain as "vanilla" as possible. I even try to limit my use of scripts/gadgets to things that really—really—help me, like the one that converts timestamps to my local time. The simpler my environment, the less trouble, as I see it. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 11:19, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- I will use both views depending on circumstance, and sometimes switching back and forth, and thus personally I appreciate having a toggle present on the diff page. isaacl (talk) 15:52, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- Not a problem. Supportable with a user pref with three options: Visual, Wikitext, or Toggle. Have it your way. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 19:05, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- If you use MonoBook skin, and can wait some hours, I can dig up all the little tweaks that I have made (mainly in my user style sheets) in order to keep my diffs looking exactly the same as they did in 2009/10. I started doing this when Vector was dumped on us: some of its features occasionally spill over to MonoBook. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:44, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Logentry-rights-autopromote
The formatting of log entries at Special:Log/rights has changed to show exactly which user rights were added or removed, instead of just showing the lists of all the old groups and all the new groups following phab:T369466.
But the log entries automatically granting extended confirmed rights still follow the old format. This should perhaps be fixed by editing or deleting MediaWiki:Logentry-rights-autopromote. GTrang (talk) 23:15, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- It seems that no one has yet responded to what I asked here. So, I have now started an MfD at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/MediaWiki:Logentry-rights-autopromote. GTrang (talk) 03:46, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Mobile communication bugs § Maintenance banner links on mobile. Sdkb talk 05:27, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
Problem with warning on the Jimbo Wales user page
in the User:Jimbo_Wales page there is a warning box that doesn't show up properly if the user is in dark mode, on account of some of the text being the same color as the background. since I wasn't Sure how to fix the problem and the talk page was semi protected, I came here. is this a matter of just shifting the text or background color or is this a more complex problem with dark mode itself? (this is the warning I was referring to:)
| This is a Wikipedia user page. This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user in whose space this page is located may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_218. |  |
67.20.1.4 (talk) 19:23, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
Fixed. Someone added a custom background color without specifying the text color. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:34, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
Huggle not working
Resolved
Moved from Wikipedia:Help desk § Huggle not workingHello! Recently, when I log into Huggle, it appears to not be functional—that is, no pages are loading up on the queue, so I'm just stuck with the "It's empty" message. I've tried restarting my computer and deleting and re-downloading the app, but nothing seems to work. Has anyone had this problem before, and how can I fix it? Thank you! Relativity ⚡️ 00:26, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- In settings, in the system tab, try changing your provider from XML RCS to wiki. More info: Wikipedia talk:Huggle/Feedback#Nothing in queue –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:09, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Novem Linguae: Works perfectly now. Thank you! Relativity ⚡️ 01:46, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
Wrong info in infobox, no way to override it
See Template talk:Infobox Belgium municipality#Local parameter doesn't work, template gives incorrect province. Basically, Zwijndrecht, Belgium recently switched from one province to another, but the infobox "province" info is based on an official number ("niscode") which didn't change (the "subdivision_name3" in the template code), and the manual overrides suggested at the infobox doc don't work. Only solutions I can think of is to remove the infobox completely, which seems like overkill, or to add a fake niscode, which replaces one bit of wrong info with another. Completely removing the niscode from the infobox makes it even worse. It would be appreciated if someone could make the manual override value actually work. Fram (talk) 15:47, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Done, let me know if you see any issues with the change, Fram. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:36, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, looks good! Fram (talk) 16:43, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Fwiw, I updated the template documentation to reflect the actual operation of those parameters.
regionandcommunityboth also work like province used to; that is, only used if the NIS was absent. Manual overrides could be implemented for those in the same way as withprovince, but I decided not to do that unless there's a need, to avoid possible disruption elsewhere. But at least now the template docs aren't misleading. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:54, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Fwiw, I updated the template documentation to reflect the actual operation of those parameters.
- Thanks, looks good! Fram (talk) 16:43, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
Formatprice template says "$1000 million"
Hi all. Ideally there'd be a way to combine and automate the whole final inflation statement I want to see in prose, that I already had to break into three different templates. Here's where I am: approximately {{US$|474 million|long=no}} (equivalent to ${{formatprice|{{inflation|US|474000000|1993|r=3}}}} in {{Inflation-year|USD}})
If not, can someone suggest a way to correct the ${{formatprice|{{inflation|US|474000000|1993|r=3}}}} in {{Inflation-year|USD}} syntax that generates the weird output "$1000 million" upon the rendered page? It needs to say "$1 billion", lol.
Should I, at least temporarily, manually use expr and the word "billion" without violating WP:OR? Is it not OR if the numerical lead is calculated? approximately {{US$|474 million|long=no}} (equivalent to ${{formatnum:{{#expr:{{inflation|US|474000000|1993|r=3}}/1000000000 round 0}}}} billion in {{Inflation-year|USD}})
The examples above are for Crystal Pepsi where it doesn't work, and I don't know why Great Flood of 1951 does seem to work. And I wish both could be one template! ;)
Long ago, I scoured for a fix and posted an unanswered comment on the template's Talk page here. @Jonesey95: I was hoping you'd know. Thanks! — Smuckola(talk) 07:58, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- You're getting "$1000 million" because the value of
{{inflation|US|474000000|1993|r=3}}is currently 999756738.079. So first {{format price}} decides that's best expressed "999.756738079 million" and then it rounds that up to "1000 million". A workaround might be to do|r=-6to round the inflation value to millions before it's passed to {{format price}}, like{{formatprice|{{inflation|US|474000000|1993|r=-6}}}}→ 1.03 billion. Anomie⚔ 12:25, 17 February 2025 (UTC)- @Anomie: Ok thanks a lot. Should I use -6 for all millions of dollars? Or just for output above $1 billion? And is the syntax otherwise optimal? It can't be combined into fewer templates? — Smuckola(talk) 23:15, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- To quote {{inflation}}'s docpage:
It is advisable to avoid false precision; even if the start value is known to be exact, the template's result will not be because the inflation index tables are rarely accurate to more than about 1%, and a granularity of whole years is used.
- In short, giving more than 2 or 3 significant digits in the output is rarely desirable. Because of how the template's written you have to change the value of the r= part based on how many decimal places are in the output value (unlike {{convert}} which has a sigfig= option). Presumably it'd be possible to add one of those to inflation as well...
- It's certainly possible to write a wrapper template that just passes the arguments through to
{{format price|{{inflation|...}}}}. I take it no one has done it because they didn't feel like bothering. --Slowking Man (talk) 03:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- To quote {{inflation}}'s docpage:
- @Anomie: Ok thanks a lot. Should I use -6 for all millions of dollars? Or just for output above $1 billion? And is the syntax otherwise optimal? It can't be combined into fewer templates? — Smuckola(talk) 23:15, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- What's wrong with "$1000 million"? One billion is 1000 millions (short scale, anyway). In some situations it might make more sense to talk about "1000 million", just as we sometimes say "12 hundred" instead of "one thousand two hundred". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:26, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- I mean there's nothing "wrong" with it in the most fundamental sense of "conveying false information". But it's not idiomatic English, and has a likelihood of confusing readers. This deviates a bit from MOS:NUMBERS. (Personally, I hate the "12 hundred" stuff as it can trip me up when reading. Just gimme the numbers, keep it simple! Eyy, I'm readin' heah!) --Slowking Man (talk) 21:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Not idiomatic for who? I would tend to use "thousand million" in any situation where only a few values ranged into the billions to make the comparison to many values in the millions clearer.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- I mean there's nothing "wrong" with it in the most fundamental sense of "conveying false information". But it's not idiomatic English, and has a likelihood of confusing readers. This deviates a bit from MOS:NUMBERS. (Personally, I hate the "12 hundred" stuff as it can trip me up when reading. Just gimme the numbers, keep it simple! Eyy, I'm readin' heah!) --Slowking Man (talk) 21:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
Random vital articles
On the WP:Vital articles pages for each level, there is a random article button on each level as well as each category. Originally, the random article button was for the top-level categories beginning with Category:Wikipedia level-1 vital articles, level 2, level 3, and so on, but the articles are now sorted by article quality and category. I put a temporary solution in to combine multiple categories into one, but I am hoping for a solution that randomizes the vital articles better. I particularly like this feature of vital article for two reasons. Obviously, one is to improve the articles, but I also find it a neat way to read random articles as a reader. Any ideas on how I can do this? Interstellarity (talk) 00:50, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- As far as I know, this is not possible. Categories can be infinitely deep, so you cannot 'randomly' select something from them. That's why using subcategories is often not a good idea and have multiple categories is better, especially when you are essentially applying labels to something. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:16, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's not a one-button solution and there's a bit of a learning curve, but PetScan can do this. All talk pages descending from Category:Wikipedia level-3 vital articles (depth 2) in random order. —Cryptic 10:45, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Cryptic Where can I ask for help using this tool to create a button? The only thing I've been able to do is for the articles to go into mainspace rather than talk space, which is a step in the right direction, but it's not what I'm looking for in the final outcome. I am hoping that whatever help you can provide me, whether it's asking somewhere else or from you, that would be great. Interstellarity (talk) 15:38, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- Interstellarity, here? This is the technical village pump. For instance, under Other sources > Namespaces you can select "Change to talk page". — Qwerfjkltalk 13:15, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's not what I wanted. I wanted to the random articles to go to the main namespace, not the talk namespace. Interstellarity (talk) 13:47, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- Interstellarity, here? This is the technical village pump. For instance, under Other sources > Namespaces you can select "Change to talk page". — Qwerfjkltalk 13:15, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Cryptic Where can I ask for help using this tool to create a button? The only thing I've been able to do is for the articles to go into mainspace rather than talk space, which is a step in the right direction, but it's not what I'm looking for in the final outcome. I am hoping that whatever help you can provide me, whether it's asking somewhere else or from you, that would be great. Interstellarity (talk) 15:38, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Interstellarity Try toolforge:randomincategory, e.g. toolforge:randomincategory/B-Class_level-1_vital_articles&category2=C-Class_level-1_vital_articles&category3=FA-Class_level-1_vital_articles&category4=GA-Class_level-1_vital_articles&category5=Start-Class_level-1_vital_articles --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:48, 18 February 2025 (UTC)- @Ahecht: That's basically what the current script is based on. I was hoping for a simpler solution, but I'm assuming that's the best you could come up with. Interstellarity (talk) 23:21, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Interstellarity if I have a chance, I'll look into having randomincategory traverse a single level of child categories. There would be a significant impact on the time it takes to run the script, so I'd have to see how feasible it is. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:50, 19 February 2025 (UTC)- @Ahecht Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it. Interstellarity (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Interstellarity if I have a chance, I'll look into having randomincategory traverse a single level of child categories. There would be a significant impact on the time it takes to run the script, so I'd have to see how feasible it is. --Ahecht (TALK
- @Ahecht: That's basically what the current script is based on. I was hoping for a simpler solution, but I'm assuming that's the best you could come up with. Interstellarity (talk) 23:21, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
Machine-learning based UAA reporting bot
Hi everyone,
I’m seeking consensus to file a BRFA for testing a new ML tool that detects usernames likely to violate WP:USERNAME. Over the past week, I’ve developed a DeBERTa‑based model that assigns a risk score (0–100) to each new username detecting everything from blatant vandalism to subtle promotional names based on how likely it is to violate our policies. On the validation set, its false positive rate is under 1% (though real-world performance might be slightly different). The way the model works is very similar to how the model of an existing ML-based bot, ClueBot, functions.
You can review a demo on a sample (not every single one) from last week’s new usernames at User:MolecularBot/UsernameRisk. I’m happy to test any usernames through the model on request and answer any questions about the model or its training data.
The demo shows that while the model is multilingual (it detected German death threats and Chinese promotional names, and flagged fine usernames in another langur as low-risk), its primary strength is English. Most usernames scoring 95%+ genuinely violate our policies and should be reported to UAA. We already have a UAA reporting bot, DeltaQuadBot, which is very useful but due to its nature (regular expression) has a significantly lower accuracy (I would say the majority of usernames it reports aren't violations), so I don't see why a new bot that could pick up some additional violations that DQB misses (and is much more accurate) would be objected to adding some usernames to UAA in addition to the ones the other bot picks up, but am of course open and ready to address any concerns. A concerning amount of usernames the model would have reported are still unblocked and weren't picked up by humans or DQB, highlighting the need for this. Also I think the model is probably more accurate than the average user reporting to UAA, not just the DQB.
I propose two options:
Option 1: Use the DeBERTa model alone. Usernames with a risk ≥95% would be reported to UAA (in a new "ML bot reported" section), unless already flagged by DeltaQuadBot or a human. See the demo link above to see which usernames would have been reported to UAA in the past week.
Option 2: Implement a dual-model setup. Since my DeBERTa is a binary classifier, it doesn't tell us how "bad" a username is in terms of how severely it violates the policies, but rather just how likely it is to violate. Silly but harmless usernames like "Poop pee butt", death threats and blatantly promotional usernames are all rated the same likelihood because they are all blatantly obvious, even thought the violations are different seventies.
This is why, I developed a second model—a fine-tuned version of Gemma (Google’s open-source Gemini)—to recommend specific actions based on context. I want to be clear this isn't just giving the usernames to a generalist LLM that can make mistakes or hallucinations, the last few "layers" have been replaced and retrained to keep the contextual understanding in the upper layers of the model - important for understanding the username policies and all the context of the username but make it highly accurate and specific to username analysis (it will not work with any other LLM tasks anymore). Only usernames scoring above 90 by DeBERTa would be passed to Gemma, which can suggest one of the following:
- File a UAA report (this is what the bot would do 100% of the time without Gemma)
- Leave a TP warning and report to UAA if there are mainspace edits afterwards (this is mainly for promotional usernames, as this is basically what most admins do when a UAA is filed for these (warn and wait for mainspace edits), so there's no need to file a UAA right away).
- Just leave a TP warning (used for "silly" names that are picked up by DeBERTa like "Poopoopolice" or "TurtleButt420" that aren't UAA-worthy but the user should still know)
- Take no action (Gemma basically catches every single false positive from the other model, both models working together means that together there are incredibility low rate of false positives, almost less than 0.1% on the validation set, because both of them need to make a mistake in order for there to be one)
This dual approach would tailor our response and reduce unnecessary reports. Examples of Gemma’s recommendations based on usernames flagged by DeBERTa can be seen at User:MolecularBot/UsernameRiskCombined.
I welcome your feedback and am ready to address any questions or concerns. MolecularPilot 🧪️✈️ 01:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Support option 2, as proposer. I believe option 2 is much more accurate at determining what should actually be reported to UAA. MolecularPilot 🧪️✈️ 01:54, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2 sounds good to me. The descriptions from Gemma look a bit verbose and UAA admins are likely capable of figuring out why a bad username is bad, so might want to think about making them shorter, removing them altogether, or including them as small text. – SD0001 (talk) 11:27, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Also, I wonder if "no action" should be really be an option available to Gemma. Usernames like Zane eats toes, BOBTHEEDITORCANHEEDITITBOBTHEEDITORYESHECAN sound disruptive and are probably worthy of some action like a {{uw-username}} template, but folks more familiar with UAA can comment on this. – SD0001 (talk) 11:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- I've been experimenting with making them shorter for the past few days, you can see my progress at User:MolecularBot/UsernameRiskCombinedConsice (probably still a bit long imo), but thanks for the suggestion, it's definitely something I'm trying to get right! :) MolecularPilot 🧪️✈️ 21:05, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- I'm a bit concerned at the number of names. Your sample has approx 700 hundred names between scores 99-90. So maybe 100 usernames reported to UAA a day? A quick count for yesterday shows 42 names reported by humans, and 17 bot reported names. My concern is there is already a high number of names reported to UAA, that don't warrant administrator intervention, and I think this will just add to the problem. A quick scan through the names on your list shows a large number of names that purely on the name alone, do not warrant a block. --Chris 12:42, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Chris G! I'm not sure what you mean that names that would be reported to UAA from the list wouldn't warrant a block, in the model version that I'm proposing here (see User:MolecularBot/UsernameRiskCombined) I'd say almost every name in the "UAA report" section would warrant a hard indef, are there any you disagree with? MolecularPilot 🧪️✈️ 21:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- And there's certainly not 700, unless you are referring to the option 1 model (User:MolecularBot/UsernameRisk), where the proposal was only for 95%+ not 90% and I would say the majority of usernames in that section violate in some way (but are not all bad enough for UAA). Option 1 was only provided in case people were against the idea of a fine-tuned LLM sorting usernames, the option 2 model combination (linked above) performs much better and only reports very few, severe violations (some of which were actually missed by humans and the existing regex bot. MolecularPilot 🧪️✈️ 21:47, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Chris G! I'm not sure what you mean that names that would be reported to UAA from the list wouldn't warrant a block, in the model version that I'm proposing here (see User:MolecularBot/UsernameRiskCombined) I'd say almost every name in the "UAA report" section would warrant a hard indef, are there any you disagree with? MolecularPilot 🧪️✈️ 21:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- As a general note, WP:VPT is a good place for sorting out technical questions. This sounds more like a question for specifically WT:UAA and/or WP:VPPRO. Izno (talk) 20:11, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Noted, I'll use VPPro or a more specific talk page next time, I assumed a bot was "technical"! :) MolecularPilot 🧪️✈️ 22:56, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- @MolecularPilot In general, leaving a TP note AND reporting to UAA is considered bad form. Either it's blatant, in which case the documentation of {{uw-username}} says the template shouldn't be used and it and should be reported directly to UAA, or it's not blatant and you should leave a note and only report to UAA if they edit again without addressing the username issue. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:35, 19 February 2025 (UTC)- Hi Ahecht! What you said last is exactly what it does ("you should leave a note and only report to UAA if they edit again without addressing the username issue"), it never leaves a note than then immediately reports to UAA it will only:
- immediate UAA, no note, or
- leave a note, and if the user edits mainspace after the note report to UAA (this is what you said, and it's an option it has)
- just a note
- depending on the severity. MolecularPilot 🧪️✈️ 22:47, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Ahecht! What you said last is exactly what it does ("you should leave a note and only report to UAA if they edit again without addressing the username issue"), it never leaves a note than then immediately reports to UAA it will only:
Discover which anchor is being used.
Is there a way to discover if a visible anchor e.g {{va|Commodity – Part 1|Commodity}} is actually being used in any other article to link to the article with the anchor? The reason for asking is that List of Silent Witness episodes has a visible anchor for almost every episode title (there's 258 of them) and I don't think any of the anchors are actually being used. I've checked 12 random articles that link to it and all of them use the episode number anchor that is a function of the Episode table template e.g List of Silent Witness episodes#ep67. Or is it going to be a case of checking each article that links to it? - X201 (talk) 08:55, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- X201, it's also possible that external sites link to the anchor. — Qwerfjkltalk 09:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- @X201Manually checking all the source links (see user gadget User:PrimeHunter/Source links.js
- ) will omit transclusions via a template and is a practical way to check each wiki-coded instance.
- Here is an absolute url example where you can replace Tesla and unions § United States with whatever sectioned example you want.
- As others said, it could be externally linked (but that's not going to be reliable anyways. It will also match anchor templates like {{Section link}}, {{See also}}, {{Main}} which can all link to a section. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 20:08, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Shushugah: Thanks for that. Both options give me the answers I was looking for. - X201 (talk) 08:31, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-08
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
- Communities using growth tools can now showcase one event on the
Special:Homepagefor newcomers. This feature will help newcomers to be informed about editing activities they can participate in. Administrators can create a new event to showcase atSpecial:CommunityConfiguration. To learn more about this feature, please read the Diff post, have a look at the documentation, or contact the Growth team.
Updates for editors
- Starting next week, talk pages at these wikis – Spanish Wikipedia, French Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia – will get a new design. This change was extensively tested as a Beta feature and is the last step of talk pages improvements. [29]
- You can now navigate to view a redirect page directly from its action pages, such as the history page. Previously, you were forced to first go to the redirect target. This change should help editors who work with redirects a lot. Thanks to user stjn for this improvement. [30]
- When a Cite reference is reused many times, wikis currently show either numbers like "1.23" or localized alphabetic markers like "a b c" in the reference list. Previously, if there were so many reuses that the alphabetic markers were all used, an error message was displayed. As part of the work to modernize Cite customization, these errors will no longer be shown and instead the backlinks will fall back to showing numeric markers like "1.23" once the alphabetic markers are all used.
- The log entries for each change to an editor's user-groups are now clearer by specifying exactly what has changed, instead of the plain before and after listings. Translators can help to update the localized versions. Thanks to user Msz2001 for these improvements.
- A new filter has been added to the Special:Nuke tool, which allows administrators to mass delete pages, to enable users to filter for pages in a range of page sizes (in bytes). This allows, for example, deleting pages only of a certain size or below. [31]
- Non-administrators can now check which pages are able to be deleted using the Special:Nuke tool. Thanks to user MolecularPilot for this and the previous improvements. [32]
- View all 25 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed in the configuration for the AV1 video file format, which enables these files to play again. [33]
Updates for technical contributors
- Parsoid Read Views is going to be rolling out to most Wiktionaries over the next few weeks, following the successful transition of Wikivoyage to Parsoid Read Views last year. For more information, see the Parsoid/Parser Unification project page. [34][35]
- Developers of tools that run on-wiki should note that
mw.Uriis deprecated. Tools requiringmw.Urimust explicitly declaremediawiki.Urias a ResourceLoader dependency, and should migrate to the browser nativeURLAPI soon. [36]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 21:18, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- Some scripts that seem to be affected by the last item:
- --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:53, 18 February 2025 (UTC)- So how do we fix it? Mine was just copied from another script, but I don't know the scripting well enough to fix the issue. Please ping me in any replies to me. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:20, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Nihonjoe,
1. remove'mediawiki.Uri',from your mw.loader.using line
2. replace the linevar uri = new mw.Uri(url);withvar uri = new URL(url);
3. replace!$.isEmptyObject(uri.query)withuri.searchParams.size == 0
4. replaceuri.path.slicewithuri.pathname.slice
To play with this yourself, open the browser console and compare the objects thatnew mw.Uri('https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/URL/URL?var=test')andnew URL('https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/URL/URL?var=test')produce. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 23:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)- @Alexis Jazz: Thanks! How does it look now? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:54, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Nihonjoe, looks like you implemented the changes as I suggested. Note that I seem to have made a mistake, it should say
uri.searchParams.size > 0instead of equals zero.
I didn't test any of it, so you should verify that the script still works as intended. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 05:26, 19 February 2025 (UTC)- Okay, updated. It still seems to be highlighting as intended. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:54, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Alexis Jazz, Nihonjoe, Pythoncoder, The Wordsmith, and TheSandDoctor: I believe #2 should be
var uri = new URL(linkraw.href);, since$(linkraw).attr('href')will return the relative URL butlinkraw.hrefwill return the fully-resolved URL thatURL()is expecting. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:05, 20 February 2025 (UTC)- @Ahecht: Does this look good now? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:49, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- Done, thanks! The WordsmithTalk to me 03:04, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Alexis Jazz, Nihonjoe, Pythoncoder, The Wordsmith, and TheSandDoctor: I believe #2 should be
- Okay, updated. It still seems to be highlighting as intended. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:54, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Nihonjoe, looks like you implemented the changes as I suggested. Note that I seem to have made a mistake, it should say
- Thank you very much for the instructions. As it happens, they applied perfectly to my script, which was another user highlighter fork, which was also largely a copy-paste job. It's also the motivation I need to make a more meaningful update to the script, because I've noticed some parts of it starting to break. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 05:50, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Alexis Jazz: Thanks! How does it look now? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:54, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Nihonjoe,
- Thanks for the notice, Ahecht! I've fixed up my script. :) Chlod (say hi!) 03:47, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Likewise. Saw it yesterday, just in time for the kids' vacation! ~ Amory (u • t • c) 04:28, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for the note. Have fixed the two of those, as well as MediaWiki:Gadget-dark-mode-toggle.js. – SD0001 (talk) 15:31, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for the ping. I made the change here, does that look like it is now compliant? The WordsmithTalk to me 17:34, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you for the ping, Ahecht, and the notes above, Alexis Jazz. I've now updated mine for the first time since...2018! Been a while haha. --TheSandDoctor Talk 21:54, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- I haven't touched that user script in awhile. Ended up writing a bunch of unit tests before I did my refactor. Fun nerd snipe :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:44, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- I just fixed all three of mine. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 15:21, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- So how do we fix it? Mine was just copied from another script, but I don't know the scripting well enough to fix the issue. Please ping me in any replies to me. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:20, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- --Ahecht (TALK
Updating SVG art for dark theme support?
Is there a style guide for images and artwork, particularly how we're handling the transition to supporting both dark and light themes? A lot of articles have SVG artwork that's black-on-transparent and thus invisible on the dark theme. And I was going to ask how to fix this, perhaps there's a way to make SVGs the same color as the text, or maybe resort to giving these SVGs a white canvas. idk.
And are there any automated tools for this job, or is this something that we'd have to pick through manually? It sounds tricky, because obviously not all SVGs need fixed. Some SVGs do adapt to dark/light themes, matching the text color. Some don't. How could you automatically detect this?
Examples: Elder Futhark#Rune names, Runes#Younger Futhark (9th to 11th centuries) NomadicVoxel (talk) 19:02, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- @NomadicVoxel See Help:Pictures#Dark mode. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:57, 20 February 2025 (UTC)- Oh thanks. NomadicVoxel (talk) 00:04, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- No automated tools for dark mode images have been implemented in Wikipedia yet, but a possible tool has been mentioned here, here, and here.
- I also suggested the possibility of adding a white background to dark images here, but I do not know the progress on it. LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 07:59, 21 February 2025 (UTC) (edited LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 08:07, 21 February 2025 (UTC))
Add my user name to a previous edit
I made some edits today to the "Ultraconservatism" page. I did not have a user name, but after I published the edit I registered. Can my user name be added to the edits I made? Don Friedmann (talk) 19:15, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- No, this can't be done. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 19:19, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- But you could do a further edit, and claim that you are the same person as did the anonymous edits, in your edit summary. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:42, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Don Friedmann: If you want the IP address hidden then see Wikipedia:Oversight. It cannot be replaced with your username. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
John Michael Montgomery
Something is creating a red-linked eponymous category in John Michael Montgomery and I can't figure out what. I can't find any category coding anywhere in the text. I've tried removing whole chunks and nothing seems to remove the category. What's causing this glitch? Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 16:41, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- It was a mistake up in the 1998 section, where category and file markup were combined. Fixed now. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:46, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
How many stubs are there?
Wikipedia:Content_assessment#Statistics has a handy list of articles by assessment, but the total number of articles differs from the official count at Special:Statistics. Folks on Discord suggested this is because the "???" column includes redirects. A couple questions, then: (1) How can we exclude redirects from that sort of calculation? (2) are there really that few redirects? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:06, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Rhododendrites articles without a corresponding talk page wouldn't appear in Wikipedia:Content_assessment ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:25, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- Right, and neither would talk pages without a WikiProject banner. But the total at Wikipedia:Content assessment#Statistics is around 1.2 million larger than "Content pages" (mainspace pages excluding redirects) at Special:Statistics. There are far more redirects than that but many of them have no talk page or it has no WikiProject banner. Maybe talk pages of redirects are included in Wikipedia:Content assessment#Statistics if they have a WikiProject banner. It depends how the bot is coded. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:49, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- {{asbox}} has 2,383,450 transclusions, according to toolforge. Does that help? – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:49, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- Checking size of Category:All stub articles is probably more accurate, currently 2,331,844. – SD0001 (talk) 09:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- Querying count of non-redirect articles by byte size would be a better gauge. I don't know who/how that can be done. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- Checking size of Category:All stub articles is probably more accurate, currently 2,331,844. – SD0001 (talk) 09:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- {{asbox}} has 2,383,450 transclusions, according to toolforge. Does that help? – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:49, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- Right, and neither would talk pages without a WikiProject banner. But the total at Wikipedia:Content assessment#Statistics is around 1.2 million larger than "Content pages" (mainspace pages excluding redirects) at Special:Statistics. There are far more redirects than that but many of them have no talk page or it has no WikiProject banner. Maybe talk pages of redirects are included in Wikipedia:Content assessment#Statistics if they have a WikiProject banner. It depends how the bot is coded. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:49, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
XFD backlog template issue
When I click on the "total" value for the RfD row in Template:XFD backlog, which links to the nonexistent section "toc" (Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#toc), nothing happens apart from a pop-up message on the top right of the page: "This topic could not be found. It might have been deleted, moved or renamed." I am using Google Chrome ("Version 133.0.6943.127 (Official Build) (64-bit)") on desktop. I'm unfamiliar with the technical side of Wikipedia, but according to this, the code should be:
| [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#{{#time:F j|-8 days}}|{{#invoke:XfD old/AfD and MfD|rfd|month=total}}]]
| [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#toc|{{#invoke:XfD old/AfD and MfD|rfd|month=total}}]]
Will someone look into this? Best regards, HKLionel (talk) 08:02, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- @HKLionel: The linked request was to replace the first line by the second and this was done.[37]. The reason the "section" link was broken for you is different: The toc anchor for the table of contents isn't in the current default skin Vector 2022 which displays the TOC elsewhere. It works in other skins like Vector legacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion?useskin=vector#toc. But a link which is broken in the default skin is bad. I am reverting to the original code which currently gives a working section link but may not always if there is no corresponding date heading. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:49, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- I don't have much of an idea about what you're talking about, but thanks anyway! HKLionel (talk) 10:00, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Answers tend to be technical here. I assumed you have "Vector (2022)" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. The toc link worked for users with other skin selections. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:06, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- I don't have much of an idea about what you're talking about, but thanks anyway! HKLionel (talk) 10:00, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
GeoHack down?
For several hours now, all my browsers and devices yield a 404 for GeoHack. I found nothing at Talk:GeoHack or GeoHack (MediaWiki links). Tens of thousands of articles link to GeoHack pages defined by coordinates. Anyone know what's going on here? ---Sluzzelin talk 01:59, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yup, it's down. Click the globe icon instead of the coordinates for a map in Katographer for now. This external tool is maintained by volunteers, hopefully they get around to it. — xaosflux Talk 02:07, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, Xaosflux, and thanks for pointing out the Kartographer's globe! What I love about GeoHack is the plethora of map links it provides, all geared to the same point on Earth. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:13, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- FYI, it seems to be back online again, but running slow. — xaosflux Talk 14:40, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, Xaosflux, and thanks for pointing out the Kartographer's globe! What I love about GeoHack is the plethora of map links it provides, all geared to the same point on Earth. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:13, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
Navigation popups bug: Popup uses HTML em and strong in place of i and b
You are invited to join the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-popups.js § Bug: Popup uses HTML em and strong in place of i and b.
— W.andrea (talk) 19:53, 22 February 2025 (UTC) edited 03:16, 23 February
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages
The Tools option on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages page is not working properly. Arbabi second (talk) 18:31, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- @اربابی دوم: I don't see a problem. Please be more specific. Does it work if you log out? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:17, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter
- Look at the list of tools options and compare them to other pages. For example, there is no Wikidata item option. The problem is that the Persian page similar to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages linked to a Super-seeding article instead of the English version. But it seems to be under repair right now. Arbabi second (talk) 22:54, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- @اربابی دوم: Lots of pages have no Wikidata item and talk pages cannot have them at all. Please describe the perceived problem from the beginning another time. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:31, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter
- The problem is quite simple. Please note. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages should link to versions of the same page on other language wikis. ویکیپدیا:زبان و زبانشناسی is linked to 26 languages. But instead of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages it is linked toSuper-seeding. The rest of the languages have inter-language links. English also had correct links to 26 languages until last night. The English link to Persian was also correct. But now these links have been removed. I noticed the problem when the Persian version was redirected to
- Super-seeding. Arbabi second (talk) 08:04, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- @اربابی دوم: The mentioned ویکیپدیا:زبان و زبانشناسی is not a talk page. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages is a talk page so it cannnot get a Wikidata item. The non-talk page Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages already has the wanted Wikidata item WikiProject Languages (Q8486980). The Persian page had two interlanguage links which overrode the Wikidata item. The first to Super-seeding was fixed in [38] and I fixed the second in [39]. The fix is to add a colon right after
[[so it displays as an inline link instead of adding a link to the languages list. The diffs may display the colon in an odd place in browsers because the page mixes left-to-right and right-to-left text. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:17, 22 February 2025 (UTC)- @PrimeHunter
- I see that the problem with the Persian Wiki has been resolved. Thank you.😊 But I'm not sure about the other language wikis. I think until last night all of them were linking to the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages, But it's fixed now. Thanks again. 😊 Arbabi second (talk) 09:48, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's because Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language (Q3906960) was changed a few years ago to point to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics instead of Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language. I reverted that change a few hours ago because your post here brought it to my attention. jlwoodwa (talk) 20:45, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- @اربابی دوم: The mentioned ویکیپدیا:زبان و زبانشناسی is not a talk page. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages is a talk page so it cannnot get a Wikidata item. The non-talk page Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages already has the wanted Wikidata item WikiProject Languages (Q8486980). The Persian page had two interlanguage links which overrode the Wikidata item. The first to Super-seeding was fixed in [38] and I fixed the second in [39]. The fix is to add a colon right after
- @اربابی دوم: Lots of pages have no Wikidata item and talk pages cannot have them at all. Please describe the perceived problem from the beginning another time. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:31, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
Table formatting issues on different displays
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship § Formatting. FozzieHey (talk) 22:36, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
Talk page archives size
How big should talk page archives be? Is there ever an issue with loading talk page archives that are somehow too big? Is there an optimal size? Thanks, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shearonink (talk • contribs) 04:12, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- This guidance says no more than 512K. I find that yearly archives (see the config box at the top of User talk:Jonesey95) make the most sense to me, and that my yearly archives do not come close to this recommended number. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:57, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- I should have been more clear. I am concerned about article talk and their individual archive pages. Having individual talk archive pages be a 500K size seems somewhat unwieldy. When they get too big isn't that supposed to sometimes cause loading issues? - Shearonink (talk) 05:45, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- Not really. A bad case would be mobile. The average mobile internet connection overall is 6 Megabytes/second, so you would need over 100 thumbnails at default resolution to fill that along with a 500kb talk page. On top of that mobile has headings collapsed by default, so going through them is not that much of a pain. Snævar (talk) 20:44, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- I should have been more clear. I am concerned about article talk and their individual archive pages. Having individual talk archive pages be a 500K size seems somewhat unwieldy. When they get too big isn't that supposed to sometimes cause loading issues? - Shearonink (talk) 05:45, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- The hard limit is 2000K, which is the maximum page size allowed by MediaWiki. You will start seeing rendering issues as you get close to this number, when templates used on the page cause it to exceed the post-expand include size. Personally, I feel like large pages become unpleasant to use around the 100K mark. Matma Rex talk 01:46, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- The default archive setting for Cluebot is 75k, while it's 150k for Lowercase sigmabot. Anything greater than 500k is going to start being an issue for some editors, remember not everyone has access is to the best technology. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:10, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
1 mile is 5300 feet
Searching in the Template namespace problem
When I search for "Rocksteady" in the Template namespace, it doesn't find {{Mad Caddies}}. If I do an insource search for "Rocksteady" in the Template namespace, it finds {{Mad Caddies}}, plus an additional eight templates. I can see no reason why the first search can't find all 15 templates. Why is that? —Bruce1eetalk 14:30, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Bruce1ee: It appears from [40] that elements with the
autocollapseclass is excluded from searches. It's usually collapsed on page load and usually of low relevance anyway for mainspace searches. This should probably be mentioned at mw:Help:CirrusSearch#Exclude content from the search index. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:28, 22 February 2025 (UTC)- @PrimeHunter: Thanks for that. So it's probably better to use an insource search to ensure it finds everything. —Bruce1eetalk 17:27, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- I would not expect {{Mad Caddies}} to be found with a plain search for "Rocksteady". That string is buried in a wikilink that is inside a template parameter value. I'm honestly surprised that the plain-text search finds as many navboxes as it does; I never trust it. Simple insource searches work pretty reliably unless they time out. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:22, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Plain search works on the output so it's irrelevant whether templates were used. {{NPR Texas}} is expanded by default so it doesn't have autocollapse and is found on KTTZ. A mainspace search also finds articles using it. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:02, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- We must have a different understanding of the definition of the word "works". :) – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:36, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Plain search works on the output so it's irrelevant whether templates were used. {{NPR Texas}} is expanded by default so it doesn't have autocollapse and is found on KTTZ. A mainspace search also finds articles using it. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:02, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- I would not expect {{Mad Caddies}} to be found with a plain search for "Rocksteady". That string is buried in a wikilink that is inside a template parameter value. I'm honestly surprised that the plain-text search finds as many navboxes as it does; I never trust it. Simple insource searches work pretty reliably unless they time out. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:22, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter: Thanks for that. So it's probably better to use an insource search to ensure it finds everything. —Bruce1eetalk 17:27, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
PIA flag showing up in search result excerpts on search engines
So I was searching "Golan Heights" using Bing and the search engine displayed the following text as the top result: https://www.bing.com/search?q=golan+heights
This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Golan Heights, or simply...
I cannot figure out where this is being inserted as it is not showing up in the source editor, but the fact that there are two of them and pushing the actual article text further is indicative that something is broken. I get this flag is needed for Abuse Filter 1341, but something needs to be done to make sure search engines are not reading the lines meant just for the filter.
Google does not have the same issue it seems, but this is something that should be fixed for all search engines. Aasim (話す) 23:17, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- So it seems to be an issue with Module:Protection banner. Hmm... Aasim (話す) 23:25, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Do you still see this? I don't see that text on the bing search you linked. That said there are indeed two of them in Golan Heights (https://i.imgur.com/K3Yya6g.png), which is likely because it has 2 protection templates (
{{Pp-move|small=yes}} and {{Pp-semi-indef}})- also Google does have this issue, it's just maybe rare? You can force it to search for the text in that page: [41]. - I'm not planning on looking into it, just throwing out some observations. – 2804:F1...06:AD28 (::/32) (talk) 19:44, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Awesome Aasim refers to this edit. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:52, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Is there a way to log edits based on categories the page is in with the abuse filter? That might remove the need for this hack. Aasim (話す) 20:07, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, this edit would do it. I would guess it's because it is marked as visibility: hidden, and in that regard it just... doesn't need to be. But either way, search crawlers are not required to observe styles applied by any CSS anywhere, so the only way to guarantee a fix for this issue is to choose not to output the text. Izno (talk) 20:11, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Awesome Aasim refers to this edit. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:52, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Do you still see this? I don't see that text on the bing search you linked. That said there are indeed two of them in Golan Heights (https://i.imgur.com/K3Yya6g.png), which is likely because it has 2 protection templates (
Hiding HTML element inside a specific page
Is there a way to hide an HTML element appearing on Event:Sandbox, using inline css/js or another way? I do not want users with the eventcoordinator permission to accidentally register the event, simply because the page is prefixed with Event:
The html div that should be hidden contains css class .ext-campaignevents-eventpage-enableheader ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 19:13, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- I looked at the code and it turns out only the author sees that so there's no need to do anything. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:27, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Pppery that makes this request moot (though I am still curious how it could be achieved). This would also make collaboration with different parties more challenging, e.g someone preparing a page creation, another person registering it. I am curious about page-swapping etc... now but these are edge-cases... ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 21:01, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Probably the least unreasonable way to achieve this would be a CSS-only hidden template gadget. By design nobody other than interface admins can add custom styling for things outside
.mw-parser-output, which this isn't. Or (in an alternate universe where that check didn't exist), someone could file a request on Phabricator asking for a__NOEVENT__magic word to solve the problem at the root. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC) - CSS provides two properties which may be used to hide content. They are the
displayproperty and thevisibility:property. They accept different values, and have different effects. For example, if an element is subject to the declarationdisplay:none, it is physically removed from the rendered page - preceding and succeeding elements are presented adjacent to one another. But when an element is subject to the declarationvisibility:hidden, it is replaced with blank space. Examples: The text following this hasdisplay:none. →← The text preceding this hasdisplay:none. The text following this hasvisibility:hidden. →← The text preceding this hasvisibility:hidden. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:08, 19 February 2025 (UTC)- @Redrose64 this is a good solution when the html wikitext is directly inline and I can create inline styling, but in this case the HTML is injected elsehow. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:23, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- Where some HTML "comes from" makes no difference, in regards to CSS style rules. That's why Pppery recommended a template gadget, which would add CSS rules which apply to the entire page. --Slowking Man (talk) 22:26, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Redrose64 this is a good solution when the html wikitext is directly inline and I can create inline styling, but in this case the HTML is injected elsehow. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:23, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
My alt key has gone rogue
I have numerous macros set up to assist my editing and most are activated by the alt key and a letter or number. For the last several weeks pressing the alt key in an edit box selects all text and any subsequent typing replaces the whole page.
What's going on? How can I fix this? This is only a problem in the Wikipedia edit window. Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 01:06, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- What troubleshooting steps have you tried? Try logging out. Try a different web browser. Try a different computer. Have you changed any of your user Preferences in Wikipedia recently? – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:24, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for the suggestions. It's only on my desktop. I'm using the latest Windows version of Firefox, but it doesn't happen in Chrome or the DuckDuckGo browser. If I log out it still happens. I'm not aware of any changes to Preferences. Thanks to the tech wizards. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 12:28, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- This then is definitely a problem "on your end", likely having to to with your Firefox browser profile. When you say you "have macros set up" can you elaborate please? What are these macros "coming from" so to speak—describe for us how you set them up, please, we need more details. (Remember, we can't see your screen or desktop, we have no idea how things on your system are configured, we've never used it.) Are you using a browser extension in Firefox to provide these macros, or AutoHotkey, or what? --Slowking Man (talk) 04:32, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for the suggestions. My macro program is Macro Express; it was the hot thing when I bought it in 2006, and it's still working well. I updated that and have run several cleanup and anti-virus programs. When I turn off Macro Express the problem continues. I've tried various online edit windows and on some of them pressing alt selects all and moves the cursor to the bottom of the page, while on others it has no effect. It happens when I press the alt on the on-screen keyboard too, so I don't think it's my hardware, but I'm borrowing another keyboard later today to test that. No other key presses seem to cause problems. Thanks for your help. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 20:59, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- This then is definitely a problem "on your end", likely having to to with your Firefox browser profile. When you say you "have macros set up" can you elaborate please? What are these macros "coming from" so to speak—describe for us how you set them up, please, we need more details. (Remember, we can't see your screen or desktop, we have no idea how things on your system are configured, we've never used it.) Are you using a browser extension in Firefox to provide these macros, or AutoHotkey, or what? --Slowking Man (talk) 04:32, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for the suggestions. It's only on my desktop. I'm using the latest Windows version of Firefox, but it doesn't happen in Chrome or the DuckDuckGo browser. If I log out it still happens. I'm not aware of any changes to Preferences. Thanks to the tech wizards. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 12:28, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Ok, this is a guess: in beta prefs, do you have Improved Syntax Highlighting checked? And do you use the "native" wikitext syntax highlighting? Having both would cause you to get the new version of the highlighting software which may have clobbered your keys for its own purposes. Izno (talk) 21:07, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Otherwise, it's likely to have been a new version of Firefox doing the same, based on your report that it doesn't happen in Chrome, so you will need to hunt down what Firefox is doing with those keys on your own and see if you can adjust some personal settings. Izno (talk) 21:08, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
Step one, then: launch a new "clean" Firefox browser profile, see if the problem continues to happen there too. If it doesn't happen under a "clean" profile, then it's something to do with the settings and extensions in your default Firefox profile, and you'll have to try fiddling them one-by-one to do a differential diagnosis of the cause. Step 1 for that: disable any and all browser extensions, see if that changes anything. --Slowking Man (talk) 22:13, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Fixed. That was it! I'd been trying to get the TitleCase browser extension to work with keyboard commands and there was a setting to enable the alt key. I've turned that off and now I'm back to normal. Thank you all so much for helping me troubleshoot this. I should've thought of that, but I didn't. Viva la VPT. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 01:20, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
Default background gray color changed?
Is it just me, or is the default light gray background color suddenly much darker? I'm seeing it in the background of the left and right toolbars in Vector 2022, in the Category box at the bottom of every page, in the background of <code>...</code> tags, and in some block templates like the two at the top of #Huggle not working, above. If it's just me, never mind, but I'm pretty sure I didn't change anything. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:34, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95: Does it happen in safemode? If not then it's probably just you. There are 11
background-colorin User:Jonesey95/vector-2022.css. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:55, 24 February 2025 (UTC)- In safe mode, the background color for code spans, the two templates at #Huggle not working, and the category box are still darker than I remember. Also, the unchanged parts of the page diff view have a gray background that I don't remember. The sidebars have a white background (yes, I customized those for contrast, but strangely, the background seems darker than before when I am not in safe mode). I am not complaining; I like the contrast. I just wondered if something had changed on a Sunday, an unusual time for changes. If it's not affecting anyone else, it's not a problem for me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:43, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- I compared directly to older versions of MediaWiki and the colors of code background or category box has not changed. It seems to be just you. Maybe you (or something automatically) changed the display color profile in your OS settings? (Or maybe you're using a different display?) Matma Rex talk 17:54, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
Automatic Page Views count seems down
Not sure what you call this, but normally there is an automatic updated page view count at the top of each page. As of yesterday, that feature must be down. All I've been seeing is a tiny dot jiggling back and forth. Nothing else. — Maile (talk) 17:02, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- Seems to be working now. — Maile (talk) 17:27, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- For the record, it's made by the opt-in "XTools: dynamically show statistics about a page's history under the page heading" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:58, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-09
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
- Administrators can now customize how the Babel feature creates categories using Special:CommunityConfiguration/Babel. They can rename language categories, choose whether they should be auto-created, and adjust other settings. [42]
- The wikimedia.org portal has been updated – and is receiving some ongoing improvements – to modernize and improve the accessibility of our portal pages. It now has better support for mobile layouts, updated wording and links, and better language support. Additionally, all of the Wikimedia project portals, such as wikibooks.org, now support dark mode when a reader is using that system setting. [43][44][45]
- One new wiki has been created: a Wiktionary in Santali (
wikt:sat:) [46] - View all 30 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed that prevented clicking on search results in the web-interface for some Firefox for Android phone configurations. [47]
Meetings and events
- The next Language Community Meeting is happening soon, February 28th at 14:00 UTC. This week's meeting will cover: highlights and technical updates on keyboard and tools for the Sámi languages, Translatewiki.net contributions from the Bahasa Lampung community in Indonesia, and technical Q&A. If you'd like to join, simply sign up on the wiki page.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 00:38, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
Huggle problem
Huggle will often place a warning on user talk pages in the incorrect section; not the current month's section. Sophisticatedevening and I left talk here: wp:Huggle/Feedback#Warning spacing bug There has not been any response. I often check and reorder warnings. Examples of misplaced warnings: [1] [2]. The default change provider XmlRcs has not been providing changes. I change to IRC or Wiki, but others don't seem to know about that solution. Is anything being done about this? Who should I ask? Thank you Adakiko (talk) 01:29, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- Extra diffs of the bug: (1 23) Sophisticatedevening (talk) 18:10, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- phab:T383968 is marked as resolved. Has that fix made it into a release yet? jlwoodwa (talk) 16:04, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Jlwoodwa: I am using 3.4.13 build: 4220 3.4.13. wp:Huggle/Download states that 3.4.13 is current. It would be nice if Huggle could verify that. Thank you for your reply! Adakiko (talk) 18:04, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
Diff can't generate visually
The "Visual" comparison version of this diff (and of diffs including that edit) won't generate as expected, giving the error message:
- undefined is not an object (evaluating 'attributeChanges.mw.from')
I'm on Version 16.1 of Safari Placeholderer (talk) 19:05, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- There are many many
Cannot read properties of undefinedbugs open right now, phab:T317455 seems pretty close to this one, please just leave notes of another example there. In the meantime, just use the standard diff view. — xaosflux Talk 19:20, 25 February 2025 (UTC)- Thanks both! Placeholderer (talk) 19:51, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
Map module transfer
Hello, I am trying to transfer this map modul from the French wikipedia fr:Modèle:Géolocalisation/Scandinavie to the English wikipedia: Module:Location map/data/Scandinavia LCC map. However I can tell that the coordinates are off, because the airfields I have marked are not where they should be. The values for top, bottom, right and left on the French wikipedia differ from the values on i.e. the German, Danish, Swedish wikipedia. However, when I enter i.e. the Danish values the locations of the airfields are depicted even further away from where they are actually located. I have no tried to transfer the other information in the French module (which is the most detailed of all modules), but with no success. Could someone with more experience with map modules please have a look and check what the error is? Thank you, and thank you for your time; noclador (talk) 16:46, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- You are trying to use code from a seperate location template into an different one. It will not work. Several templates and modules have been deleted for being in use in one article.
- Just use Module:Location map/data/Scandinavia. The effort to make this work is not at all worth it. Snævar (talk) 23:26, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
Bad contrast between the color of visited links and the plain text under images in dark mode
I just observed a bad contrast between the color of visited links and the plain text under images in dark mode.
This is in bright mode. Here, the hexadecimal code for the color of the visited link (Benelux) is #6960AF; and for the plain text it is #54595D.
And this is in dark mode. Here, the code for the visited link is #A29DB3; and for the plain text it is #A7A8AC.
Update: The unvisited link also had a bad contrast I think. But I forgot to screenshot it. Aminabzz (talk) 12:59, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- This seems to be related to the
grayscalelines within Module:Location map/styles.css#L-53. I'd suggest asking on the talkpage there (Module talk:Location map) for help with fixing it so that it doesn't change the link-color within captions. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:15, 25 February 2025 (UTC) - You are talking about the caption on the image of Benelux teams at 2024–25 UEFA Champions League#League phase. This was introduced in phab:T375994 with the code "a:where(:not([role="button"])) .cdx-mixin-link-base(); }". When a user has visited the link the link should instead be the codex link-visited color, that would fix it. The contrast now is 3:1, and needs to be 4.5:1 to meet WCAG AA. Snævar (talk) 23:04, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- As for what to do with this information, just file a phabricator bug on the web team, they did cause this issue after all. Snævar (talk) 09:40, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
Images with transparent bg behaves as white bg on Windows but correctly on other platforms
So, there are images with white elements and transparent bg that have zero contrast with the page around it. So, I sought a potential solution at Template talk:Infobox#Forcing a bg color on images with transparent bg. @Jonesey95 helped by suggesting use of |imagestyles= and it works perfectly on Mac and mobile devices but fails miserably on Windows. The transparent bg images act as if their bg were white. What's causing this? And is there a way to fix the problem I was facing in the original post that works on all platforms? Thanks! —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 11:45, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
Issue w/ the User page template
i noticed that when the user page template has the color=black and rounded=yes, the rounded part of the template appears to not work
without color=black:
| This is a Wikipedia user page. This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user in whose space this page is located may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_218. |
with color=black:
| This is a Wikipedia user page. This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user in whose space this page is located may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_218. |
Placement of the color=black doesn't appear to change anything, and nether does the color.
is there something I'm missing? 50.86.195.178 (talk) 17:00, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- Perhaps it's because
|color=is an unrecognized parameter for the template? |border-c=and|background=are the two available color-related parameters I'm seeing. DB1729talk 17:15, 26 February 2025 (UTC)- There was a misplaced semicolon in the code. I fixed it, which means that the error demonstrated above is no longer happening (the second box did not have rounded corners).
|color=is a valid parameter; it just wasn't working:
– Jonesey95 (talk) 17:26, 26 February 2025 (UTC)This is a Wikipedia user page.
This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user in whose space this page is located may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_218.- Thanks! :) 50.86.195.178 (talk) 17:48, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- There was a misplaced semicolon in the code. I fixed it, which means that the error demonstrated above is no longer happening (the second box did not have rounded corners).
Edit I didn't make
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spaceflight shows that I made an edit to the talk page on Feb 25 (see View History). I didn't make it - look at my contributions. What went wrong? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 03:55, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- It shows up in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Bubba73 for me. Probably you accidentally pushed the "rollback" button - I've done that many times. * Pppery * it has begun... 04:30, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- Gosh, I don't remember doing it. I don't think I've even been on that page in a long time. I'm going to change my password. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:02, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Bubba73: You were active at the time [48] and have previously been active on that page so it may be on your watchlist. You reverted a recent edit and your next edit replied to a recent post on another page you have edited before and may be watching so I guess you were using the watchlist at the time. An accidental edit sounds more likely than a hacked account. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:08, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Bubba73: I have, on occasion, made a rollback without intending to. I think I spotted them all at the time, but can't be certain. The circs are basically that Special:Watchlist was still loading when I clicked a "diff" link, but between me aiming the mouse pointer and actually clicking the button, the page scrolled by a line or two, moving the intended diff link away from the pointer and another link - sometimes a "rollback" link - to the same position. How does the scroll happen? At the top of the watchlist there are often some notices, which are displayed by JavaScript at a late stage in the browser's rendering. These notices push subsequent content down by at least one line each. The only cure that I know of is to wait for the page display to become stable before going for a link. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:03, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- Gosh, I don't remember doing it. I don't think I've even been on that page in a long time. I'm going to change my password. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:02, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- In Preferences → Appearance → Advanced options you can enable "Show a confirmation prompt when clicking on a rollback link" to avoid mis-clicks in the future. Matma Rex talk 16:05, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, I was on at the time. I have that page on my watch list,but I don't look at it often. I have no memory of doing that reversion, or even looking at that page. I don't normally revert unless it is vandalism or a bad edit, but I must have done it by accident. I have set the "confirmation prompt" and I also changed my password, which had been the same for 6 years. Thanks, it must have been an error on my part. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 20:02, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
Article infobox vs talk page category
How can I make a list of articles currently in Category:Medicine articles needing infoboxes, but which shouldn't be, because there's already an infobox in the article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing:
- George K. Anderson
- Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory
- Brazilian Medical Association
- Theodore Cantor
- Ann S. Fulcher
- Jean Gray (physician)
- Joseph Guislain
- Lilli Jahn
- Stephen B. Levine
- Rona MacKie
- Museum of the History of Lithuanian Medicine and Pharmacy
- Pelvis justo major
- Perihypoglossal nuclei
- Dmitry Pletnyov (doctor)
- Sabizabulin
- Harold Scott (pathologist)
- Julius Strasburger
- World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
- Yongyuth Yuthavong
- – DreamRimmer (talk) 04:51, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you, @DreamRimmer! The list was so much shorter than I expected that I have just fixed them all manually. I really appreciate it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:16, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Regular expression § RegEx question. Sdkb talk 18:39, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
"Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary (or the default undo summary)" not working when editing the lead section
I am having trouble with the "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" preference when editing the lead section of an article.
Working properly: If I go to Mid-Canada Line Site 060 Relay, click Edit at the top of the article to edit the full article (the "Edit" link between "Read" and "View history"), type a space character somewhere in the article, and then try to save, I am given a new Preview screen with a message at the top: "Reminder: You have not provided an edit summary. ..."
Working properly: If I click the [edit] link next to the References section, type a space character somewhere in the article, and then try to save, I am given a new Preview screen with a message at the top: "Reminder: You have not provided an edit summary. ..."
Not working properly: If I click the [edit] link next to the lead section (in Vector 2022, this link is above the "View history" link), type a space character somewhere in the article, and then try to save, the edit is saved. I should get the same prompt.
Please see this test edit for an example.
Can others reproduce this problem? I have the gadget "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page" enabled, of course. I am using Vector 2022 and the old-school editor (I do not have any of the "Editor" options enabled under Preferences - Editing - Editor). – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:43, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- The gadget adds a fake edit summary; if you just use &action=edit§ion=0 you will get prompted for an edit summary. Perhaps it is better to replace the gadget by a user script that does not include a fake edit summary. —Kusma (talk) 16:54, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- This goes right back eleven years to this edit. The
&summary=query string parameter is treated by the MediaWiki software as if it were a user-entered edit summary. Hand up: it was my idea, suggested on this page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:12, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- This goes right back eleven years to this edit. The
Why isn't the "subscription only" icon showing up? A few questions
The main ref for Tomb of Thutmose II is to an article in a subscription-only magazine. I added that article-url-access information to the ref here but the lock icon isn't showing up. So, my questions are 1)What did I do wrong? and 2)Bibliography doesn't seem to be quite the correct heading for the Litherland citation but I can't figure out what would be better & 3)Do the linkages for Theban necropolis and Landmark of Luxor have the correct placement within the page? Thanks - Shearonink (talk) 17:19, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- You forgot the pipe (|). And it should be
|url-access=. - —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:32, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- Trappist the monk Ah that pesky "l" of "html" had me fooled. Thanks! Any ideas about my other two questions? - Shearonink (talk) 17:45, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- If the page-range specified in the long-form Litherland citation is correct (the whole range), it seems odd to me that note 1 and note 3 echo that range. Shouldn't those two specify a single page or a range of fewer pages than the whole? Aslo,
|date=in the long-form template should be|date=Autumn 2023. - Bibliography is a perfectly acceptable heading.
- For navbox placement, see MOS:NAVLAYOUT and linked topics.
- —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:03, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- As to the page ranges for cite 1 & 3, I agree, but since the reference is subscription only and I am not a subscriber I am unable to check it. - Shearonink (talk) 18:10, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- The first reference to Litherland is at this edit. You might want to consult with Editor Udimu who made the edit.
- —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:24, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- -Hi there, not fully sure where the problem is. The article is from 2023 and just four pages long, page 28 to 31. This was the first publication of this tomb in print and the author suggested already that it is the tomb of king Thutmose II. Now, one year later, the media report on that.Udimu (talk) 18:34, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- We presume that you have access to the Litherland source. The issue is that references note 1 and note 3 both specify pages 28-31; the whole page range of the Litherland article. Surely it is not necessary to specify all four pages to support "The tomb of Thutmose II, discovered in 2022" (note 1) and " published in a preliminary report in the following year" (note 3). If, for some reason, all four pages are required for both of those, they can/should be combined into a single
{{harvp}}reference. Otherwise, notes 1 and 3 should be fixed so that they specify only those pages in Litherland that directly support the text in our article. Am I making sense? - —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:56, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- I shortened the first note to page 28. Note 3 is a reference about the publication of the tomb, in a short report. I was not sure whether i should give the page numbers too or whether it is fine to have no page numbers at all. The full reference to the article appears in the bibliography. Please feel free to change that. Yes, i have the article in print. The journal is quite widely distributed. I am a bit surprised that no one else here, writing on Ancient Egypt does not have access to the journal. best wishesUdimu (talk) 19:15, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- We presume that you have access to the Litherland source. The issue is that references note 1 and note 3 both specify pages 28-31; the whole page range of the Litherland article. Surely it is not necessary to specify all four pages to support "The tomb of Thutmose II, discovered in 2022" (note 1) and " published in a preliminary report in the following year" (note 3). If, for some reason, all four pages are required for both of those, they can/should be combined into a single
- -Hi there, not fully sure where the problem is. The article is from 2023 and just four pages long, page 28 to 31. This was the first publication of this tomb in print and the author suggested already that it is the tomb of king Thutmose II. Now, one year later, the media report on that.Udimu (talk) 18:34, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- As to the page ranges for cite 1 & 3, I agree, but since the reference is subscription only and I am not a subscriber I am unable to check it. - Shearonink (talk) 18:10, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- If the page-range specified in the long-form Litherland citation is correct (the whole range), it seems odd to me that note 1 and note 3 echo that range. Shouldn't those two specify a single page or a range of fewer pages than the whole? Aslo,
- Trappist the monk Ah that pesky "l" of "html" had me fooled. Thanks! Any ideas about my other two questions? - Shearonink (talk) 17:45, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
Ifexist and wikitext in template parameters
The code I just added to the Template:Wikipedia Library works like what I want ...as long as the parameter is a single word and doesn't contain the wikitext formatting that I want. For example:
| {{Wikipedia Library|name=Book|partner=Partner}} |
| ||
| {{Wikipedia Library|name=Name of Book|partner=Name of Partner}} |
| ||
| {{Wikipedia Library|name=''Book''|partner=[[Partner]]}} |
| ||
| {{Wikipedia Library|name=''Book''|partner=[https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/partners/80/ Partner]}} |
|
What am I doing wrong? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- You cannot combine wikitext with ifexist. It must be the pagename.
- Not sure about the spaces question. Izno (talk) 19:00, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing:
{{#ifexist:foo|...}}tests for existence of a wiki page called foo, not a parameter called foo. Use{{#if:{{{foo|}}}|...}}to test whether the parameter foo is set and not empty. Note the pipe right afterfoo. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:08, 27 February 2025 (UTC)- Thank you! (And of course it looked like it was working, since the parameter names are all simple words...) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing:
Trying to install Move+
I added the exact script string from the Move+ page here, bypassed cache completely, and still, nothing is appearing. What did I do wrong? Rexophile (talk) 01:37, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- Resolved at Wikipedia:Help desk#Trying to install Move+. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:43, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
my IP address has been blocked
I am fairly new to WikiMedia , and my IP address was blocked a month after I joined. I am trying to submit an unblock request here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contact/Stewards?wpSubject=%5BWizard%5D%20Block%20appeal&wpText=%2ABlock%20message%3A%20%3Cpaste%20message%20here%3E%0A%0A%2AReason%3A%20%3Cinsert%20your%20reasoning%3E&wpIncludeIP=1
I see the following message: https://utrs-beta.wmflabs.org/public/appeal/account <<Your IP address is in a range that has been blocked on all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. The block was made by Jon Kolbert. The reason given is Open proxy/Webhost: See the help page if you are affected . Start of block: 2023-08-27T11:16:05 Expiry of block: 2026-08-27T11:16:05 Your current IP address is 23.106.56.13. The blocked range is 23.106.48.0/20. AND Your account or IP address has been blocked. 23.106.48.0/20, you have been blocked by XXBlackburnXx until 15:16, 27 August 2026, because: Open proxy/Webhost: >>
I use Brave browser for WikiMedia. Is it possible, that some features of this browser change my IP?
I do not even know, what Open Proxy is. It seems, that my IP is within some previously blocked range. Could it be unblocked?
but I get the following error message: <<The following errors occurred: The hiddenip must be a valid IP address.>>
Where do I go from there? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smilin8Budda (talk • contribs) 23:25, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- If you posted here, you are not affected by a block. 331dot (talk) 23:51, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- 331dot's comment aside, you probably have the Brave VPN turned on if you are using Brave. Izno (talk) 00:19, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
Expand arrows in section table of contents flash black/white when loading
Perhaps this is a THURSDAY issue. It's not a dark theme-dependent bug, as I first guessed. See screenshots.
-
Light theme -
In dark theme
JayCubby 22:36, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- As The wub noted with the 'tracked' template, this is tracked at phab:T387351. And thanks to Matma Rex for refactoring the image layout, which I was just about to do! Quiddity (talk) 01:26, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks to those of you who placed the Filed in Phabricator piece and formatted the photograph nicely. I did a brief scroll but didn't see anything in the Phab Pheed. JayCubby 01:56, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
Year in South Africa
There's been a recurring problem of late with a user creating new "YYYY in South Africa" articles for years in the 17th and 18th centuries, when it's not actually clear that "South Africa" would have been the correct name of anything at that time (as opposed to things like "Cape Colony", "Colony of Natal", and on and so forth) — but because they're using the {{Year in South Africa}} template on them, which is coded to autogenerate categories based on the year stated in the template, I'm getting constantly smacked in the face with "YYYY in South Africa" redlinks at Special:WantedCategories — but they each only have the one page in them, and are thus uncreatable in that form, leaving me with no choice but to go in to each and every page, wrap the template in {{suppress categories}} to make the redlinks go away and tag the page as uncategorized.
As always, templates really shouldn't be transcluding categories based on variables, per WP:TEMPLATECAT, but obviously it might pull other pages out of legitimate categories that do exist if this function was simply removed from the template entirely without careful preparation. So could somebody more versed in template coding than I am edit that template to ensure that at the very least it can't generate any categories that don't exist to have pages in them? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 08:19, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
OpenStreetMap Issue in Wikipedia Article
Wikidata entry for Crescent Head https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5184368 and the map border for Crescent Head https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6063482. Everything looks right but on the Wikipedia article it shows just blue ocean in the middle of nowhere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Head,_New_South_Wales. Thank you for your help. Dragon8870 (talk) 13:48, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Noting that Template:Infobox Australian place and Module:Australian place map are in use here and could be affecting the output. Primefac (talk) 13:58, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Welcome to Wikipedia! Not related to your issue, but useful to know: if you want to link to a page on Wikipedia, instead of copy-pasting the entire link you can put the article title in double square brackets (for example, typing
[[Crescent Head, New South Wales]]creates a link that looks like this: Crescent Head, New South Wales). You can find a cheatsheet for similar formatting tricks at this page :] Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 15:01, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Odd, the mapframe map displays properly if I preview a null edit of the article but goes back to solid blue if I save the null edit. It also displays properly if one clicks on the map to expand it. Deor (talk) 17:25, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Deor, Dragon8870: The OpenStreetMap listing was missing the Wikipedia and Wikidata tags, so I added those a few hours ago but it didn't seem to fix anything. If it's working now, it may have been a caching issue since I can't see that anything else has changed. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:42, 28 February 2025 (UTC)- It takes a few hours as the Wiki map servers take a little while to sync from OSM. Looks good now. Regs, The Equalizer (talk) 22:21, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Deor, Dragon8870: The OpenStreetMap listing was missing the Wikipedia and Wikidata tags, so I added those a few hours ago but it didn't seem to fix anything. If it's working now, it may have been a caching issue since I can't see that anything else has changed. --Ahecht (TALK
Body text not affected by font size CSS
In my global.css, I have a rule that slightly increases the font size and changes the default font. The font-family rule works fine, but the font-size one has stopped working within the main body. Previously the font-size rule affected the article portion of the page but not the sidebar, but now this is reversed. I think this changed within the past day (I could be wrong about that, though). I've attached a screenshot with an exaggerated font-size increase that shows clearly that the font-family rule works everywhere (the font is now Courier New, other than in the code display, which I've changed in my browser) but the font size doesn't work properly. I'm using Firefox 135.0.1 on Windows 10. Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 11:35, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Suntooooth: Using a type selector like
bodyis a very low specificity, it's easily overridden by rules having selectors of even a moderate specificity. In this case, I think that it's being overridden by this rule:which uses a class selector. To override that, you should use a selector with a specificity that is equal to or higher than a class selector. I suggest replacing your single rule.vector-body { font-size: 0.875rem; line-height: 1.6; }
with two rules:body { font-family: Atkinson Hyperlegible, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; }
which has a specificity higher than either a type selector or a class selector alone. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:13, 28 February 2025 (UTC)body { font-family: Atkinson Hyperlegible, sans-serif; } div.vector-body { font-size: 1.1em; }
- Thank you for the suggestion - when I did my global.css I did look for an alternative way to do it but couldn't figure it out - although I'm still confused about what could've changed recently to make it affect the sidebar but not the rest of the page. It's not important to know, but I'm curious. Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 19:40, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Every so often, changes are made to the MediaWiki software or the skins. We're sometimes told about these (see the Technical news sections on this page), but not always. Often, a change occurs that takes people by surprise, and it's rather difficult tracing exactly what changed, when and indeed why. We either live with it, or try to make a workaround. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:18, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- [Small clarification] Hundreds of changes are made to the MediaWiki software almost every week of the year! E.g. Last week's automated summary of the merged patches that week, at mw:MediaWiki 1.44/wmf.18, has ~400 merged patches. Some of those patches are tiny, and some are epic in scope. In contrast, the weekly m:Tech/News newsletter only highlights a handful of the most important/useful changes (and it's always difficult deciding what belongs). Redrose64 probably knows all of this already, but I hope the added context helps someone reading this thread. :-) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:39, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- Every so often, changes are made to the MediaWiki software or the skins. We're sometimes told about these (see the Technical news sections on this page), but not always. Often, a change occurs that takes people by surprise, and it's rather difficult tracing exactly what changed, when and indeed why. We either live with it, or try to make a workaround. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:18, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you for the suggestion - when I did my global.css I did look for an alternative way to do it but couldn't figure it out - although I'm still confused about what could've changed recently to make it affect the sidebar but not the rest of the page. It's not important to know, but I'm curious. Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 19:40, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- The relevant task would be something in the penumbra of phab:T363845. Izno (talk) 00:21, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- I think the change in behavior comes from this change last week: [49] which changed the CSS unit used for font size from
emtorem(see Em (typography)#CSS). Sinceemis relative to the parent element, butremis relative only to the root element, your overrides forbodyno longer had any effect. You can update your override to usehtmlin the selector instead ofbody– since<html>is the root element in HTML documents, that will make it apply again. Matma Rex talk 05:58, 1 March 2025 (UTC)- Thank you! I don't know how I didn't think of using
htmlas the selector :P Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 10:38, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you! I don't know how I didn't think of using
Several episode lists are over the PEIS limit
As you can see in [50], starting around 19 February, a lot of List of episodes pages started going over the WP:PEIS limit. I fixed a few of them manually at first, but the timing makes me think that something in Module:Episode list or Module:Episode table was changed that made them break the pages. In fact, Module:Episode list was edited on 20 January, and while I have no way of knowing if those edits caused the problem, I think someone who knows Lua should check them out. Nickps (talk) 00:42, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Previewing Lady Gaga with old versions of the modules mentioned still exceeds 2MB expansion size so it's not recent edits to them. Previewing the article after deleting everything except the external links section uses 892KB (42% of the limit). The article has 542 references and they use quite a lot of the expansion size. I seem to recall that an ugly trick of using #invoke to bypass the citation templates used to work but I can't find it documented anywhere. Johnuniq (talk) 02:25, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Lady Gaga is not a list of episodes article. List of Flash Gordon comic strips, List of On Patrol: Live and On Patrol: First Shift episodes, List of CID episodes: 2010–2014 and many more from that list are the ones you should have checked.
- About Lady Gaga though, I did apply the fix you're talking about here and it was reverted so I won't bother with that page again. Nickps (talk) 02:32, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Johnuniq: (ping since I don't know if you subscribed) Nickps (talk) 02:36, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- I've fixed Lady Gaga by using {{navboxes top}}, which brought it down to 1.7M. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:39, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Previewing List of Flash Gordon comic strips as above shows that recent edits to the two modules are not responsible. The design of {{Episode table}} is convenient and effective but it inherently uses a lot of expansion size. Using a template for each row which invokes a module, and a surrounding template which invokes another module means the table wikitext is expanded four times. I don't have time to think of a fix at the moment. I see mention in the doc of using a manual table but have not investigated. Johnuniq (talk) 02:54, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- OK, thank you for checking. I still think it's strange that all of these articles went over PEIS so close to each other. It could be that one of the dependencies of the modules was changed which caused the problem, or it may be just a coincidence. I guess I'll have to keep fixing them manually. Nickps (talk) 03:08, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- On second thought, I can actually prove that a transcluded page caused the problem. List of Forged in Fire episodes was last edited on 2 January but was added to Category:Pages where post-expand include size is exceeded on 26 February. A transcluded page being changed is the only possible explanation for this and the two previously mentioned modules are the most likely candidates. Unfortunately, that means that the change happened on one of the dependencies of these modules rather than the modules themselves which makes it basically impossible to find. Nickps (talk) 03:20, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Regardless of why this is happening, the easy fix is to use
|dontclose=on the episode table. See Template:Episode table#Parameters. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:51, 28 February 2025 (UTC)- I'm aware. Still, I thought I should at least try to have the underlying issue fixed rather than just alleviate the symptoms. Nickps (talk) 03:55, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- And I got reverted.
|dontclose=yis pointless if the editor base doesn't want to use it. The underlying problem should be fixed instead. Nickps (talk) 04:36, 28 February 2025 (UTC)- I suspect TAnthony was working on this change and undoing the changes in your intermediate edit was collateral damage. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:40, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's possible I guess. I'll have to ask him on the talk page. I might do that later. Still, this only proves my point that we should be looking for the change that caused the PEIS of these pages to go up instead of trying to fix them manually. People just don't care enough about this kind of problem. Nickps (talk) 12:03, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hey there, PrimeHunter is correct that my revert was unintentional. Seeing this now though, I'm new to this PEIS issue and honestly, don't understand it. Visually, Nickps's edit just added an extended space between the section heading and the table, what is the underlying issue that was fixed? And why is it applied to only one of the many tables in this list? Thanks.— TAnthonyTalk 15:58, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- I only applied it once because that was enough to fix the problem. Applying it to all the tables would probably have been better for future-proofing though. Honestly, you don't need to care about this at all if the changes in {{start date}} and {{end date}} that actually caused it get reverted. Nickps (talk) 16:25, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- @TAnthony: Your version [51] was in the hidden Category:Pages where post-expand include size is exceeded (Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering has an option to show hidden categories). The version currently displays "#invoke:Navbox" at the bottom instead of actually invoking the navbox and displaying the result. It happens because a template limit for the whole page is broken. The fix avoids breaking the limit. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:46, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hey there, PrimeHunter is correct that my revert was unintentional. Seeing this now though, I'm new to this PEIS issue and honestly, don't understand it. Visually, Nickps's edit just added an extended space between the section heading and the table, what is the underlying issue that was fixed? And why is it applied to only one of the many tables in this list? Thanks.— TAnthonyTalk 15:58, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's possible I guess. I'll have to ask him on the talk page. I might do that later. Still, this only proves my point that we should be looking for the change that caused the PEIS of these pages to go up instead of trying to fix them manually. People just don't care enough about this kind of problem. Nickps (talk) 12:03, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- I suspect TAnthony was working on this change and undoing the changes in your intermediate edit was collateral damage. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:40, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Regardless of why this is happening, the easy fix is to use
- On second thought, I can actually prove that a transcluded page caused the problem. List of Forged in Fire episodes was last edited on 2 January but was added to Category:Pages where post-expand include size is exceeded on 26 February. A transcluded page being changed is the only possible explanation for this and the two previously mentioned modules are the most likely candidates. Unfortunately, that means that the change happened on one of the dependencies of these modules rather than the modules themselves which makes it basically impossible to find. Nickps (talk) 03:20, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- OK, thank you for checking. I still think it's strange that all of these articles went over PEIS so close to each other. It could be that one of the dependencies of the modules was changed which caused the problem, or it may be just a coincidence. I guess I'll have to keep fixing them manually. Nickps (talk) 03:08, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
It could be the changes to {{start date}} and {{end date}}, added to verify input. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:32, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95 Testing with Special:TemplateSandbox on List of Pokémon episodes (seasons 14–present) (which is still over the limit even after dontclose and using the modules), revealed that you're right. I'll request those edits be reverted. Nickps (talk) 15:07, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- The request is in Template talk:Start date#Template-protected edit request on 28 February 2025. Nickps (talk) 15:15, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- I have modified {{end date}} to use what seems like a less processor-intensive check that is used by {{start date}} (if that makes sense). I would like to see if that helps, because the validation has been helpful in unearthing template errors in 4,000+ articles. Using
|dontclose=seems to make a much bigger difference; it reduced the PEIS from 2.0 to 1.3 on one article I edited. And that Pokemon article may just be trying to do too much; it was already using PEIS-reduction hacks everywhere possible, which means it is probably past time for a split. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:00, 28 February 2025 (UTC)- @Jonesey95 The combination of using
|dontclose=yand switching from {{episode list}} to {{#invoke:episode list|list}} can cut the WP:PEIS by 75%. Using {{#invoke:episode list|sublist}} can cut it even further on pages like the Pokemon example where the list is transcluded from another page. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:05, 28 February 2025 (UTC) - @Jonesey95 The issue isn't how processor intensive it is, the issue is the amount of text it's now outputting. In this case, the current version of
{{End date|1993|02|24|08|30|23|Z}}is 629b, the [[Special:Permalink/1203900750|old version] was 436b. Multiply that difference by 2 for {{#invoke:Episode list|list}}, by 2 for {{episode list}}, by 2 for {{#invoke:episode table|table}}, by 2 for {{episode table}}, and then by 2 when it's transcluded onto a "List of XXX seasons" article, and you've now increased the size of the page by 6kb for each {{end date}} template being used. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:03, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95 The combination of using
- I have modified {{end date}} to use what seems like a less processor-intensive check that is used by {{start date}} (if that makes sense). I would like to see if that helps, because the validation has been helpful in unearthing template errors in 4,000+ articles. Using
- The request is in Template talk:Start date#Template-protected edit request on 28 February 2025. Nickps (talk) 15:15, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
Looks like the template:Use mdy dates is broken. See how it looks in the article XMPP. Jet Jerry (talk) 03:37, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Jet Jerry: Please describe exactly what you see (or saw) and how it differs from what you expected. I'm blind but couldn't detect anything wrong (your headline and message grabbed my attention, because I know a bit about that template and its siblings). I checked related changes for the template and found nothing relevant. Graham87 (talk) 06:16, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- The page looks OK to me. It might help to let us know what skin you are using, and whether you are using the mobile or desktop view. – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:41, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- I suspect that what Jet Jerry (talk · contribs) was seeing was nothing to do with Use mdy dates, but the results of this vandalism, which has since been reverted. Some of the transcluding pages may still show the effects of that, for which the cure is a WP:NULLEDIT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:51, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, you are right. It was precisely the result of this vandalism. Sorry for the disturbance. Jet Jerry (talk) 10:49, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- I suspect that what Jet Jerry (talk · contribs) was seeing was nothing to do with Use mdy dates, but the results of this vandalism, which has since been reverted. Some of the transcluding pages may still show the effects of that, for which the cure is a WP:NULLEDIT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:51, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- The page looks OK to me. It might help to let us know what skin you are using, and whether you are using the mobile or desktop view. – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:41, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
Problem with Template:RfC closure review
I introduced a line to the template that was supposed to get rid of the need to sign your posts. This was because signing at the end gave the signature in the code box and it looked horrible. So I used subst:REVISIONUSER2 to post the username of the person who deployed the template. It was supposed to be static.
Unfortunately, it's dynamic. Each time someone edits, the value constantly changes. I don't want that. It's definitely a PEBKAC issue, but I can't solve it alone. What should I have written instead? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 03:56, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Szmenderowiecki: Please provide links to one or more of the pages where
{{subst:RfC closure review}}has been used, and which now show an incorrect user name. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:05, 25 February 2025 (UTC) - You wrote
{{subst:REVISIONUSER2}}but {{REVISIONUSER2}} is not coded to work with subst. Maybe it should be. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:26, 25 February 2025 (UTC)- Looks pretty simple - just needs
safesubst:<noinclude />in that template and in {{Encodefirst}}. — Qwerfjkltalk 17:37, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- Looks pretty simple - just needs
- Here are some diffs in the thread that provoked this question. Each link is followed by the name of the editor linked by the template:
- [52] — Bluethricecreamman creates the request
- [53] — GoodDay adds a comment to the request
- [54] — Bluethricecreamman replies to the request
- [55] — Tule-hog edits a different section
- [56] — Springee replies to the request
- [57] — Rsjaffe edits a different section
- [58] — Springee says "hey, what's going on with the changing usernames"
- [59] — Szmenderowiecki says "oops, something's wrong with the template"
- [60] — Bluethricecreamman doesn't edit, but his name is now there properly, thanks to a fix by Voorts.
- Redrose64, is this what you needed? Nyttend (talk) 10:33, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- Redrose64, PrimeHunter, Qwerfjkl, Nyttend, I have resolved the issue without having to resort to substituting REVISIONUSER. I had to introduce another parameter to the template, but it now should work Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:14, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
Party composition tables on Althing not working properly
On the page for Althing, the legislature of Iceland, there is this neat graphical overview of party composition of parliament since the founding of the republic. It's basically just a bunch of tables inside of a larger table. I wanted to copy this over to the Icelandic language Wikipedia (see draft under my user space there), but I have noticed that this table breaks down on narrow screens which makes it unusable on most mobile devices. I would expect it to adapt to the screen size but what happens at a certain point when you narrow down the screen is that the bars all become uneven. It's the same on all browsers I have checked. I have not found anything obvious in the table syntax but I'm no expert there. Is there a way to make it function as intended? Bjarki (talk) 10:45, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- This happens when the screen size goes below 640px width. I found the culprit, but this does need to be checked further. "display:block" in the code below is causing this. I was unable to find the source of this code, but I suspect it comes from WMF.
- Snævar (talk) 16:36, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
@media screen { @media (max-width: calc(639px)) { .mw-parser-output table { display: block; overflow: auto; max-width: 100%; }}}
WP Library and problems with accessing Cambridge works
When logged into the Wikipedia Library, it still says I don't have access to some works on the Cambridge website. Some examples:
- https://www-cambridge-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/core/books/archaeology-and-oral-tradition-in-malawi/7588016649895DA4A10FC2CCC6B5E336
- https://www-cambridge-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/core/books/history-of-west-central-africa-to-1850/6D965FDABFE57139A73C1B20598B3D69
Is anyone else having the same problem? Kowal2701 (talk) 21:09, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- If I click on (eg) Chapter 1, I get to a Summary page, at the foot of which is a section that states:
- Check access
- Institutional login
- We recognised you are associated with one or more institutions that don't have access to this content. If you should have access, please contact your librarian.
- It looks as if Wikipedia Library access is limited. You could try petitioning CUP to open up these documents to WL. -- Verbarson talkedits 21:46, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks. I was able to access these last week. If it’s the same for you then that probably means there’s an issue with Wikipedia Library, the same thing happened from October-January with Oxford Research Encyclopedias, I’ll make a phab report Kowal2701 (talk) 21:59, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- Opened a phab report Kowal2701 (talk) 22:17, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
Deliberately triggering the edit filter?
I've noticed this is a somewhat common block rationale (more than 10k blocks have this rationale) -- could someone explain it to me? I know what an edit filter is, but why would someone deliberately trigger one of them and why would that be block-worthy? I mean don't we all trigger the edit filter whenever we, for example, make a mobile edit? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:38, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- Mobile edit tags do not trigger the edit filter, no.
- Basically the block rationale is for "you did things that are block worthy but we managed to stop you a priori. thankfully. that doesn't mean you get off scot-free". Izno (talk) 22:58, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- As Izno says, it actually means something different. It was in the block-reason list for too long, but isn't there today. See: MediaWiki_talk:Ipbreason-dropdown/Archive_1#Deliberately_triggering_the_edit_filter_(2). -- zzuuzz (talk) 23:21, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
"New Section" tab not appearing on article talk page
Perhaps someone can help sort the issue described at User talk:Marchjuly#Alexa Meade's Talk Page. For some reason, there is no longer any "New Section" tab appearing at the top of Talk:Alexa Meade. I'm not sure why this has happened. For some odd reason, though, the tab reappears when clicking on "Edit". Is this a known issue? Could it something to do with the {{COI edit notice}} template I recently added to the page. I don't really remember whether it was there before, but the user who asked about it on my user talk page seems to imply that it was. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:52, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- The problem is that Talk:Alexa Meade#Edits for Two Recent Exhibits has
{{edit COI|g}}which includes__NONEWSECTIONLINK__. How that happens ({{edit COI}}) is the next puzzle. Johnuniq (talk) 03:17, 3 March 2025 (UTC)- Hmm. Template:Edit COI/proceed contains the offending magic word inside includeonly. But it's been that way for years. Johnuniq (talk) 03:28, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- I proved the point by removing the template, see diff. Talk:Alexa Meade now has a new section tab. Why did that work when I can't find anything related that has changed recently? Please revert my edit to check if the problem comes back. Johnuniq (talk) 03:36, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- It looks like the problem happens whenever
{{edit COI|g}}is used. Examples: Talk:Changi Airport + Talk:Grammarly + Talk:Noah Oppenheim. Would someone please work out why NONEWSECTIONLINK has been used since 2012! Johnuniq (talk) 03:45, 3 March 2025 (UTC)- Thanks for this Johnuniq. Since you found other talk pages with the same issue, I can at least let the person asking about this on my user talk page know that the issue doesn't specifically have anything to do with their COI with respect to Alexa Meade. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:13, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- I have removed
__NONEWSECTIONLINK__from Template:Edit COI/proceed.[61] It was there when CorporateM created the page in 2012. I guess he copied and adapted code from another page without realizing what this bit did. There is no reason to have it. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:33, 3 March 2025 (UTC)- Thank you PrimeHunter. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:04, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- Given that {{Edit COI}} seems to be the only other template that once had
__NONEWSECTIONLINK__, {{Edit COI/proceed}} was probably copied from an earlier version of it. Nobody (talk) 10:38, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- I have removed
- Thanks for this Johnuniq. Since you found other talk pages with the same issue, I can at least let the person asking about this on my user talk page know that the issue doesn't specifically have anything to do with their COI with respect to Alexa Meade. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:13, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- It looks like the problem happens whenever
- I proved the point by removing the template, see diff. Talk:Alexa Meade now has a new section tab. Why did that work when I can't find anything related that has changed recently? Please revert my edit to check if the problem comes back. Johnuniq (talk) 03:36, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hmm. Template:Edit COI/proceed contains the offending magic word inside includeonly. But it's been that way for years. Johnuniq (talk) 03:28, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
References not rendering properly
Suddenly references inside the {{notelist}} started appearing as ?'"`UNIQ--ref-0000003E-QINU`"'? on 2024 Men's T20 World Cup Super 8 stage, I'm guessing WP:THURSDAY... Vestrian24Bio 07:40, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Is the problem still there? Searching that page for "UNIQ" did not find anything. Johnuniq (talk) 07:53, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's the Parsoid renderer, appears fine with the legacy renderer. Vestrian24Bio 07:53, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
Vestrian24Bio 08:12, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- This is a software bug that should be reported on Phabricator. * Pppery * it has begun... 19:46, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Indeed, there has been recent work on Cite by WMDE. Izno (talk) 00:10, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
List-defined references not working on Android app
When an article uses list-defined references, with {{reflist}} and |refs=, I cannot see the references themselves in the Android mobile app. The footnote markers show up as expected, but the references section shows only reference numbers with no content to the references. Clicking on one of these numbers in the references section goes to the point in the article where the reference is used, and clicking on the footnote marker in the article text brings up a popup showing only the reference number. (The example article where I first noticed this: Apollonius quadrilateral.) This is only on mobile for me, with the Android app; with a web browser, even in the mobile view [62], everything looks ok. Does anyone else see this? Is it a new bug? Is it being tracked in phab? Is it related to #References not rendering properly above? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:14, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- I think this was the same problem as T387608, it looks resolved now. Matma Rex talk 15:32, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
nbsp
A recent edit of mine somehow added a host of nbsp tags. This was not deliberate! Can anyone explain how this happened? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:58, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- The wikEd gadget corrupts pages that way. See User talk:Cacycle/wikEd#Stop adding . Matma Rex talk 00:44, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- And documented at WP:WIKEDNBSP. This is deliberate behavior, so I would not say it is corruption (nor is it damaging the page ultimately). Izno (talk) 17:10, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- They're not tags, but entity references. Tags are enclosed in paired less-than/greater-than signs, as described at XML spec section 3.1. Entity references begin with an ampersand and end with a semicolon, as described at the XML spec section 4.1. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:22, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
Page preview bug on 2017 Wikitext editor
I was editing a template recently and tried to use the page preview feature on 2010 Wikitext editor. In it, the page title takes up more than half of the space on left, and the actual page being previewed is reduced to less than half of the space on the right side. Thanks! —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 15:24, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- Known as T333665. Matma Rex talk 15:27, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, looks like an old bug. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 15:31, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- (This is the 2017 wikitext editor, not the 2010 wikitext editor.) Izno (talk) 17:12, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry, my mistake. Must've confused with some other thing. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 17:29, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
IP user getting block message when editing articles, but is not blocked
Please see background at User talk:162.226.44.134 and User talk:Ivanvector/Archive 20#You blocked my IP for no reason. The user on IP 162.226.44.134 is getting a block message when they try to edit any article, but it seems to be only articles since they are able to edit their own talk page as well as mine, and there are no block entries in that IP's block log (locally or globally). The block message correctly reads out their IP, but from what I can tell the block reason they're getting matches a block I made on Special:Contributions/2600:387::/40 almost a year ago, which is a talk-and-email-revoked site-block, so if this was a cookie block or an autoblock (which I don't think gets set for IP blocks anyway) then those settings should have also followed over. And besides, it seems like they have already gone 24 hours since they first saw the message so that sort of block should have cleared, but the problem persists today.
I gave them some suggestions to try, but really I'm at a loss. They are using the Wikipedia mobile app, is there a known issue with it? Or does anyone else have any better ideas? I didn't get more technical info about their connection but they should be able to reply to questions here, or at least they can reply on their own talk page. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:50, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- Courtesy ping 162.226.44.134 and Yamla. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:51, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- The IP address is not blocked. It's possible if they are editing from a different IP address, they are hitting a block there. But the IP address they are complaining about plainly isn't blocked as they've been able to edit a different page. There's simply not enough information to go on here. It's not an autoblock, it's not a cookie block, at least not on that browser, given that they are able to edit other pages. --Yamla (talk) 16:54, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- It's possible (though I don't see it as likely) that it's a partial cookie block. Clearing the relevant cookies may (or may not) help. I've blocked the IP for 10 minutes, as that's an old-school way to clear weird blocks. -- zzuuzz (talk) 17:07, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- Back when I edited as an IP, I encountered this exact problem, and that is the solution I remember. Sometimes the 'block' message gets cached for when the user tries to edit from a non-blocked IP. JayCubby 20:02, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- It's possible (though I don't see it as likely) that it's a partial cookie block. Clearing the relevant cookies may (or may not) help. I've blocked the IP for 10 minutes, as that's an old-school way to clear weird blocks. -- zzuuzz (talk) 17:07, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- The IP address is not blocked. It's possible if they are editing from a different IP address, they are hitting a block there. But the IP address they are complaining about plainly isn't blocked as they've been able to edit a different page. There's simply not enough information to go on here. It's not an autoblock, it's not a cookie block, at least not on that browser, given that they are able to edit other pages. --Yamla (talk) 16:54, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-10
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
- All logged-in editors using the mobile view can now edit a full page. The "Edit full page" link is accessible from the "More" menu in the toolbar. This was previously only available to editors using the Advanced mobile contributions setting. [63]
- Interface administrators can now help to remove the deprecated Cite CSS code matching "
mw-ref" from their local MediaWiki:Common.css. The list of wikis in need of cleanup, and the code to remove, can be found with this global search and in this example, and you can learn more about how to help on the CSS migration project page. The Cite footnote markers ("[1]") are now rendered by Parsoid, and the deprecated CSS is no longer needed. The CSS for backlinks ("mw:referencedBy") should remain in place for now. This cleanup is expected to cause no visible changes for readers. Please help to remove this code before March 20, after which the development team will do it for you. - When editors embed a file (e.g.
[[File:MediaWiki.png]]) on a page that is protected with cascading protection, the software will no longer restrict edits to the file description page, only to new file uploads.[64] In contrast, transcluding a file description page (e.g.{{:File:MediaWiki.png}}) will now restrict edits to the page.[65] - When editors revert a file to an earlier version it will now require the same permissions as ordinarily uploading a new version of the file. The software now checks for 'reupload' or 'reupload-own' rights,[66] and respects cascading protection.[67]
- When administrators are listing pages for deletion with the Nuke tool, they can now also list associated talk pages and redirects for deletion, alongside pages created by the target, rather than needing to manually delete these pages afterwards. [68]
- The previously noted update to Single User Login, which will accommodate browser restrictions on cross-domain cookies by moving login and account creation to a central domain, will now roll out to all users during March and April. The team plans to enable it for all new account creation on Group0 wikis this week. See the SUL3 project page for more details and an updated timeline.
- Since last week there has been a bug that shows some interface icons as black squares until the page has fully loaded. It will be fixed this week. [69]
- One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Sylheti (
w:syl:) [70] - View all 23 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed with loading images in very old versions of the Firefox browser on mobile. [71]
Updates for technical contributors
- Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 02:28, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Annoying "global contributions" in sidebar
Is this new? I accidentally click it all the time instead of the "user contributions" line just above it, and it invariably gives an error ("Error loading data from some wikis. These results are incomplete. It may help to try again."), displays things weirdly (the Wikipedia namespace is called "Meta", so I supposedly have an edit to "Meta:Articles for deletion/Acacia Forgot" when what is meant is "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Acacia Forgot", and on Commons I also supposedly edited " Meta:Deletion requests/File:Tintin Tibet.jpg" instead of "Commons:Deletion requests/File:Tintin Tibet.jpg". Whose idea was it to put a very buggy version of [72] (which actually works mich better) into such a high-visibility spot, and can it please be removed again? Fram (talk) 17:02, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- I also accidentally click this a lot and usually regret it. I would prefer not to see it in the default sidebar; is there a way to turn this off via user JS/CSS? —Kusma (talk) 17:10, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Kusma: The link can be hidden with this in your CSS:
#t-global-contributions {display:none;}
- PrimeHunter (talk) 18:55, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Fram: It's sort-of new (like about four weeks), see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 218#New button in IP contrib page, dead link. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:20, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks. So it only really works on Meta but is deployed here and elsewhere anyway, typical. For every decent rollout they still have to include such unwanted buggy stuff apparently. Fram (talk) 09:33, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
Just noticed that the "diff size" indicator (the bold green "(+215,678)") is completely wrong as well, showing the page size instead of the diff size. Please get this off enwiki again. Fram (talk) 16:49, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- That would be T385377. * Pppery * it has begun... 16:53, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
And it also doesn't seem to work for IP addresses, contrary to the global contributions tool on Toolforge... Fram (talk) 09:30, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- I assume that was an IP making an edit as an IP - that is not supposed to work per phab:T378280. You are starting to use the tool too soon, it is intended for temporary accounts, not IP edits. If you do get the IP behind a temporary account and use the new global contributions for that, then that should work. The old tool should be used for IPs making edits as an IP.
- As IPs will use temporary accounts and there will be no public showing of new IP contributions the old tool will stop to work once temporary accounts are active. Snævar (talk) 10:46, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- " You are starting to use the tool too soon," it is live now, we shouldn't have tools in the sidebar we aren't supposed to use yet. Perhaps, just assuming it will work then (considering the other bugs, I doubt it), it should only have been deployed then? Fram (talk) 17:00, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- I think you missed the point of old IP adress changes will not work in the new global contributions tool, it does not matter how long you wait. I am going to allow the "trust and safety team", the team behind the temporary account change, to answer whether the global contribution links should be on non-temporary account wikis. I am saying tho, that since you are testing this tool it would generate better bugreports to get an adminship on test.wikipedia for testing purposes and test the tool there. Another option would be to find out where you are at least autoconfirmed on one of these or these wikis and test it there. Snævar (talk) 18:04, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- Your reply really makes no sense at all. The tool is deployed here, for everyone, so I'm testing whether it works here, on this live wiki. I don't care at all if it works on testwiki or anywhere else, I don't get why you even suggest this. "I think you missed the point of old IP adress changes will not work in the new global contributions tool, it does not matter how long you wait." These aren't "old IP adresses", these are current IP addresses. I am testing how well this tool works on enwiki, right now, since it is deployed to enwiki, right now. Fram (talk) 20:09, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- No, you are missing the point. I have reapeated this for the third time now, the tool is NOT designed for IP edits, it is for temporary accounts. Go back to gradeschool and learn how to read. Being this stubborn about anything does not change its purpose. I am going to stop helping you and return to enjoying watching this trainwreck you have created for yourself. Snævar (talk) 07:49, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Snævar, that personal attack was out of line. Please strike it. — Qwerfjkltalk 09:09, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- No, you are missing the point. I have reapeated this for the third time now, the tool is NOT designed for IP edits, it is for temporary accounts. Go back to gradeschool and learn how to read. Being this stubborn about anything does not change its purpose. I am going to stop helping you and return to enjoying watching this trainwreck you have created for yourself. Snævar (talk) 07:49, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Your reply really makes no sense at all. The tool is deployed here, for everyone, so I'm testing whether it works here, on this live wiki. I don't care at all if it works on testwiki or anywhere else, I don't get why you even suggest this. "I think you missed the point of old IP adress changes will not work in the new global contributions tool, it does not matter how long you wait." These aren't "old IP adresses", these are current IP addresses. I am testing how well this tool works on enwiki, right now, since it is deployed to enwiki, right now. Fram (talk) 20:09, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- I think you missed the point of old IP adress changes will not work in the new global contributions tool, it does not matter how long you wait. I am going to allow the "trust and safety team", the team behind the temporary account change, to answer whether the global contribution links should be on non-temporary account wikis. I am saying tho, that since you are testing this tool it would generate better bugreports to get an adminship on test.wikipedia for testing purposes and test the tool there. Another option would be to find out where you are at least autoconfirmed on one of these or these wikis and test it there. Snævar (talk) 18:04, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- " You are starting to use the tool too soon," it is live now, we shouldn't have tools in the sidebar we aren't supposed to use yet. Perhaps, just assuming it will work then (considering the other bugs, I doubt it), it should only have been deployed then? Fram (talk) 17:00, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
References at Alpine marmot partially behind images
Does that happen for anyone else? Nobody (talk) 14:47, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- The images displace the reference columns on my screen, but they don't overlap. CMD (talk) 15:13, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- This image shows how I see it. Nobody (talk) 15:18, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- For the specific case of Alpine marmot,
Works for me. But I've seen it elsewhere; and found that going into the "Inspect" feature of Firefox would fix it immediately; and when closing "Inspect" again, would stay fixed. I had suspected a z-index:issue, in combination with floating objects. But being transient makes it hard to nail down. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:13, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- For the specific case of Alpine marmot,
- This image shows how I see it. Nobody (talk) 15:18, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- I can reproduce it. It reminds me of a Firefox bug I reported a while ago: T294980#7483288, Mozilla bug 1739506 – but it's hard to tell whether it's the same problem. You might want to report your case too to give their devs a poke. Matma Rex talk 20:10, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Tools for bundled XfD noms
Are there any tools to assist creation of bundled XfDs nominations?
I understand that there are two kinds of bundled noms: ones created under the title of one of the pages, with other articles then being added to the nom using {{la}} and tagged (this is recommended by Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How to nominate multiple related pages for deletion), and noms that are not named after any of the nominated pages. For clarity, I am looking for tools for assisting any of these two kinds of nominations. Janhrach (talk) 17:10, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
- There is User:Qwerfjkl/scripts/massXFD but it only supports CFDs and RFDs so far. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 18:19, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
Locator map showing Null Island not Western Australia
Henry Street, Fremantle shows a locator map consisting entirely of water. Zooming out it appears to be displaying the location of Null Island rather than Western Australia. There are no coordinates or explicit map call on the page that I can see. The article does transclude Template:Infobox Australian road, the documentation for which says that the locator map is automatic if the Wikidata item includes coordinates. d:Q16342680 does indeed contain coordinates (32°3'19.19"S, 115°44'39.06"E) but keen observers will spot that those are not the coordinates of Null Island. Thryduulf (talk) 22:30, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- I don't know what exactly causes it, but I figured out that it is possible to reproduce it just by
{{#invoke:Infobox mapframe|auto|onByDefault=yes}}. I also found this displays the map well at Midland Highway (Tasmania), just like the infobox in that article. Janhrach (talk) 19:37, 3 March 2025 (UTC)- In User:Janhrach/sandbox5, I have a minimal example demonstrating the difference. Maybe the bug is caused by something in OSM. Here are the OSM links: [73][74]. Notice that the former link (not working) is linked from Wikidata, while the latter (working) is not, so I doubt this is caused directly by Wikidata. Janhrach (talk) 20:05, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- Maybe the error is caused by [75] being connected to WD instead of [76]? Janhrach (talk) 20:13, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- It does not. I put a wide varity of buggy maps into my sandbox. Janhrach (talk) 15:50, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Maybe the error is caused by [75] being connected to WD instead of [76]? Janhrach (talk) 20:13, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- In User:Janhrach/sandbox5, I have a minimal example demonstrating the difference. Maybe the bug is caused by something in OSM. Here are the OSM links: [73][74]. Notice that the former link (not working) is linked from Wikidata, while the latter (working) is not, so I doubt this is caused directly by Wikidata. Janhrach (talk) 20:05, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- I have filed a report on Phabricator. Janhrach (talk) 16:16, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for trying to figure this out. Thryduulf (talk) 17:11, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- I've seen this issue when the OSM listing doesn't contain both a Wikidata and a Wikipedia tag. I've added a Wikipedia tag to Henry Street, but it may take a few days for the OSM changes to propagate. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:50, 5 March 2025 (UTC)- I don't think so, e.g. Gumpendorfer Straße (third map in my sandbox) only has a dewiki link and works, while Gagarinova (penultimate map) has a skwiki link, yet it doesn't work. Janhrach (talk) 19:09, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
Archival of url and source update script
Hello, do you have some python or some other language code to archive an url and add it as parameter to a source template? I'd like to do it on another WMF wiki, wouldn't want to re-invent the wheel. Thank you in advance. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 01:36, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- There's InternetArchiveBot. Graham87 (talk) 01:49, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Interested in something I can run from my account Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 22:55, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- I.e. using a JavaScript gadget Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 22:55, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- There is no Javascript gadget for that. There are install instructions on https://github.com/internetarchive/internetarchivebot so you can run it on your own account. Even simpler still would be to ask InternetArchiveBot to run on your WMF project by asking on phab: with the tag InternetArchiveBot. You need a local consensus for that. In both cases you want to make sure your citation templates work with InternetArchive bot, and if they are CS1 templates, then make sure they are up to date, especially their support of the archive-url, archive-date and url-status parameters. You also need an dead link template and make sure InternetArchiveBot knows what that is. I have asked and gotten InternetArchivebot working on one project, so that is where this information comes from. Snævar (talk) 03:37, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- Ok, thanks, I will have a look. Let me know if gadgets becomes available. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 07:44, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- There is no Javascript gadget for that. There are install instructions on https://github.com/internetarchive/internetarchivebot so you can run it on your own account. Even simpler still would be to ask InternetArchiveBot to run on your WMF project by asking on phab: with the tag InternetArchiveBot. You need a local consensus for that. In both cases you want to make sure your citation templates work with InternetArchive bot, and if they are CS1 templates, then make sure they are up to date, especially their support of the archive-url, archive-date and url-status parameters. You also need an dead link template and make sure InternetArchiveBot knows what that is. I have asked and gotten InternetArchivebot working on one project, so that is where this information comes from. Snævar (talk) 03:37, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- I.e. using a JavaScript gadget Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 22:55, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Interested in something I can run from my account Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 22:55, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Citation generator is broken for Yonhap News
The automatic citation generator included in VisualEditor seems to be struggling with the Yonhap News website. It have been throwing an error for a long time. Since Yonhap News is the biggest news agency in Korea, it would be nice to get this behaviour fixed. Where or who can I contact to report this issue? Ca talk to me! 05:13, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Ca The automatic citation generator uses mw:citoid, which in turn is based on an open source piece of software called zotero. To add support for a website you would need to write a "translator", which tells zotero how to extract data from the page, instructions on how to do this are at mw:Citoid/Creating Zotero translators. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 08:42, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- It seems like Yonhap News has blocked WMF servers for making too many requests. If I try to use zotero without WMF servers then it works without an error. Citoid is supposed to use archive.org in that instance, so you get the information from there. See phab:T374831 which requires you to have an citation template parameter for archive url, archive date and specify that to citoid as explained in the link. See also phab:T362379. Snævar (talk) 11:07, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
Corrupted history at Westend Synagogue
Something is wrong with the history at Westend Synagogue. When I click history, it shows me my last three edits only, but not the previous history of creation and eight edits by User:Thriley, and two by User:TheChairmanOfTheBoard. (This from an old edit tab which I have not refreshed yet.) What is going on, here? Mathglot (talk) 09:24, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- And, the Talk page seems to be gone; previously held some wikiprojects, and one discussion. Mathglot (talk) 09:31, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Okay, someone appears to have moved the Talk page to Draft talk, but somehow three edits of mine persist in mainspace history. How did that happen? Is some kind of main +Draft merge needed, and a histmerge? Or should I abandon mainspace, reapply the three edits to Drat, and move it back to mainspace? Mathglot (talk) 09:34, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- The page was moved to draft:Westend Synagogue without leaving a redirect, a minute before your first edit of the three in the history. So your edit was a page creation. Nthep (talk) 09:35, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Nthep, okay, that makes sense up to a point, but there's a future Phab ticket here, somewhere. If the first was a page creation, I should have gotten an edit conflict, or some kind of indication. I was editing what to me was a valid page, and if it was yanked away before I could save, then I should have received some kind of notification of it. Mathglot (talk) 09:40, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- I admit, I'm surprised you didn't get an edit conflict notification. Must be the way the software works and page moves/deletions don't register as edits. Nthep (talk) 09:43, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Nthep, Yeah, me too. I am familiar with Phab, but uncertain with what Phab project I should list this under. Any ideas, so it gets to the right folks? P.S., it's moved back, so the Draft should red-link now. Mathglot (talk) 09:49, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- This is phab:T25044 from 2010. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:10, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Very helpful; thanks! I will add some thoughts there. Mathglot (talk) 20:57, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- This is phab:T25044 from 2010. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:10, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Nthep, Yeah, me too. I am familiar with Phab, but uncertain with what Phab project I should list this under. Any ideas, so it gets to the right folks? P.S., it's moved back, so the Draft should red-link now. Mathglot (talk) 09:49, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- I admit, I'm surprised you didn't get an edit conflict notification. Must be the way the software works and page moves/deletions don't register as edits. Nthep (talk) 09:43, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Nthep, okay, that makes sense up to a point, but there's a future Phab ticket here, somewhere. If the first was a page creation, I should have gotten an edit conflict, or some kind of indication. I was editing what to me was a valid page, and if it was yanked away before I could save, then I should have received some kind of notification of it. Mathglot (talk) 09:40, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Hello again, everybody. Has this happened to you, or might it trip you or someone else up if it did? Please add your name as an observer to Phab ticket T25044. More eyeballs are always good, and additional voices may eventually lead to a resolution. Thanks! Mathglot (talk) 21:21, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Interesting. The steps to reproduce the issue is essentially a feature of suppressredirect in any other cases where the third step is something else, i.e. pageswap or creating disambiguation page at the now unoccupied title. The only way to see this however is that it is a form of edit conflict, and add this scenario into the edit conflict resolution process. – robertsky (talk) 12:01, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
Hi can somebody use a tool to find how many stubs we have in total for Europe? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:40, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- A quick Petscan query shows over 760,000 articles. – DreamRimmer (talk) 18:28, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- Yikes!! Thanks! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:21, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
There's a template about talk page behavior & I cannot remember what it is called...
I can remember what it does... Anyway, isn't there a template that we can put on a celebrity's or politician's article talk page in reply to when someone comes along and wants to get in touch or maybe they ask the politician what can they do about Social Security (as if the article is a way to ask the celebrity or politician a question, etc.) Thanks - Shearonink (talk) 22:54, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
- {{Astray}}? * Pppery * it has begun... 23:10, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
- I think the closest thing for article talk pages is {{not a forum}}. Astray is for user talk pages. Izno (talk) 23:24, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
- Astray would almost work...I'm surprised there isn't something written up, that could be used on the article talk to reply since this poster is an anon on a politician's page. Oh well, thanks anyway. I just thought I couldn't find it but yay it doesn't exist... - Shearonink (talk) 01:44, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- Somewhere there's a template, intended to be WP:SUBSTed, that reads (or used to read) something along these lines: Maybe not exactly that, but maybe somebody knows how to do a proper search, using that as a clue. It was in use sometime around 2010. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:54, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over {{subst:#expr:(floor ({{subst:formatnum:{{subst:NUMBEROFARTICLES}}|R}} / 100000)) / 10}} million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at [[Wikipedia:About|Wikipedia]], the free online encyclopedia that [[Wikipedia:Introduction|anyone can edit]], and this page is for [[WP:TPG|discussion on how to improve]] the [[{{subst:PAGENAME}}]] article.
- That would be {{Astray}}, which I pointed out above. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:16, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- I realise that, but the one that I've seen is about as long as my example above. Significantly, it lacked the second half (from
Thus, we have no special knowledge
onward). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:25, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- I realise that, but the one that I've seen is about as long as my example above. Significantly, it lacked the second half (from
- That would be {{Astray}}, which I pointed out above. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:16, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- Somewhere there's a template, intended to be WP:SUBSTed, that reads (or used to read) something along these lines:
- Astray would almost work...I'm surprised there isn't something written up, that could be used on the article talk to reply since this poster is an anon on a politician's page. Oh well, thanks anyway. I just thought I couldn't find it but yay it doesn't exist... - Shearonink (talk) 01:44, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- I think the closest thing for article talk pages is {{not a forum}}. Astray is for user talk pages. Izno (talk) 23:24, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
Parsoid error
I've been trying to edit my sandbox page in the visual editor, but when I click 'submit' it returns 'parsoid error'. Please could someone tell me what to do with this. I looked it up and none of the questions posted about this address my issue but instead go into a lot of detail about other kinds of error which are very technical. I can't paste an image here but the error essentially says: "Something went wrong [!] Parsoid error" and gives the options to 'dismiss' or 'try again'.
This error is occurring across multiple devices when I try to edit my sandbox. When I try to switch to the source editor it returns simply 'Parsoid error' and this time just gives me the option of 'OK'.
I don't know whether this is linked, but I recently had another (very minor) technical concern which I researched, and was told to create a common.css page with my username, in which I added the following: .mw-parser-output span.cs1-maint {display: inline;} /* display Citation Style 1 maintenance messages */. I don't know whether it had anything to do with this and I doubt it does, since I did this yesterday and was editing throughout the day yesterday with no issues even after pasting that in, but it might be useful context. Krimzonmania7078 (talk) 21:51, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- If it helps, I'll explain what I'm trying to do in my edit session. I'm working on a new article and decided to copy and paste another article into my sandbox to use as a 'template' of sorts (which ended up being a pointless exercise because I've basically written this article from scratch anyway). I think the issue might stem from that decision somehow. The reason why I'd like to get this fixed is that now I've been editing the article in my sandbox for a while and basically have no way to save my progress Krimzonmania7078 (talk) 23:21, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- I've actually found a workaround which is good enough (copy-pasted the article into another session of the sandbox with the first sentence missing) - that seems to have fixed it. Probably something right at the top of the article I was trying to use as a 'template' which I mindlessly copied was causing it. Krimzonmania7078 (talk) 23:39, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- Just report it on phab:. Your wikipedia account will work there. Include the name of the article you where copying in your bug report. The developers can look up specifics about your edit attempt, users can not do that. Snævar (talk) 13:10, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
- I've actually found a workaround which is good enough (copy-pasted the article into another session of the sandbox with the first sentence missing) - that seems to have fixed it. Probably something right at the top of the article I was trying to use as a 'template' which I mindlessly copied was causing it. Krimzonmania7078 (talk) 23:39, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
Modifying system message on Petscan's interwiki page
When you type :petscan: in the search bar, you are taken to Special:GoToInterwiki/petscan:. The link on that page is https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid= which upon clicking takes us to an error page from where it is not possible to navigate back to petscan's main page. Is it possible to modify the system message so that there is a direct link to petscan's main page: https://petscan.wmcloud.org/? —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 14:23, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
- That is probably due to the interwiki prefix on meta:Interwiki_map. That interwiki map is used on WMF wikis, not just english wikipedia.
- Changing the system message from the tool itself would be done with a bugreport on the tool itself - https://github.com/magnusmanske/petscan_rs/issues Snævar (talk) 15:29, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, and the interwiki map format doesn't support doing something different with an empty prefix. It possibly should, but that's another Phabricator ticket (which in my experience would languish forever). * Pppery * it has begun... 16:13, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
- meta:Interwiki map assumes there is a page name after the colon. petscan:$1 goes to https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=$1. If $1 is empty then you get the bad https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=. Special:GoToInterwiki/petscan: uses MediaWiki:Gotointerwiki-external. It's possible to change it. I made a test at testwiki:MediaWiki:Gotointerwiki-external. It discovers if petscan: or acronym: were used with nothing after the colon and selects a different page, https://petscan.wmflabs.org or https://www.acronymfinder.com. It works (see testwiki:Special:GoToInterwiki/petscan:) but it may confuse users if interwiki prefixes don't behave the same way at Wikimedia wikis so I'm not sure we should do it. It's also confusing if entering
petscan:in the search box doesn't lead to the same page as a wikilink petscan: which goes directly to the interwiki map target without using Special:GoToInterwiki. This also means "petscan:" and the displayed url at testwiki:Special:GoToInterwiki/petscan: have different targets. My test also has code for mail: but it's not treated as an external wiki so Special:GoToInterwiki isn't used for that. At phab:T309558 I suggested a redirect for mail: to https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/. I also made a post saying "A more advanced solution would be adding a way for the interwiki map to specify where a link with an empty $1 should go". This would give a nice consistent solution across Wikimedia wikis with the search box and wikilinks behaving the same way. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:18, 7 March 2025 (UTC)- I think your solution solves the problem at hand, but I agree with the concerns you have with its implementation. Maybe the text could read something like: "Continue to https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid= or go to Petscan's homepage". It will keep the default destination intact, while also adding an additional link to the homepage for convenience. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 16:43, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
- Actually, I'm proposing that an additional line of text be added at Special:GoToInterwiki/petscan: with a direct link to Petscan's main page (if feasible with system messages). —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 16:21, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
- Of course, changes to GoToInterwiki would only fix pages that go there, not direct links like petscan:. * Pppery * it has begun... 16:32, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
- meta:Interwiki map assumes there is a page name after the colon. petscan:$1 goes to https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=$1. If $1 is empty then you get the bad https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=. Special:GoToInterwiki/petscan: uses MediaWiki:Gotointerwiki-external. It's possible to change it. I made a test at testwiki:MediaWiki:Gotointerwiki-external. It discovers if petscan: or acronym: were used with nothing after the colon and selects a different page, https://petscan.wmflabs.org or https://www.acronymfinder.com. It works (see testwiki:Special:GoToInterwiki/petscan:) but it may confuse users if interwiki prefixes don't behave the same way at Wikimedia wikis so I'm not sure we should do it. It's also confusing if entering
- Yeah, and the interwiki map format doesn't support doing something different with an empty prefix. It possibly should, but that's another Phabricator ticket (which in my experience would languish forever). * Pppery * it has begun... 16:13, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
Help:Creating a bot: Revision history - Wikipedia Revision history 13:23, 8 March 2025 Anomie talk contribs 31,536 bytes +118 The rendered HTML is exactly the same after your edits, all you did was make the wikitext uglier. Please don't do this sort of thing again, and consider asking at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) whether your ideas will actually work
How does reducing the bytes of the document not increase processing speed? In a sample from this: Simon E Spero Analysis of HTTP Performance problems www.w3.org @ "HTTP Illustrated" "This page is 1668 bytes long" indicates bytes is the determination - @"Very nice, but what does it all mean": "Another important metric is the bandwidth of the connection. This is a measure of how many bits per second our connection can carry." this would indicate that reducing the bits decreases bandwidth load. Understanding latency developer.mozilla.org: "the HTML includes requests for multiple CSS, scripts, and media files. The greater the number and size of these requests, the greater the impact of high latency". In my imagining (this is to say I don't know exactly how the server scans the data for retrieval): if a server scans a page with gaps the motion is from the 1st byte to the last byte in sequence: like a sensor which receives the imprint at each position- although the whitespace has no textual element the scan would need to pass through the byte of the space to reach the last datum in the stored document. Onemillionthtree (talk) 17:12, 8 March 2025 (UTC) ⇐ this is from my Talk page not here
- Onemillionthtree, you've just edited the wikitext. The html will remain exactly the same unless you make an edit that is not cosmetic. — Qwerfjkltalk 17:49, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
- The bytes are reduced so the retrieval is easier? Each time someone requests the page the complete bytes of the page is retrieved. If less bytes less to retrieve. Onemillionthtree (talk) 18:10, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
- The page is parsed (converted from wikitext to HTML) once when you save the edit, then the HTML is cached and stored for every other person who visits it. Following that the page is reparsed once every 30 days to check for any updates.
- Parsing the page automatically removes extra whitespace, new lines, etc, there is absolutely no point in removing them by hand. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 18:17, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
- Converting the parsed version into the editorial page version: the retrieval isn't different but the conversion rate is different - the cached version is the same in both but the product of reconverting from the cached have different bytes value; so there is a time difference in the conversion. Onemillionthtree (talk) 18:25, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
- Although the store amounts are the same - the bytes sent to the requestor each time is more with whitespace; that's obvious Onemillionthtree (talk) 18:29, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
- What you seem to be stating is that when the request is made the server delivers a page - in both versions the bytes value is the same - but if an editor requests the editorial screen the server delivers coding screen with whitespace extra bytes. So if the whitespace makes no difference then it would be helpful for editors to maximize whitespace on the coding version? Onemillionthtree (talk) 18:46, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
- There is a technical issue (is removing wikitext whitespace useful?) and a social issue (does removing wikitext whitespace irritate people?). We could debate the former but the answer to the latter is yes. There have been numerous cases where editor A adds whitespace because it looks good, and editor B removes it because it doesn't. That is not sustainable and the community has decided that existing stuff should be left alone unless there is a good reason to change it. Saving inconsequential amounts of time or storage is not a good reason. Please stick to the established procedure of not changing existing style (whether it be spelling, date formats, reference templates, or whitespace). Johnuniq (talk) 01:49, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Onemillionthtree: If you remove blank lines above a section heading (as you did here), then the very next time that somebody edits the section preceding that heading, the MediaWiki software will automatically restore that blank line. Secondly, some editors with less-than-perfect eyesight have previously stated that some of these gaps - particularly blank lines - have been shown to aid the editing experience, and so their removal can create an accessibility issue. Third, removing 118 bytes from the wikitext of a page that previously had 31,536 bytes is a reduction of about 0.37% - a miniscule saving. Fourth, WP:DWAP. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:25, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- The bytes are reduced so the retrieval is easier? Each time someone requests the page the complete bytes of the page is retrieved. If less bytes less to retrieve. Onemillionthtree (talk) 18:10, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
CAPTCHA Security check
adding a internal link on Double Dutch (jump rope) requires a CAPTCHA Security check
there are pages where adding external links does not require a CAPTCHA Security check
suprising....
69.181.17.113 (talk) 11:53, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
- Double Dutch (jump rope) hasn't been edited since 18 February. Your IP address has never edited it. Please always post a diff if you report a perceived issue with an edit. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:40, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter: Well, if you do a null edit on the page they linked as an IP you get a captcha, so I'm guessing it's some issue like Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 212#unwarranted captcha (though it doesn't appear there is a
news:link in that page, even transcluded). I purged the page and it still happens so I don't think it's from a change in a template causing a new link to be added... though maybe it's still the fault of a template? What else could it be? – 2804:F1...90:4783 (::/32) (talk) 16:25, 9 March 2025 (UTC)- I triggered a filter log by removing the short description(Special:AbuseLog/40204494), seems the url
http://worldjumprope.org/#(with the # at the end) is confounding some algorithm, it thinks the url without the # was removed and that one with the # was added... I tried removing just the #, and the problem did seem to stop, though I have now went and removed it completely since that's not how external links are supposed to be used. - Edit: Not sure what exactly is causing this bug, tried to reproduce it in the sandbox, didn't work.
- – 2804:F1...90:4783 (::/32) (talk) 20:59, 9 March 2025 (UTC) *edited: 21:29, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- I triggered a filter log by removing the short description(Special:AbuseLog/40204494), seems the url
- @PrimeHunter: Well, if you do a null edit on the page they linked as an IP you get a captcha, so I'm guessing it's some issue like Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 212#unwarranted captcha (though it doesn't appear there is a
Email watchlist
I haven't received a watchlist email in two days. Is anyone else experiencing this, or is it a local problem? C F A 23:38, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
Edit summary notice: "changing height or weight"
In Special:Diff/1092464781/1095126194 it says: changing height and/or weight, Mobile edit. This is useful, IP vandals frequently change height numbers. But in this edit Special:Diff/1264321134/1279765644 there is no warning. So mostly these days I see vandals of this class messing with the {{convert}} template, perhaps because there is no edit summary that shines light on them. Not sure who detects and issues these edit summary notices. -- GreenC 15:38, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- That is Special:AbuseFilter/391. It only targets parameters in infoboxes. * Pppery * it has begun... 15:39, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- Great thanks, looks like I could make a Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested for
{{convert}}-- GreenC 15:48, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- Great thanks, looks like I could make a Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested for
Hide Patrolled for Special:Newfiles not working
Special:Newfiles has a checkbox option to hide patrolled files. Previously, I've used this as filter so I look only at unpatrolled files. Now when I use it, the list of files generated is empty. I have checked and there are definitely unpatrolled files, and really it would be a shock if all the files really were patrolled. -- Whpq (talk) 14:44, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- I was able to reproduce this and opened phab:T388428. — xaosflux Talk 15:59, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you! Whpq (talk) 16:33, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
Frankentemplate in visual editor at Lace tell
In the Flemish tells subsection of the Content section of Lace tell, VisualEditor interprets the ordinary article text as being some parameter in a conglomerate of templates including Lang and Verse translation. Why? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:40, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- Usually this means some template somewhere is producing invalid markup. But I have no idea what the culprit is here - this sounds like a bug that should be reported on Phabricator to me. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:46, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- There is a link in the editor to "Editing multi-part template content" on the MediaWiki site's "Help:VisualEditor/User guide" page. I don't see any further links that explain how such content is detected or defined. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:57, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- I added a blank line before {{Verse translation}} to help VisualEditor separate it from the preceding paragraph.[77] That works for me. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:27, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- There is a link in the editor to "Editing multi-part template content" on the MediaWiki site's "Help:VisualEditor/User guide" page. I don't see any further links that explain how such content is detected or defined. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:57, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-11
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
- Editors who use password managers at multiple wikis may notice changes in the future. The way that our wikis provide information to password managers about reusing passwords across domains has recently been updated, so some password managers might now offer you login credentials that you saved for a different Wikimedia site. Some password managers already did this, and are now doing it for more Wikimedia domains. This is part of the SUL3 project which aims to improve how our unified login works, and to keep it compatible with ongoing changes to the web-browsers we use. [78][79]
- The Wikipedia Apps Team is inviting interested users to help improve Wikipedia’s offline and limited internet use. After discussions in Afrika Baraza and the last ESEAP call, key challenges like search, editing, and offline access are being explored, with upcoming focus groups to dive deeper into these topics. All languages are welcome, and interpretation will be available. Want to share your thoughts? Join the discussion or email aramadan@wikimedia.org!
- All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 19. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.
- View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Updates for technical contributors
- Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
In depth
- The latest quarterly Growth newsletter is available. It includes: the launch of the Community Updates module, the most recent changes in Community Configuration, and the upcoming test of in-article suggestions for first-time editors.
- An old API that was previously used in the Android Wikipedia app is being removed at the end of March. There are no current software uses, but users of the app with a version that is older than 6 months by the time of removal (2025-03-31), will no longer have access to the Suggested Edits feature, until they update their app. You can read more details about this change.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 23:06, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
Image not displaying in table header in mobile view
I am working a user-generated report on meta.
I want a sortable column header to display a single icon. The icon doesn't display at all on mobile view on my phone. It is possibly a screen width issue.
Re-creation:
- Example 1 - seems to display icon in column six, is really small though.
| Title | Talk page (# edits) | Status | Focus area | Order created | 
|
|---|
- Example 2 - no heading visible for column six
| Title | Talk page (# edits) | Status | Focus area | Order created |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blah | Talk:Blah | Number one | 1 | 42 |
I am specifying image width in pixels ([File:Symbol support vote.svg|15px]), I am not sure of a better way.
Any workaround solutions would be appreciated. Thanks. Commander Keane (talk) 22:42, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- The responsiveness CSS for the mobile version makes the icon shrink to a minimum size that can be very small. You can add the
noresizeclass to the header cell to prevent that. hgzh 09:23, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks hgzh. I wrapped the image in a div with class noresize...
- Example 3 - noresize class applied
| Title | Talk page (# edits) | Status | Focus area | Order created | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blah | Talk:Blah | Number one | 1 | 42 |
- I assume that is the way to do it. It seems to work.--Commander Keane (talk) 11:34, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- Adding it directly to the cell should have worked as well:
! class="noresize" | [[File:Symbol support vote.svg|15px]]. hgzh 07:41, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
- Adding it directly to the cell should have worked as well:
- I assume that is the way to do it. It seems to work.--Commander Keane (talk) 11:34, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
If IP and similar templates saying I am not logged in?
Whenever the {{If IP}}, {{If autoconfirmed}}, or similar templates are used, they say I'm not registered or autoconfirmed when I am a part of said user groups. This was a problem that happened more recently as it used to work before.
I don't believe this is because I edit on a blocked school IP address? I've tried it at home and it still says such, so I'm not sure why it could be doing this. Thanks in advance for any assistance. / RemoveRedSky [talk] [gb] 15:17, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- @RemoveRedSky: It works for me. I see "You are currently logged in." at top of
{{If IP}}, and "You are autoconfirmed." at {{If autoconfirmed}}. Please quote the full strings you see when you are logged in. Have you enabled "Always enable safe mode" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? That breaks the feature. Try to bypass your cache. Use Ctrl+F5 in Windows browsers, not F5 alone. What is your browser? What is your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? Are you by any chance referring to what a screen reader reads out to you and not what you visibly see? Do you have any ad blocker or other browser feature which may block CSS? PrimeHunter (talk) 18:11, 10 March 2025 (UTC)- Hello PrimeHunter.
- "Always enable safe mode" - I have not tried it. After trying, that could be one possible solution.
- "Bypassing cache" - Doesn't do anything.
- "Browser" - I'm sure I have the problem both on Opera GX and Google Chrome.
- "Skin" - I am using Vector 2022.
- "Screen reader" - No.
- "Ad blocker" - I will have to test this whenever possible since I'm unsure if my school uses hidden ad blockers or other features. This might be the case.
- Thank you. / RemoveRedSky [talk] [gb] 18:55, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hello PrimeHunter.
- Note, these are all evaluated client-side by scripts, ensure you are not blocking any script processing from our domains. — xaosflux Talk 18:22, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- I was not aware of this, and I'll check to see if things such as ad blockers are doing this whenever I have the proper time. / RemoveRedSky [talk] [gb] 18:56, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- @RemoveRedSky: User:RemoveRedSky/common.css has a comment start
/*without a matching end*/. Either remove/*if you want the script, or add*/to the end if you don't (or remove the whole line). If that doesn't solve it then please quote the full strings you see at top of {{If IP}} and {{If autoconfirmed}} when you are logged in and not in safemode. The feature works by sending both versions to your browser together with CSS rules to first hide both versions and then unhide one of them. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:58, 10 March 2025 (UTC)- Nevermind, that solved the issue ;-;' I'm not that experienced with CSS code, thanks for your help / RemoveRedSky [talk] [gb] 02:10, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
- I have reported it at phab:T388525. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:49, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
- Nevermind, that solved the issue ;-;' I'm not that experienced with CSS code, thanks for your help / RemoveRedSky [talk] [gb] 02:10, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
- @RemoveRedSky: User:RemoveRedSky/common.css has a comment start
- I was not aware of this, and I'll check to see if things such as ad blockers are doing this whenever I have the proper time. / RemoveRedSky [talk] [gb] 18:56, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
Redirect that should have been created in "Wikipedia:" namespace was created in mainspace
Continuation of phab:T388423 (reported by @Sebbog13) which was closed by @Sohom Datta and redirected here. Basically, the "search in" advanced search function doesn't append the namespace in the redlink it displays, instead creating a mainspace redlink.
A bugfix might involve adding the namespace in which the search is made to the redlink. However we should bear in mind that it is possible to search in several namespaces at the same time, and isn't obvious how we should generalize this fix to the case of multiple namespaces with none of them being mainspace.
Also alerting @AKlapper (WMF) (who followed the Phab task) and @Jlwoodwa (who was involved in fixing the original redirect). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 01:31, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
- From a discussion on Discord: the problem could be (mostly) solved locally by having {{no article text}} (called by MediaWiki:Noarticletext) generate a link like Special:Search/Wikipedia:THISDOESNTEXIST, rather than the current link, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=THISDOESNTEXIST&title=Special%3ASearch&fulltext=1&ns4=1. But I'm not sure why it does the latter in the first place, so by Chesterton's fence I'm hesitant to suggest making that change immediately. jlwoodwa (talk) 02:03, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Chaotic Enby: I think you are understanding it wrongly again. The issue wasn't me searching in a namespace, and it's possible to search in multiple at the same time, which means fixing it would be difficult. The problem is that I went to Wikipedia:UBXGALLERY and clicked the "Search for "UBXGALLERY" in existing pages within the Wikipedia namespace." which redirected me to searching for UBXGALLERY (in mainspace, instead of "Wikipedia:" space) and searching for pages within the Wikipedia namespace. When I clicked to create a redirect from the search page, the redirect was from mainspace UBXGALLERY to "Wikipedia:" space Wikipedia:Userboxes/Galleries, which is wrong. Thankfully User:jlwoodwa moved the page to the correct namespace. Sorry for the yapping. - Sebbog13 (talk) 15:10, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Mw-Reverted tag on newest revision
Is it just me, but the newest revision of Nagueshi has the reverted tag on it? Myrealnamm (💬Let's talk · 📜My work) 14:08, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
- No, it has the tag, weird. - Sebbog13 (talk) 15:11, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
- This is already reported at phab:T387838. – Ammarpad (talk) 16:48, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Something broke map overlays in Infoboxes
Some recent change (last few days) broke map overlays in Infoboxes. In 2020 I wrote an article that uses an overlay on a map in an Infobox to outline an area. As of a few days ago, the outline is rendered but is shifted to N of where it should be on the Infobox map. The same outline's position is correct on other maps in the article that aren't in an infobox. There have been no changes to the map data since 2020.
The particular article is Walls of Lisbon; compare the infobox outline of the walls with the third map (Cerca Fernandina). The infobox overlay is shifted N of its proper position.
I should also add that this happened once before. I did not report it, and after six months or so it got fixed. Now it is broken again, but this time I'm being more proactive in seeking a remedy. Osoraku (talk) 18:55, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Redirect to section not working
I'm currently fixing broken redirects and i noticed this redirect[80]. I tried to correct it with this link, which would be the obvious solution, but it goes one heading down to Structure and properties. Has anybody any ideas why this is happening and how i can fix it? Thanks in advance for any help. Synonimany (talk) 22:52, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- It works for me. It goes to the correct section using Chrome browser. – Ammarpad (talk) 17:02, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
section links
Is it just me or are section links suddenly working differently? I think that it used to be that when linking to a section mid-page, the whole section heading was visible at the top of the browser page window. Now it seems that the title portion of the section heading is scrolled off the top so that only the horizontal rule portion of the heading shows.
Try this link: Technical research ship#Environmental research ship (AGER).
windows 10, chrome (a new version is available but I haven't yet got round to allowing it to update so that suggests that it isn't me ...)
—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:15, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- Works fine for me logged out on Brave and Safari for Mac OS, and logged in (Vector 2022 with a lot of customization) in Firefox for Mac OS. Depending on the browser, I see "Belmont class (Victory ship type)" at the top of the window, or one to three lines above that. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:59, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- I guess I should have said that I use the old vector skin. With an incognito window (Vector 2022 without any customization), the above link puts the line with USS Belmont • 1964–1970 at the top of the window. That, to me, also seems like a mispositioning – since I don't use Vector 2022, I don't know what is 'normal' for that skin.
- —Trappist the monk (talk) 02:57, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- I can confirm that this happens not just on Trappist the monk's computer. Polygnotus (talk) 05:24, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- Not happening for me in Firefox 136 or Chromium 133 on Linux with Monobook, Vector, or Vector 2022. Monobook and Vector put the section heading at the top. Vector 2022 puts the header a few lines lower; when logged in there's a floating header that it seems to be making room for. It would probably help if people specify their browser, OS, and skin. Anomie⚔ 11:49, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- This doesn't happen for me, but #Redirect to section not working above may be the same problem too. Matma Rex talk 13:37, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- For me that looks like the same issue. The top of the visible page is below the linked heading.
- —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:43, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- The anomaly is not confined to section links. Here is a link to reference number 178 at an older version of Erasmus: ref 178 (permalink). For me, sometimes I see the page load and breifly display at the top of the page. It then repositions to the highlighted reference but then repositions again so that reference 180 is at the top of the page. It doesn't always flash the top of the page but always (so far) flashes the highlighted reference before repositioning to reference 180.
- —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:35, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- I can reproduce this, but only when using Vector 2022. For all other skins, the expected target (be it section heading or entry in a ref list) is at the top of the window as expected. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:58, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Privacy of sockpuppets and sockmasters
I have seen this in past but did not tell.
Check users are not allowed to disclose IP address of socks and sockmasters unless they do it themselves or long time offender or intentional IP socking.
But when I check administrator block log of check users, then check users often do this. First they block the large number of sockpuppets then after that sometimes they also block the IP range without mentioning the name of sockmaster in the IP block.
But those with experience can know that if the IP range is blocked immediately after blocking the sock accounts, then it belongs to the sockmaster.
I saw this when Mike V, Bbb23 used to block socks. 2409:40E1:100C:D174:78FA:B94D:2E28:A22A (talk) 07:33, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
- See the policy about this which explicitly excepts that. — xaosflux Talk 10:35, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
- Locally, the relevant passage in WP:CheckUser is WP:CUIPDISCLOSE. Izno (talk) 05:18, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
Forming a request at Wikipedia:RefToolbar
Hello everyone, after a bunch of back-and-forth about what the proper venue is for making an addition to the RefToolbar, I think I finally know the correct procedure. I'm to make a formal {{Edit interface-protected}} request there (after testing my proposed changes). I have the edit request ready to go. The specific page I need modified is MediaWiki:RefToolbarConfig.js and my request will look something like this:
The purpose of this request is adding the url-status field to to cite-news, cite-book, and cite-journal, matching what is already present at cite-web.
Instructions:
Add a comma to the end of current lines 93, 124, and 163, and add a new row beneath each reading:
{"field": "url-status", "tooltip":"cite-urlstatus-tooltip"}
Same instructions, line by line:
Line 93: change {"field": "quote"} to {"field": "quote"},
New added line beneath: {"field": "url-status", "tooltip":"cite-urlstatus-tooltip"}
Current line 124: change {"field": "quote"} to {"field": "quote"},
New added line beneath: {"field": "url-status", "tooltip":"cite-urlstatus-tooltip"}
Current line 163: change {"field": "postscript", "tooltip":"cite-postscript-tooltip"} to {"field": "postscript", "tooltip":"cite-postscript-tooltip"},
New added line beneath: {"field": "url-status", "tooltip":"cite-urlstatus-tooltip"}
I'm nearly certain this will fix the issue. I however don't know the first thing about testing these changes in my sandbox. Could someone help point me in the right direction? I don't want to make the request and have it rejected for being untested. Thank you. TheSavageNorwegian 16:37, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
Removing copyrighted text
This probably isn't the right place to ask this, but I User:141.154.49.21 has been cutting-and-pasting huge pieces of text into articles. I ran two articles through "Earwig's Copyvio Detector" and it was a complete cut-and-paste.
I'm not sure how to "rev del" the additions. A bit of help would be great. Thank you! Magnolia677 (talk) 11:28, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- You can always contact an admin at Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to handle RevisionDelete requests. I have started revdeling those edits, including one you hadn't caught, yet. I've also dropped a warning on the IP's talk page. - Donald Albury 13:38, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you! Magnolia677 (talk) 14:06, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- I've revdeled copyvios in 6 articles. I don't see any other actionable copyvios. Donald Albury 14:09, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you! Magnolia677 (talk) 14:06, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Magnolia677, FTF the right place to ask for revision deletion is WP:ANI. Izno (talk) 05:21, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Izno: Er, it isn't. See WP:REVDELREQUEST - Donald Albury was correct. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:14, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- Uh yes I apparently did not process what I was responding to fully. Izno (talk) 18:30, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Izno: Er, it isn't. See WP:REVDELREQUEST - Donald Albury was correct. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:14, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
Can we format all Internet Archive links as external links?
As of right now, [[iarchive:newlettersofdavi0000hume|New Letters of David Hume]] displays like a wikilink: New Letters of David Hume. Can we format these links so that they appear the same as: New Letters of David Hume? There is not much oversight on IA for uploads. Rjjiii (talk) 21:48, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Rjjiii:
[[iarchive:...]]uses the IArchive entry at meta:Interwiki map. Wikilink syntax[[...]]does not produce an external links icon. If we wanted to, we could make a template so{{iarchive|newlettersofdavi0000hume|New Letters of David Hume}}produces external link syntax like[https://archive.org/details/newlettersofdavi0000hume New Letters of David Hume]. A bot could change all current[[iarchive:...]]to use the template. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:37, 11 March 2025 (UTC)- Hmm, a template and bot is probably overkill. A bot could just replace Interwiki links with regular links. But now that I'm looking at the list, it's not clear why we should format many of these sites as wikilinks. A lot of them are wikis about very unrelated things like Pokémon, Linux distributions, and Final Fantasy. I might raise the issue over there, and see what the response is, Rjjiii (talk) 02:04, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- I'm pretty much the sole maintainer of meta:Interwiki map, so I might as well reply here. No, you won't get me to remove the iarchive: interwiki prefix. Both because I don't find "some projects want this with an icon" convincing as a reason to remove, and also there are more than 10,000 uses across hundreds of projects (slow link) affected by this and wrangling a bot to fix all of them exceeds my willingness to care even if everyone agreed it should be done. I don't think anything I can do there has any control over whether an icon is displayed, although maybe some local CSS hack could. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:08, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- That would indeed be theoretically possible:
.mw-parser-output a.extiw[href^="//archive.org"] { background-image: url(/w/skins/Vector/resources/skins.vector.styles/images/link-external-small-ltr-progressive.svg?fb64d); background-position: center right; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 0.857em; padding-right: 1em; }
- However it's indeed very hacky - it unnecessarily duplicates code, and will break if theme internals change. So probably not a good idea to use on enwp. novov talk edits 10:56, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- I can accept it if the answer is just that the cat is already out of the bag. I thought this was something new because I have only seen it in a few recent edits, but it looks like it was added over 10 years ago. To be clear though, the concern isn't about icons in general or aesthetics. If Wikipedia consistently formats wikilinks one way and external links another way, it's inherently confusing to randomly format something like "Windows XP". Rjjiii (talk) 02:43, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
- There is an old 2009 request at phab:T20562: "Indicate in output whether an interwiki link is marked local". PrimeHunter (talk) 10:50, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
- I can accept it if the answer is just that the cat is already out of the bag. I thought this was something new because I have only seen it in a few recent edits, but it looks like it was added over 10 years ago. To be clear though, the concern isn't about icons in general or aesthetics. If Wikipedia consistently formats wikilinks one way and external links another way, it's inherently confusing to randomly format something like "Windows XP". Rjjiii (talk) 02:43, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
- I'm pretty much the sole maintainer of meta:Interwiki map, so I might as well reply here. No, you won't get me to remove the iarchive: interwiki prefix. Both because I don't find "some projects want this with an icon" convincing as a reason to remove, and also there are more than 10,000 uses across hundreds of projects (slow link) affected by this and wrangling a bot to fix all of them exceeds my willingness to care even if everyone agreed it should be done. I don't think anything I can do there has any control over whether an icon is displayed, although maybe some local CSS hack could. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:08, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hmm, a template and bot is probably overkill. A bot could just replace Interwiki links with regular links. But now that I'm looking at the list, it's not clear why we should format many of these sites as wikilinks. A lot of them are wikis about very unrelated things like Pokémon, Linux distributions, and Final Fantasy. I might raise the issue over there, and see what the response is, Rjjiii (talk) 02:04, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
Technical error
I get this when I try to edit a section.
[a4f116d8-d17e-4d45-abf2-d1a337557eff] 2025-03-12 11:19:03: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBUnexpectedError" HandsomeFella (talk) 11:21, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- There are some ongoing issues, people are investigating. Follow T388646 for updates. Matma Rex talk 11:32, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
Internal error on Preview
Trying to preview my edit at Lemon dove, I get "[e0a059cb-fd01-4dd0-a254-f278b1d56ebf] 2025-03-13 11:54:10: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBUnexpectedError"" Happened repeatedly. Has now cleared, but thought I should mention it here, I don't recall ever having anything like it in years of editing. DuncanHill (talk) 11:57, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
- There are ongoing server issues, not related to your action, and seemingly the same thing as this yesterday. See T388646. Matma Rex talk 13:05, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
LinkSearch across multiple projects
Is there a tool that works like Special:LinkSearch, but across all the Wikipedias and sibling projects? Or do I need to post a request for someone to search the database dumps for me? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:08, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
- https://spamcheck.toolforge.org/ and https://global-search.toolforge.org/ – DreamRimmer (talk) 17:29, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
How to rename a page without moving it
Hello, sorry if this isn't the right place, but after hours of searching, I can't find anywhere else to ask this. I want to change the name of the Infigen Energy page to Iberdrola Australia, because Infigen Energy was acquired by Iberdrola Australia and the company now operates under this brand.
The page is updated and is 100% about Iberdrola Australia, but the name is Infigen Energy. I don't want to move it to a new page, just rename it, but all the codes I can find are for moving and renaming at the same time.
Is there a place where I can request this action, or can someone help me do this rename correctly? Thank you very much. LaboniyAngel (talk) 09:15, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- A rename is accomplished via a page move. You can request a move at Requested Moves. I would suggest that you see WP:COMMONNAME, though. We don't necessarily use official or legal names as titles- but the most commonly used name(and it certainly could be that the official name is the most common, just be aware). 331dot (talk) 09:20, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
Display of contributions and "Current" label
When displaying contributions, a bold "Current" tag is added to the end of the edit when it is the latest edit to that article, talk page, etc. Is there a method or gadget to move it to a point where it is in a uniform column? I do a lot of wp:RCP and editor will often repeat their edits without correcting the problem. I will view the "Current" tag in my list of contributions to see if the article has been changed. Trying to determine if articles have been edited or not is rather cumbersome with just the list as the "current" tag is not in a uniform vertical column. I could add it to my watch list with a short expiration. I usually do a text search on my contributions page for "current" which highlights it. Highlighting makes it easier, but I'm looking for a better method. Example of listing in my contributions:
- 19:08, 6 March 2025 (diff hist) (−6) Iran men's national basketball team (Undid revision 1279103344 by 217.218.49.102 (talk) unexplained change of header) (current) (rollback: 1 edit) (Tag: Undo)
What I would like to see:
- 19:08, 6 March 2025 (diff hist) (C) (−6) Iran men's national basketball team (Undid revision 1279103344 by 217.218.49.102 (talk) unexplained change of header) (rollback: 1 edit) (Tag: Undo) --OR--
- (C) 19:08, 6 March 2025 (diff hist) (−6) Iran men's national basketball team (Undid revision 1279103344 by 217.218.49.102 (talk) unexplained change of header) (rollback: 1 edit) (Tag: Undo)
Thank you, Adakiko (talk) 19:32, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Adakiko: "Search for contributions" on a contributions page has the option "Only show edits that are latest revisions". User:Markhurd/hidetopcontrib can do the opposite. Does that work for your purpose? PrimeHunter (talk) 20:35, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Adakiko: Here are two CSS rules: The second rule is optional. They go in Special:MyPage/common.css, since it works in all skins. But personally I use a rule that I wrote some months ago:
/* For current rev in contribs, add "(C)" before the size change */ li.mw-contributions-current span.mw-changeslist-links+span.mw-changeslist-separator:after { content: "(C)"; font-weight: bold; } /* For current rev in contribs, suppress the "(current)" marker */ li.mw-contributions-current span.mw-uctop { display: none; }
I created it at somebody's request, don't recall who for. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:07, 6 March 2025 (UTC)/* highlight current edit in contribs */ li.mw-contributions-current { background-color: #eeffcc; }
- @Redrose64: Thank you. added it to my CSS and it works great! Now all I have to do is to look for the "C" on the left. I go into shock each time I look at my contributions page and don't see "current". Cheers Adakiko (talk) 19:10, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Adakiko: As I mentioned, the second rule is optional - you can have both "(C)" and "(current)" displayed, by just using the first five lines, down to (and including) the first closing brace
}. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:03, 8 March 2025 (UTC)- @Redrose64: I prefer the lack of "Current". I need to retrain myself. Can I train an old dog a new trick? Thanks again! 20:05, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
- I go into shock each time ...
There is an option Only show edits that are latest revisions
. It would be really good if there was also the reverse optionOnly show edits that are not the latest revision
— GhostInTheMachine talk to me 09:03, 14 March 2025 (UTC)- I have a script that does this: User:JPxG/current-switcher.js (it's even a toggleable switch on the contribs page so you don't have to reload it). jp×g🗯️ 11:21, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Adakiko: As I mentioned, the second rule is optional - you can have both "(C)" and "(current)" displayed, by just using the first five lines, down to (and including) the first closing brace
- I have also added Redrose64's rule. Thanks for that. I did, however, adjust the colour. The lime green gave me indigestion — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 09:03, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: Thank you. added it to my CSS and it works great! Now all I have to do is to look for the "C" on the left. I go into shock each time I look at my contributions page and don't see "current". Cheers Adakiko (talk) 19:10, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
Redlink in Special:Preferences
At the bottom of the User Profile menu of Preferences, there is a link to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Extension:CampaignEvents/Invitation_lists, which reads as 'invitation lists" in plain text. This appears to be a redlink on MediaWiki, with the correct link being https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns/Foundation_Product_Team/Invitation_list. I don't have global IPBE, so I have no idea if this is just en-wiki or others. JarJarInks٩(◕_◕)۶Tones essay 13:02, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- phab:T388880 is open on this now. — xaosflux Talk 13:14, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- Someone just closed it as duplicate of "Write documentation for Invitation lists", but we have the correct link. It's not documentation, but it has information about what the extension is, which is all you need for this specific link. Could probably be solved with a redirect if someone is willing (I've got a global IP block, so I can't). JarJarInks٩(◕_◕)۶Tones essay 14:28, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- I have created MediaWiki:Campaignevents-invitationlist-preference to change our link from invitation lists to invitation lists. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:18, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- That seems to work! Thanks! JarJarInks٩(◕_◕)۶Tones essay 16:57, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- I have created MediaWiki:Campaignevents-invitationlist-preference to change our link from invitation lists to invitation lists. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:18, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
I need help with my Ip address
Hi Despite being logged into my account, my IP address is appearing in the edit history instead of my username. This occurred during an edit reverted by ClueBot NG on the 'Michael Dormer (artist)' page. I have confirmed I am logged in, and this issue persists. I have confirmed that I am logged in, by seeing my username in the upper right hand corner of the screen. I would like to know why this is happening and how to prevent it. Nitra78877 (talk) 21:30, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
Tofu boxes even with fonts installed?
Per various talk page complaints, some users seem to be having trouble viewing special characters on Anatolian hieroglyphs, even when they have the requisite fonts installed. It’s not clear to me that this is a Wikipedia-specific problem, but is there perhaps a Wikipedia-specific workaround?
At least for me, the symbols appear correctly in Chrome but appear as tofu boxes in Firefox and Safari. This is so both in the normal page view and in the editing interface, though the characters appear correctly in reader view, even in Safari. When I copy-paste the tofu boxes from Wikipedia into a text document, they appear correctly as Anatolian hieroglyphs. Other special characters and ancient scripts are working fine. Botterweg (talk) 19:45, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- Chrome probably works because of the 'Noto Sans Anatolian Hieroglyphs' font, which Google did make. Apple Symbols, Rashi script and Alphabetum fonts also claim to work. Alan Wood goes over what fonts work with which script, and he has no font listed for Anatolian. If you add an compatible font to your operating system fonts then they should work with all browsers. Snævar (talk) 23:27, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, thanks, I wondered if Chrome and the Noto fonts both being from Google was somehow relevant. However, that can't be the whole story since I do have Noto Sans Anatolian Hieroglyphs installed, and it works just fine in other programs like Microsoft Word. Botterweg (talk) 02:34, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
Looking for how to set Infobox mapframe maps and Location map maps in infoboxes to viewer's thumb size
I haven't had any luck at the templates' talk pages, so I'm posting links here in case there are any technical folks who might be able to tell me how to set Infobox mapframe maps and Location map images in infoboxes to the viewer's thumb size (per MOS, as Module:InfoboxImage can do) instead of using fixed pixel sizing.
- Template talk:Infobox mapframe#How do I set the mapframe width to the reader's thumb size preference?
- Module talk:Location map#How do I set the Location map width to the reader's thumb size preference?
Please respond at the original threads, not here. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:15, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- You were answered approximately 30 minutes ago at infobox mapframe. Izno (talk) 22:26, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- An answer saying "it looks like you can't do it" is only marginally helpful. As a template editor, my favorite answer to "how do I do this" questions at a template's talk page is "you can't do it yet, but I have tweaked the sandbox to make it possible; does that meet your needs?" I'm hoping someone will find a way to help these templates comply with the guidelines at MOS. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:40, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- His answer was correct, however. You cannot do what you want to do. Izno (talk) 17:43, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- An answer saying "it looks like you can't do it" is only marginally helpful. As a template editor, my favorite answer to "how do I do this" questions at a template's talk page is "you can't do it yet, but I have tweaked the sandbox to make it possible; does that meet your needs?" I'm hoping someone will find a way to help these templates comply with the guidelines at MOS. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:40, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
Talk template formatting help
I made Template:MEDRS evaluation. But it's hard to use on a talk page, because it doesn't line up properly inside the :::indented comments. How do I fix that? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:44, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing, {{block indent}}? — Qwerfjkltalk 12:11, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- The colon is indenting only the first line. You need to force that indenting to continue through the template. I put one possible way in the sandbox and tested it on the page where it is transcluded. It indents and does not cause Linter errors. It should be tested further to make sure that all of the parameters work properly. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:27, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- Use Template:Bulleted list instead. Izno (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
Stopped receiving email notifications of changes to an article on my watchlist
In late 2024, I expanded someone else’s Start-class article called Bombardment of Greytown, which after some extensive changes was declared a B Level article by Hawkeye7. In the course of the run-up to that B level bestowment, I had received, thanks to my watchlist, no less than 13 email notifications alerting me to changes made, ending on 7 December 2024.
Having received the B Level imprimatur and having ceased to receive any more email alerts as to further activity, I assumed no more changes were being made. But, recently, I glanced at the article, and I noticed substantial additions have been made to it in 2025 by Historyguy1138 and a warning template added to the top by Grutness that, “This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. etc.” (I am now in contact with both these Wikipedians.)
My watchlist never alerted me that any of this was happening. I checked my watchlist settings recently and it said: “Your watchlist has 11 pages (and their talk pages). Email notification is enabled.” My watchlist list included the Bombardment of Greytown page.
Why do you suppose I stopped receiving email notifications after 7 December 2024 when changes continue to be made after that date? Will-DubDub (talk) 20:54, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
- Because you failed to visit the page after receiving the 7 December 2024 email notification. Watchlist email notifications only get sent if you visit the page after each email. Graham87 (talk) 21:54, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for telling me this! I asked Grutness this question and he had no idea and referred me to Village Pump. And he’s one of the longest serving administrators on Wikipedia. Can you refer me to where this is written? Thanks! Will-DubDub (talk) 22:50, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
- The mail should be based on MediaWiki:Enotif body which says: "There will be no other notifications in case of further activity unless you visit this page while logged in." PrimeHunter (talk) 23:05, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
- I went to the link above, MediaWiki:Enotif body, and at the top it says: “This page does not exist. The deletion, protection, and move log for the page are provided below for reference.” But below that seems to be some solid information.
- I went to my preferences and changed my watchlist and notifications. I said: Email me when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed. And increased the “Days to show in watchlist” from 3 to 30.
- Bottom line: Once I missed that email notification on 7 December 2024 did that mean I can now never get another email notification again about changes to that article? It seems there should be a workaround to restart those email notifications after a single lapse. Will-DubDub (talk) 00:27, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- In Special:Preferences do you have your language (in the Internationalization section) set to anything other than 'en - English'? — xaosflux Talk 00:32, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah that isn't a good idea, as you'll miss custom messages like that. There's also relevant information at Help:Email notification; as it says there, watchlist email notifications weren't enabled here until April 2012, by which time most experienced editors (including Grutness and I) had gotten used to checking our watchlist manually. I think most experienced English Wikipedia editors only use the email notification system for non-English wikis or places like Wikimedia Commons. Graham87 (talk) 01:22, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- Ignore the red box at MediaWiki:Enotif body. Do you not see the text I quoted below the box and in the mail? After visiting Bombardment of Greytown while logged in, you get an email about the next edit. It doesn't matter whether you made earlier visits. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:30, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you PrimeHunter and Graham87!.
- I’m still confused, but less so than before.
- I find this statement by Graham87:
- “Watchlist email notifications only get sent if you visit the page after each email.”
- To be in conflict with this statement by PrimeHunter:
- “After visiting Bombardment of Greytown while logged in, you get an email about the next edit. It doesn't matter whether you made earlier visits.”
- Hewing to PrimeHunter's for now, I believe I did visit the article periodically (and while logged in) during the period those changes were being made! Could it be I missed them because my “Days to show in watchlist” was only set for 3 days (the default, I'm guessing) and the vagaries of my visits and the change notifications never synched up helpfully because that three-day window was too short? (I’ve now set “Days to show” to 30 days.) Will-DubDub (talk) 21:27, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- I think PrimeHunter's explanation is more technically correct. But the number of days setting has nothing to do with the watchlist email ffeature; it's related to vieweing your watchlist on Wikipedia using Special:Watchlist. Graham87 (talk) 23:15, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, Graham. I hope you can see where that ”Days setting” looked logically promising. Thanks for setting me straight. I’ve set up a bookmark to my Special:Watchlist, so I can check it regularly. (And thanks PrimeHunter!) Will-DubDub (talk) 19:36, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- I think PrimeHunter's explanation is more technically correct. But the number of days setting has nothing to do with the watchlist email ffeature; it's related to vieweing your watchlist on Wikipedia using Special:Watchlist. Graham87 (talk) 23:15, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- Ignore the red box at MediaWiki:Enotif body. Do you not see the text I quoted below the box and in the mail? After visiting Bombardment of Greytown while logged in, you get an email about the next edit. It doesn't matter whether you made earlier visits. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:30, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah that isn't a good idea, as you'll miss custom messages like that. There's also relevant information at Help:Email notification; as it says there, watchlist email notifications weren't enabled here until April 2012, by which time most experienced editors (including Grutness and I) had gotten used to checking our watchlist manually. I think most experienced English Wikipedia editors only use the email notification system for non-English wikis or places like Wikimedia Commons. Graham87 (talk) 01:22, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- In Special:Preferences do you have your language (in the Internationalization section) set to anything other than 'en - English'? — xaosflux Talk 00:32, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- The mail should be based on MediaWiki:Enotif body which says: "There will be no other notifications in case of further activity unless you visit this page while logged in." PrimeHunter (talk) 23:05, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for telling me this! I asked Grutness this question and he had no idea and referred me to Village Pump. And he’s one of the longest serving administrators on Wikipedia. Can you refer me to where this is written? Thanks! Will-DubDub (talk) 22:50, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
Auto format dates in non-CS1 templates
The Citation Style 1 (CS1) templates will automatically format dates on a page that invokes {{use dmy dates}} or {{use mdy dates}}. This works for all of the most common citation templates, but there are {{cite xxx}} templates that are not related and do nothing to dates, like {{cite patent}}, {{cite court}}, {{cite comic}}, and so on.
Would it be a good idea and would there be interest in working out a standard way to auto-format dates for those unrelated wikitext citation templates? There is an example in {{cite comic/sandbox}} that is calling {{date}}. You can see it in action at User:Rjjiii/sandbox8.(permanent link) This is slightly slower. Kraven the Hunter which calls {{cite comic}} 70 times will go from "Post‐expand include size: 373992/2097152 bytes
" to "Post‐expand include size: 385280/2097152 bytes
". {{Date}} is less strict than the CS1 dates. If it cannot parse a date, it will just display the input as written. Rjjiii (talk) 02:28, 16 March 2025 (UTC)
- I don't think we should create more modules that read and parse the whole page every time a particular template is encountered. Perhaps I shouldn't worry about performance but the idea seems fragile and hard to maintain. I would prefer a technical solution such as a shared Lua table that can be set when the current editing section or page is rendered, and read by other modules. That might never happen but some planning might be useful. Johnuniq (talk) 03:13, 16 March 2025 (UTC)
- Isn't it likely that articles using the templates you mention also employ at least one cs1|2 template? That being the case, why not have your module fetch the format from Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration? The code that loads the page source, searches for a
{{use xxx dates}}template, and determines which format to use will execute only once for all cs1|2 templates and your modified other templates in the article. - Taking that thought a bit farther, I hacked an example: Module:Sandbox/Trappist the monk/df. That example fetches the
global_dfvariable from ~/CS1/Configuration and then reformats and returns the date, minding the value of|cs1-dates=in the{{use xxx dates}}template. There are two functions exported by ~/df; one for publication dates and the other for access / archive dates. Examples can be seen at my sandbox (permalink). - —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:25, 16 March 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, I imagine pretty much any article using a niche citation template will use at least one of the main four CS1 citation templates or {{citation}}. I went with a really basic solution from things that already exist, but don't let my lack of knowledge or skill here get in the way if you have a better plan. I tested out the sandbox module above and it seems to work well, even with weird dates. Rjjiii (talk) 02:07, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
On mobile view, Infobox shows ahead of first paragraph for this particular article
On mobile view with a narrow width (like on my Android phone), the Infobox shows ahead of the first paragraph for the article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil. All other articles I can find work properly.
I see a 2017 archived version of the Village Pump (Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 155#Infobox location) which says there was a server side technical issue that was resolved, but not all pages were fixed, such as https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_dollar. But now the Eisenhower_dollar article also seems to be fixed.
I have tried to look for hidden characters, but there don't appear to be any (I could be wrong). What could be the problem with the Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil article? ReferenceMan (talk) 02:09, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- It's caused by
{{pp-extended|small=yes}}. On that article it includes<p class='PIA-flag' style='display:none; visibility:hidden;'>This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.</p>. The text is hidden but mobile still interprets it as a lead and displays the infobox right after it. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:20, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
ParserFunction errors
I'm just terrible at tracking down the cause of ParserFunction errors. Can anyone fix whatever's causing the problem in Template:Data world#Derived data? Whatever it is, its causing similar errors in the same place in other template pages of the form "Template:Data [country]". The error message says that it's an error in Template:Nts; but that template hasn't been edited in nearly five years, and these errors have popped up only recently. Deor (talk) 00:53, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- Use "Related changes" for stuff like this. I reverted a recent edit at Template:Order of magnitude with a grumpy edit summary. Johnuniq (talk) 08:54, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- As a template editor with almost 20 years' experience, I don't appreciate the grumpy revert summary. The issue here (as Snævar explained) wasn't with my edit to {{Order of magnitude}}, but with other templates attempting to pass it non-numeric input, which may be buried deeply in template call stacks (see User talk:Pppery#Template:Order of magnitude). {{Order of magnitude}} has over 200 thousand transclusions, as its documentation states, and these breakages cannot be reasonably tested for (if you disagree, feel free to add example testcases to the testcases page - for the record, my change passed all current testcases without issue). 「ディノ奴千？！」☎ Dinoguy1000 17:58, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- Agreed with Dinoguy1000 here. * Pppery * it has begun... 19:30, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- land area is text, not a variable
- Template:Data world returns three curly brackets on each side, which can not be used for calculation
- You are doing an calculation with the total area and land area numbers, so you need mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##expr. It does not calculate without you asking it to.
- As a template editor with almost 20 years' experience, I don't appreciate the grumpy revert summary. The issue here (as Snævar explained) wasn't with my edit to {{Order of magnitude}}, but with other templates attempting to pass it non-numeric input, which may be buried deeply in template call stacks (see User talk:Pppery#Template:Order of magnitude). {{Order of magnitude}} has over 200 thousand transclusions, as its documentation states, and these breakages cannot be reasonably tested for (if you disagree, feel free to add example testcases to the testcases page - for the record, my change passed all current testcases without issue). 「ディノ奴千？！」☎ Dinoguy1000 17:58, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- So once that data world no longer gives curly brackets, you end up with this: {{ppm|{{sigfig|{{#expr:({{{total area}}}/{{data world|pst2|{{{land area}}}}})}}|3}}}}. Snævar (talk) 09:07, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- I have installed User:Anomie/previewtemplatelastmod. After installation, the technique is to go to the problem page, click the "Edit" tab for the whole page, and scroll down to the part after the edit box, publish/preview/etc. buttons, below which there is a line reading "Pages transcluded onto the current version of this page" - if this is preceded by a right-pointing triangle, click that to expand the list. The topmost entry (or entries) should be the most likely candidate for the problem. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:25, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- I have a forked version of that script at User:Ahecht/Scripts/previewtemplatelastmod.js, which keeps the default sort order (which can be useful since it's sorted by namespace) unless you click the "sort" link. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:45, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- I have a forked version of that script at User:Ahecht/Scripts/previewtemplatelastmod.js, which keeps the default sort order (which can be useful since it's sorted by namespace) unless you click the "sort" link. --Ahecht (TALK
Email address change error
I'm trying to change my email address and get an error that says, Unknown error in PHP's mail() function. Does anyone know how to fix this? Thanks! Danaphile (talk) 14:49, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- Could possibly be related to the ongoing PHP 8.1 upgrade, tracked in phab:T383845. Just a guess tho. NightWolf1223 <Howl at me•My hunts> 15:04, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- Can you try again? I just tried and didn't fail, got "A confirmation email has been sent to the specified email address. Before any other email is sent to the account, you will have to follow the instructions in the email, to confirm that the account is actually yours.". — xaosflux Talk 15:30, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks! It went through. Danaphile (talk) 16:32, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
Template calling to Wikidata with several parameters
Hi,
I have created this template and am trying to improve it (by changing the structure), but I am not quite getting the structure for several parameters, despite checking the relevant help pages.
Basically, I would like the template to be called as follows {{SeatsEUPPs|EC|EPP}} to get the number of seats of the EPP in the European Commission, which would be {{wikidata|property|Q208242|P1410|P208=Q8880}}, where Q208242 is for the EPP and P208=Q8880 is for the European Commission.
The exact expressions won't always be the same, as sometimes I want to replace the name of the party with special terms, such as "allparties", "noparties" or something similar, and then provide a calculated expression. For instance;
{{SeatsEUPPs|EC}}would just give the number of seats in the European Commission, which is{{wikidata|property|Q8880|P1342}},{{SeatsEUPPs|EC|allparties}}would give the sum of seats for all parties in the European Commission, which is{{#expr: {{wikidata|property|Q208242|P1410|P208=Q8880}} + seats of all other parties}}, and{{SeatsEUPPs|EC|noparties}}would give the number of seats not assigned to a European party, which is{{#expr: {{wikidata|property|Q8880|P1342}}-the sum of seats for all parties}}.
I think I have to hard-code the formula/expression for every possibility and that is fine. However, I am not really fine how to use "switch" in this case to basically:
IF param1=EC
THEN
IF param2=EPP
THEN formula-for-seats-of-EPP-in-EC
ELSIF param2=PES
THEN formula-for-seats-of-PES-in-EC
...
ELSEIF param1=EP
IF param2=EPP
THEN formula-for-seats-of-EPP-in-EP
ELSIF param2=PES
THEN formula-for-seats-of-PES-in-EP
...
I am sure it is rather simple, but I just can't wrap my head around it. Thanks! Julius Schwarz (talk) 11:41, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Julius Schwarz Complex logic like this is often better handled in WP:Lua, but as a standard template it would be something like
{{#switch: {{{param2|}} | EPP | AlternativeNameForEPP = {{#ifeq:{{{param1|}}}|EC|formula-for-seats-of-EPP-in-EC|formula-for-seats-of-EPP-in-EP}} | PES | AlternativeNameForPES = {{#ifeq:{{{param1|}}}|EC|formula-for-seats-of-PES-in-EC|formula-for-seats-of-PES-in-EP}} | ... | #default = {{#ifeq:{{{param1|}}}|EC|formula-for-total-seats-in-EC|formula-for-total-seats-in-EP}} }}
- --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:27, 17 March 2025 (UTC)- Thanks for the reply and pointer to Lua. I will ask for support on that too! Julius Schwarz (talk) 19:33, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-12
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
- Twice a year, around the equinoxes, the Wikimedia Foundation's Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team performs a datacenter server switchover, redirecting all traffic from one primary server to its backup. This provides reliability in case of a crisis, as we can always fall back on the other datacenter. Thanks to the Listen to Wikipedia tool, you can hear the switchover take place: Before it begins, you'll hear the steady stream of edits; Then, as the system enters a brief read-only phase, the sound stops for a couple of minutes, before resuming after the switchover. You can read more about the background and details of this process on the Diff blog. If you want to keep an ear out for the next server switchover, listen to the wikis on March 19 at 14:00 UTC.
Updates for editors
- The improved Content Translation tool dashboard is now available in 10 Wikipedias and will be available for all Wikipedias soon. With the unified dashboard, desktop users can now: Translate new sections of an article; Discover and access topic-based article suggestion filters (initially available only for mobile device users); Discover and access the Community-defined lists filter, also known as "Collections", from wiki-projects and campaigns.
- On Wikimedia Commons, a new system to select the appropriate file categories has been introduced: if a category has one or more subcategories, users will be able to click on an arrow that will open the subcategories directly within the form, and choose the correct one. The parent category name will always be shown on top, and it will always be possible to come back to it. This should decrease the amount of work for volunteers in fixing/creating new categories. The change is also available on mobile. These changes are part of planned improvements to the UploadWizard.
- The Community Tech team is seeking wikis to join a pilot for the Multiblocks feature and a refreshed Special:Block page in late March. Multiblocks enables administrators to impose multiple different types of blocks on the same user at the same time. If you are an admin or steward and would like us to discuss joining the pilot with your community, please leave a message on the project talk page.
- Starting March 25, the Editing team will test a new feature for Edit Check at 12 Wikipedias: Multi-Check. Half of the newcomers on these wikis will see all Reference Checks during their edit session, while the other half will continue seeing only one. The goal of this test is to see if users are confused or discouraged when shown multiple Reference Checks (when relevant) within a single editing session. At these wikis, the tags used on edits that show References Check will be simplified, as multiple tags could be shown within a single edit. Changes to the tags are documented on Phabricator. [81]
- The Global reminder bot, which is a service for notifying users that their temporary user-rights are about to expire, now supports using the localized name of the user-rights group in the message heading. Translators can see the listing of existing translations and documentation to check if their language needs updating or creation.
- The GlobalPreferences gender setting, which is used for how the software should refer to you in interface messages, now works as expected by overriding the local defaults. [82]
- View all 26 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the Wikipedia App for Android had a bug fixed for when a user is browsing and searching in multiple languages. [83]
Updates for technical contributors
- Later this week, the way that Codex styles are loaded will be changing. There is a small risk that this may result in unstyled interface message boxes on certain pages. User generated content (e.g. templates) is not impacted. Gadgets may be impacted. If you see any issues please report them. See the linked task for details, screenshots, and documentation on how to fix any affected gadgets.
- Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 23:45, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
Issue with Section Edit Link Not Appearing for SHORTDESC Template
Hello, I am working on implementing the SHORTDESC template in Persian Wikipedia, based on the English Wikipedia version. The template itself is functional, but there is an issue: the section edit link (blue "[edit]" button) does not appear next to the short description. What we have done so far: The SHORTDESC template correctly displays the short description. It uses a <span> or <div> to store the text, which is likely why the edit button does not appear. On English Wikipedia, the section edit link appears correctly next to the short description, but in Persian Wikipedia, it does not. Questions: How does English Wikipedia ensure that the edit link appears next to the short description? Is there a CSS or JavaScript function that enables this? Would wrapping the short description in a specific tag (like h2 or another container) help, or is there a more elegant solution? Any guidance on fixing this issue in Persian Wikipedia would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! 😊 Arbabi second (talk) 19:56, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- You have enabled Wikipedia:Shortdesc helper. Izno (talk) 20:31, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Izno
- Thanks for your response! It seems that English Wikipedia uses the Shortdesc Helper tool, but Persian Wikipedia does not have it enabled. We would like to ensure that the edit link appears next to the short description without relying on this tool.
- Currently, our code is:
- <span class="shortdescription">{{{1|}}}</span>
- However, the edit button does not appear next to it.
- Is there a way to modify this template so the section edit link appears naturally?
- Should we wrap the text in a different tag like
h2ordiv? - If the edit link is added via JavaScript or CSS in English Wikipedia, how can we replicate that?
- Any guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks again! 😊
- ---- Arbabi second (talk) 21:22, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
Can Shortdesc Helper be enabled on Persian Wikipedia
Question:
We are working on implementing the SHORTDESC template on Persian Wikipedia. One of the main differences we noticed is that English Wikipedia has Shortdesc Helper, which makes it easier to edit short descriptions.
- Is this tool available globally, or is it specific to English Wikipedia?
- If it can be enabled on Persian Wikipedia, what steps should we take to request its activation?
- If enabling it is not possible, is there an alternative method to achieve the same functionality?
Thanks for any guidance! 😊 Arbabi second (talk) 21:38, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- @اربابی دوم: The edit links you see at short descriptions are added by Shortdesc helper. Its code is at the English Wikipedia but can be called from other wikis. See Wikipedia:Shortdesc helper#Installation on another wiki. It requires an interface administrator (list)PrimeHunter (talk) 22:45, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter
- Thank you very much for your detailed response. I have filed a request to install the tool, on
- Persian Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard.😊 Arbabi second (talk) 00:23, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
Problem using section: on Persian Wikipedia
I am encountering an issue using the {{#section:}} magic word on the Persian Wikipedia (fa.wikipedia.org). I am trying to transclude the section titled "پانویسها: گروههای پیشتعریفشده" (which translates to something like "Footnotes: Predefined Groups") from the page "راهنما:پانویسها" (which translates to "Help:Footnotes") into my user sandbox page: "کاربر:اربابی دوم/تمرین۳". I have confirmed that the section title is copied correctly from the source page. However, nothing is displayed in my sandbox page. Could there be a specific configuration or known issue with the {{#section:}} extension on the Persian Wikipedia that might be causing this? Any insights or suggestions for troubleshooting would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.Arbabi second (talk) 20:53, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
- @اربابی دوم: You need
{{#section-h:}}for a named section made with== ... ==.{{#section:}}is for labeled sections marked with special tags in the source. See more at Help:Labeled section transclusion. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:25, 18 March 2025 (UTC)- @PrimeHunter
- Thank you very much, the problem is solved. Arbabi second (talk) 21:51, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
Search text box on Timeless doesn't format correctly
So on timeless the search bar doesn't format correctly, when on the search bar specifically:
Vector works correctly however, and the search bar is correct when typing in top, only on while on a search page does the bug occurs. Des Vallee (talk) 07:18, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- I was 95% this has a task but it seems not to. Izno (talk) 05:26, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- Is this going to be fixed? I deal with it constantly and it can make it hard to see the text I typed. It also seems like a pretty easy fix. Des Vallee (talk) 09:57, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Izno: Des Vallee (talk) 07:54, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
- You may file a task for it, see WP:Bug reports. Izno (talk) 17:35, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Izno: Des Vallee (talk) 07:54, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
- Is this going to be fixed? I deal with it constantly and it can make it hard to see the text I typed. It also seems like a pretty easy fix. Des Vallee (talk) 09:57, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
Wide equations no longer scrollable on mobile site
Until recently, equations that extend beyond the width of the page in the mobile browser version of Wikipedia were horizontally scrollable. However, a recent update has removed this functionality, making such equations partially unreadable unless users switch to desktop mode. This affects articles with large LaTeX-rendered formulas, breaking accessibility for mobile users.
Steps to reproduce:
1. Open a Wikipedia article with wide equations (e.g., physics/math pages) in a mobile browser (Chrome, Safari, etc.).
2. Observe that the equation does not scroll and is cut off instead.
3. Switch to desktop mode, where the full equation becomes visible.
Expected behavior: Equations should be horizontally scrollable as they were before.
Could this be reverted or fixed to restore readability for mobile users? 204.144.182.17 (talk) 22:27, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- I don't remember the past behaviour but I can confirm visiting Navier–Stokes_equations#General_continuum_equations displays cut-off equations that I can't scroll on mobile. The long ones half way down that section. Commander Keane (talk) 23:47, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- This one has been looked at in T201233, and there's a patch up for review that should help with specifically wide Math content.
- There's also a more general issue with wide content that's tracked in T361737, which is going to be more pronounced on mobile since the change last week that suppressed horizontal scrolling on the main content area. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 15:24, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
Toolhub spam
https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/tools/seourltool
Why is the toolhub being spammed? Is there something that can be done? Polygnotus (talk) 02:09, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
- @BDavis (WMF) can definitely help with this. – DreamRimmer (talk) 03:14, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks DreamRimmer! @Bryan can we get a rel=nofollow for those fields? Polygnotus (talk) 03:31, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
- I would imagine any of the administrators listed at https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/members?groups_id=1 (such as JJMC89) should be able to help. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:14, 18 March 2025 (UTC)- JJMC89 has been inactive for about a month and a half, so they're probably not the best person to talk to. * Pppery * it has begun... 19:25, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
- SStefanova (WMF) no longer works for the WMF and their account is locked, yet they are still a toolhub admin. Polygnotus (talk) 23:28, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
- I deleted that particular toolinfo record. I also put admin and crat hats on @TheresNoTime after they kindly volunteered to help in Toolhub. -- BDavis (WMF) (talk) 16:18, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
From the spam page, I particularly like "Fuck writing SEO content manually—this AI powerhouse mass-produces high-ranking, viral, and clickbait-infused content at scale.
" I suspect Wikipedia will be seeing more of that in due course. I just indeffed RickAndMortyOnNewsbreak (talk · contribs) who has two reverted edits here plus a deleted spam user page. If anyone is in the mood, can you work out what newsbreak.com is (the spammer apparently has a webpage there) and why there are 241 links to newsbreak.com here. Johnuniq (talk) 04:02, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
- (I took care of a few sleepers now also.) Izno (talk) 04:11, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
- This search is probably a good one to sort out. It apparently hits a few more spammy looking names too. Izno (talk) 04:12, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
Question about suppression of editnotice creation link
You are invited to join the discussion at User talk:Cabayi § How can I find out if Nonie Darwish is covered in any way by ARBPIA?. Sdkb talk 18:14, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
"Beginnings"
A recent CFD discussion, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 February 21#Beginnings by decade 1-1499, kiboshed "YYYY beginnings" categories for years before 1500, on the grounds that their only actual contents were "YYYY births" subcategories — however, because the beginnings category is automatically transcluded by the {{Decade births or deaths category header}} template, that's left over 200 beginnings categories sitting on the latest run of Special:WantedCategories as redlinks.
However, because "beginnings" categories do still exist from 1500 on, we don't want to completely disable that category generation, but I don't know enough about complex template coding to change this myself without messing things up. So could somebody with more skill in that area than I've got edit {{Decade births or deaths category header/core}} to make the beginnings category #ifexist? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 16:56, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
- Looking. I attempted to update that template, but something seems to have gone wrong. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:11, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
- Fixed now. Sorry for the mess. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:13, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
- Actually it looks like I broke something else there too. I've fallen into the trap where I've been doing everything too fast and making too many mistakes and I think that means I need to take a break from editing. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:27, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
- Fixed now. Sorry for the mess. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:13, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Loginprompt ?
Should we temporarily put a note in MediaWiki:Loginprompt about the need to allow auth.wikimedia.org for logons? Seeing multiple reports. This text appears above the logon box. — xaosflux Talk 17:55, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
- Sounds like a good idea — is there a pre-existing info page (why/how, etc.) we could link to in the message? — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 18:03, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
- mw:SUL3 * Pppery * it has begun... 18:14, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
- OK, added for now, if any issues feel free to revert. — xaosflux Talk 19:29, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
- mw:SUL3 * Pppery * it has begun... 18:14, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
I can’t sign on my pc
So I type my password it’s says that I didn’t do the letter thing and when I copy and paste my real password and do the letter thing it says that I don’t have the right password so I do that 5 times and then it’s says that I have to wait 5 minutes like what? Therealbubble (talk) 21:54, 16 March 2025 (UTC)
- What do you mean that you cannot sign on your PC? ‹hamster717🐉› (discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠) 23:02, 16 March 2025 (UTC)
- They probably mean sign-in, log-in, enter their account... for that matter 'the letter thing' sounds like a CAPTCHA.
- The page Special:Captcha says a CATPCHA may show if you try to login soon after typing your password incorrectly, so it certainly seems like you (Therealbubble) might be typing your password incorrectly - but I don't have an account, so cannot confirm that there isn't always a CAPTCHA when logging in. – 2804:F1...95:6EBB (::/32) (talk) 01:37, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- They logged in using their mobile, their edit tag says so, but they have a problem logging in on pc. Snævar (talk) 10:22, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- Recently, the login system was changed, see mw:MediaWiki Platform Team/SUL3
- Check if you are allowing cookies from auth.wikimedia.org, logins go through there now. Check your password manager, if you have one, and set the password to auth.wikimedia.org. Also open up your browser console and paste the contents from there. Snævar (talk) 10:25, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
- Some password managers are now more proactive in offering passwords you use on other Wikimedia sites (see recent Tech News entry). Maybe you have different passwords on different wikis, and they have now become easier to mix up accidentally.
- (Generally, the login system is still in the process of being changed. Most logins still happen via the old domains, but that will change very soon.) Tgr (WMF) (talk) 21:33, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
Broken archive title at Talk:2024 Spanish floods/Archives/ 1
No archive shows up in the {{talk header}} at Talk:2024 Spanish floods.
{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis
| age =2160
| archiveprefix =Talk:October 2024 Spain floods/Archive
| numberstart =1
| maxarchsize =75000
| header ={{Archive}}
| minkeepthreads =5
| format = %%i
}}
<!-- Template:Setup cluebot archiving -->
I see nothing in the config that would add the 3 characters "s/ ". There was a move but no redirect, so I'm surprised at what User:ClueBot III is doing. 216.58.25.209 (talk) 21:31, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
- 216.58.25.209, probably the space before
%%i? — Qwerfjkltalk 21:34, 19 March 2025 (UTC)- Thank you. I copied and adapted a working config from another page, and temporarily disabled it while waiting for my RMTR. I assume the 2 letters "s/" are from the wrong
|archiveprefix=after the move. 216.58.25.209 (talk) 21:49, 19 March 2025 (UTC)- I've moved the archive and re-enabled the archiving. This is indeed what happens when the archiveprefix doesn't match the page title with ClueBot III. lowercase sigmabot III silently ignores such cases and Aidan9382-Bot fixes some of them. Graham87 (talk) 04:25, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you. I copied and adapted a working config from another page, and temporarily disabled it while waiting for my RMTR. I assume the 2 letters "s/" are from the wrong