Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 182

At the Teahouse, we have a big blue edit button that starts a section at the bottom of the page with some nice preloaded text. However, editors who use the standard "new section" button at the top of the page don't get the preload, and worse, editors who just click the plain edit button are tempted to add their post at the top of the page, rather than the bottom where it belongs. Would there be any way to (a) hide the "edit" and "new section" buttons at the top of the page or (b) hide the "edit" button and get the "new section" button to use the preload? The section edit buttons would still be there for any experienced editors wanting to make modifications to the Teahouse structure. Alternatively, RudolfRed asked about the possibility of an edit notice that changes based on the link one clicks/section being edited, which would also help with the problem. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:00, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: You can use the magic word __NONEWSECTIONLINK__ to hide the new section link on a talk page, but you can't hide the standard edit button as far as I'm aware - and as the Teahouse is a non-talk page, the "New section" link is actually explicitly enabled in the wikitext by the magic word __NEWSECTIONLINK__ (at the end of line 4 of the wikitext). I suppose one way of orchestrating it might be to have the main WP:TH page perm-protected, then transclude another page onto it, and have the blue button link to the other page. You could then have an editnotice on the protected page saying "don't try and edit this, click here to create a new section instead". Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 08:23, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Naypta, Hmm, interesting. I'm not sure the sub-page idea would work, since that'd make it hard for people to reply to posts once conversation gets going. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:29, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that makes sense for sure. I suppose the other thing you could technically do would be to literally just add a random div tag into the content, use TemplateStyles to position that div over where the "Edit" button is, and have done with it that way... that has a massive array of associated problems, though; wouldn't work with additions to the menu like Twinkle, wouldn't work across different skins; would probably be an absolute arse to maintain. I certainly wouldn't recommend doing it that way, even if it's the only option. Someone else may be able to come up with much better ideas though! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 08:48, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I wonder whether it really matters whether a new editor top-posts at the Teahouse. I keep up with changes to my favorite pages by reading the diffs, which means that the location of changes relative to the rest of the page is usually unimportant to me (and I believe that's a common practice). Archiving is automatic, and the bot doesn't care whether the section started at the top or bottom or middle of the page. The practical cost assocated with the occasional top-post seems pretty minor to me, especially compared to the cost of discouraging inexperienced people from posting there. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:06, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

With this edit I added {{Better source|date=June 2020}} to Masisi. This had the unexpected effect of adding the article to the non-existent category Category:Articles lacking reliable references from June 2,020.

This edit may have also triggered my log-in session screwing-up, and preventing me from logging out. I suspect this is the Wiki-wide authentication problem discussed above, and may be unconnected. I can give more details if this would help, but I eventually managed to log out and log in again. However the category problem remains. I have now changed the tag to {{Unreliable source?|date=June 2020}}, but this sets the same invalid category. Have I overlooked something, or is this a bug? Verbcatcher (talk) 19:39, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Verbcatcher: When using {{Infobox settlement}} the references and tags for the population figures have to be placed in the population_footnotes parameter, otherwise any numbers will get reformatted with commas. For the log-in problems, see the earlier section here; that's nothing to do with the infobox coding. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:12, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@John of Reading:, thank you, and thanks for fixing the article. Verbcatcher (talk) 20:19, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

There seems to be something wrong with authentication, not just on enwiki, but across multiple projects. See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T255179. I can't post logged in, so trying this incognito. This is User:RoySmith.

And, um, let's see.... It's Thursday!

I'm getting "unable to save due to loss of session data" errors, even when I do a nearly instant edit and save. This edit probably won't save either. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:02, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• I am getting this message "There seems to be a problem with your login session; this action has been canceled as a precaution against session hijacking. Please resubmit the form. You may receive this message if you are blocking cookies." Never had this before, how to fix it? This is a real nuisance, I am not blocking cookies and have done everything as usual.--92.20.121.175 (talk) 19:00, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  Merging to thread. --qedk (t 愛 c) 19:02, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• Mee to. tried clearing all cookies, re-booting computer, different browser, everything and same every time. Can't post this under my username 'cos I can't log-in 2A00:23C7:301:1401:7577:D846:2873:A56B (talk) 19:04, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  I was logged in when it started happening; I've been able to squeeze a couple edits in, but every other attempt I'm still getting that error. /Tpdwkouaa (talk) 19:05, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  Having on/off issues too. Invalid CSRF and rollback tokens. Ed6767 talk! 19:06, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  Was resolved, but having issues creating new accounts for ACC... --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 19:08, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  Apparently this was resolved 10 years ago. The problem is I have no idea how that is done (BTW I have the same problem with my main account). Tbsock (Tbhotch away) (talk) 19:11, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  Now it's 50/50. Every Wikimedia Wiki seems to be having auth issues. Ed6767 talk! 19:12, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  I got it too with trying to revert an invalid pending edit on a protected page (I have Pending changes reviewer status), and then I got the "Invalid CSRF token" message when trying to log out. Glad it isn't just me. Zinnober9 (talk) 19:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  When trying the logoff I get "Invalid CSRF token". Keith D (talk) 19:20, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  Nice to see it is not just me. From one moment to another that happened. ;) Kante4 (talk) 19:32, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  It happened to me at exactly 18:35 (UTC). Same thing - it was saying loss of session data. I tried on English Wikipedia, Commons and WikiSource. All gave off the same message. If this saves, it's back to working for me. — Maile (talk) 19:48, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

When logging in, I received information about preventing session hijacking and could not log in at this time. Is it possible that I was already logged in to other project which resulted in conflict, cookie error or was just loading login error? Eurohunter (talk) 09:44, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Timbaaa and I have been trying to get Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/Per capita/sandbox2 to work importing data from Wikidata, since there's no one currently updating it manually. We ran up first against a memory error, though, and now against a "The time allocated for running scripts has expired." error after only about a third of the countries. Could anyone help us with it?

It relies on this subtemplate I wrote, which is now this, and a similar one for deaths. Prior discussion is here. Thanks! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:48, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Lua error messages#Lua timeout error and Help:Lua debugging#Occasional timeout errors. --Malyacko (talk) 08:10, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Using Wikidata templates for this is pretty well always going to hit up against this problem, unfortunately. These sorts of calls are expensive in terms of database calls, and will take time to do. It'd be better to use a bot to do it, which can auto-update the data from Wikidata as necessary, without hitting parser limits. I'm happy to work with you on that if you like. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 09:28, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Naypta, thanks, that sounds good to me! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:44, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: You might also be able to use {{Template cache}} in place of a custom bot request. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Pppery, that looks interesting, but I can't quite tell from the documentation how it works. Could you show us at Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/Per capita/sandbox2? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:10, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

I tried, and I wasn't able to actually get the template to work as I wanted it to, so that suggestion doesn't work. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:39, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Okay, I've got something working! User:Yapperbot/COVIDdata is the finished product. If you want to change it, there's two important bits of configuration: firstly, User:Yapperbot/COVIDdata/template, which sets up how you want the table to look and be generated (parser functions work with my bot, so have at it!). Secondly, there's User:Yapperbot/COVIDdata/countries.json, which lists off the countries, along with each of their Wikidata properties and corresponding entities (configured for cases and deaths in this JSON file). The ones that say "Unknown" say that because they're not listed in that file, so if you let me know the properties you want to add, I can get them put in (only because it's a JSON file, so it's restricted to only intadmins to edit apart from me - the template is free to edit as normal!)

I'm currently running the bot manually, but once it's working all correctly, I'm happy to just stick it on Toolforge and run it every day or twelve hours or whatever is deemed to be best. It's only editing its own userspace, so there's no need for the full BRFA process. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 13:56, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Naypta, looks great; thanks so much!

For cells without data, could we change it to read "no data" in gray, the same way as Template:COVID-19 pandemic data? I think that's a little better than "unknown", since it might be known but we just don't have it yet.

For the countries to list, we should tread carefully since there's a lot of potential thorny geopolitics. Following the criteria used at the non-per capita table is probably best, since those were established by an RfC listed in the template's current consensuses. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:34, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Sure thing! Both of those things should be editable over at User:Yapperbot/COVIDdata/template - all the post-processing is done in parser functions there (number formatting, "unknown" display, etc), and the page isn't protected, so feel free to edit around as you please. Countries can also be added or removed there, but you'll need to let me know the names you change, and for any new countries or areas, the relevant Wikidata entities and properties you want to link. Each needs a population, an infections and a deaths - all of which can come from different entities. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 19:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm a bit late to the party but for what it's worth I have got it to work in Lua (see User:Jts1882/sandbox/covid). The biggest drain on script time was getting the populations from Wikidata (it took three runs to get all the countries), so I put the populations in a module subpage along with the country and covid QIDs. The cases and deaths can be retrieved within the lua time limits (just). I think the bot updates is probably the best approach, but I did notice a few issues about using Wikidata.

1. Sometimes people enter the numbers in continental format, e.g. 48.000 for 48,000. I noticed this for Spain in Naypta's bot table yesterday and edited Wikidata (the current table reflects the update).
2. Sometimes the Wikidata identifiers are not in date order. For instance, the last population identifier for [[|wd:Q804|Panama]] is 1950. I think this is why the Panama deaths per million is 463 in the Bot table (I got 97 using the 2017 population). The current version of my table doesn't get the latest cases and deaths in all cases, e.g. Philippines even though the last identifier is the latest. The getBestStatements() function seems to have a different order (I've idea why).
3. A number of countries haven't been updated on Wikidata since March or April. So I think the date of the last data should be included in the table in some way.
4. I also noticed that in some cases the Wikidata and English Wikipedia numbers don't match, even though Wikidata says imported from English Wikipedia.

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention this in case it helps. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:29, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Jts1882, sorry, I just saw this now. For anyone catching up, the Wikidata-derived table is live at Template:COVID-19_pandemic_data/Per_capita. The way the information gets there is still a little complex, though. It comes from User:Yapperbot/COVIDdata, based on the Wikidata items specified at User:Yapperbot/COVIDdata/countries.json and the design at User:Yapperbot/COVIDdata/template. After the discussion here, Naypta and I moved to here and worked out some of the kinks in implementation.

Regarding the issues with Wikidata, it's definitely an imperfect source, but I hope that its use here helps encourage people to update it better. The main benefit is that it'll be hugely helpful for non-English Wikipedias, which don't have as many editors to make updates as we do (we've already seen interest in that from Albertoleoncio and Олександр Кравчук). On a less altruistic level, Wikidata can also get automated imports from JHU and other reliable sources, which will hopefully be set up soon. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:27, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Regarding the Panama issue, the 2017 value is ranked as "preferred" since it's the most recent value (see how it has the up arrow darkened rather than the central circle). If the function is grabbing the preferred value, it should be working properly. The "number of cases" and "number of deaths" values aren't having the most recent values set to preferred yet, although the folks at Wikidata are hopefully working on fixing that. Pinging Naypta, since this seems to be something to fix. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Thanks for the ping, and cheers to Jts1882 for pointing out the issue! I've made some quite significant internal changes to the way that the bot was working (it was hacked together with JSON exports before, now it's using proper SPARQL queries), and it should be a hell of a lot better at sorting this stuff out now. It's running that update at the moment, so hopefully by the time you get around to looking at the page, it should all have updated correctly. All the best :) Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 10:40, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  Resolved

 – Workaround was removed. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:47, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi. Just spotted that all articles seem to have two links to Wikidata in the Tools box. Each link goes to the same data item on Wikidata, but the top one has "Special:EntityPage" in the URL. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 09:03, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I assume you have the MonoBook skin. See MediaWiki talk:Common.js#MonoBook currently has two "Wikidata item" links. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:33, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I should of stated that. Thanks for the link. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 09:40, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Looks like it's now fixed. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 12:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

It looks like some Module pages are kept in sync across language sites like Module:Language and ckb:Module:Language (see history tab). I'd like to learn how to set this up for other pages, if possible. -- GreenC 13:53, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

That particular ckb Module was imported with the enwiki edit history (via Special:Import, see [1]), but I do think there is some sync of modules going on elsewhere, this is just not an example of that.--Snaevar (talk) 14:48, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) ckb:Module:Language was imported with page history 30 December 2019.[2] There is no automatic synchronization after a page has been imported. I don't know whether any wikis use bots to import or copy a page regularly. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:51, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Ahh ok. thanks. -- GreenC 15:04, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The "new" Google Books has an expanded "Create Citation" function that generates APA, MLA, and Chicago-style plain-text cites, which will find (and have found) their way into articles when editors don't want/know to use the citation tool and templates. The problem is that, when created from Chrome, the cites have literal non-breaking space characters in places they shouldn't.

Just a heads up in case people start running into these and wonder where they are coming from. There are thousands more of them in articles (outside of cites), too, most of which look like mistakes. Apparently, at least one user script or tool replaces them with the   entity, which seems better than the invisible character, though they should mostly be removed instead.

I've reported the Google Books cite tool issue to them (I hope) and wrote about it here. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 17:11, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@AlanM1: If you happen to have an example of this in the wild I could see what might be done programmatically. -- GreenC 14:02, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@GreenC: Thanks. I'm not sure how much of the thousands of "invisible" nbsps are caused by this particular source/bug, but one example was added at Special:Diff/960037718, adding the cite for/from this book. There were about a dozen more eventually added to that article, then changed to HTML entities by someone else's script, and then removed by me. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 15:44, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I've been trying to upload a file but the Upload button at the bottom of the Steps 1 to 3 page stays greyed out and inactive. (I'm in the "This is some other kind of non-free work that I believe is legitimate Fair Use" non-FUR option.) No boxes appear either beside the red dots for "Please explain why this purpose could not be served with an alternative, free illustration ..." and "Please explain why you are confident that our use of the file will not harm any commercial opportunities ..." – meaning that text can't be entered in these mandatory fields. (Which, naturally, leads to the inactive Upload button.) Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas ...? Thanks, JG66 (talk) 16:52, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Coordinates links from articles seem to be failing as it can't find https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack.php --David Biddulph (talk) 13:27, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

This is almost certainly due to the migration from subdirectories of wmflabs.org to subdomains of toolforge.org, and ensuing misconfiguration of the tool. Pinging its maintainers, Dispenser, Kolossos and Magnus Manske, who may be able to help resolve this. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:37, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Seems to be working now, and it's now pointing at https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php. --David Biddulph (talk) 19:43, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@David Biddulph: That's positive as a temporary fix for sure, but the access via the subdirectory has been deprecated for a long time; the soft deadline has already passed, and in a couple of weeks it'll just redirect to the subdomain version. It does need a maintainer fix. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 19:54, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Also reported at Template talk:Coord#The template seems broken. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:19, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

The tool geohack seems to work toolforge if it's requested in a subdir: https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack/geohack.php?params=45_36_0_N_45_0_0_E

But this will not help after a switch as the forwarding from old templates will not work correctly in many languages. As the geohack is an simple, old php-script directly in the public_html directory, the reason I see is in the rewrite rules from .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^(.+?)/(.+)$ https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php?params=$2&language=$1 [L,QSA]

Any ideas to it? I'm really no expert for this rules. --Kolossos (talk) 20:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

When using the editing aid (under the edit area) to insert Cyrillic letters, why is the alternative Cyrillic el (ʌ) not available to insert? I came across this problem when writing the SS Volochaevsk article. Normally Volochaevsk would be Волочаевск, but contemporary photographs show it was rendered as Воʌочаевск. Mjroots (talk) 15:53, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Stylistic choice made by the painter in the bosun's chair?

The character ʌ is not Cyrillic el but rather is U+028C LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED V (https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0250.pdf). The Unicode chart lists these characters with similar appearance; none of which are Cyrillic:

• U+039B Greek capital letter lamda (Greek and Coptic)
• U+2038 Caret (punctuation)
• U+2227 logical and (mathematical operators)

I trolled through the various Cyrillic Unicode charts listed at Cyrillic script in Unicode and found nothing that looks like the turned v except U+1D27 GREEK LETTER SMALL CAPITAL LAMDA (ᴧ) but that's Greek not Cyrillic. This suggests to me that the Cyrillic character set is likely quite complete.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:28, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

The El (Cyrillic) article itself states An alternative form of El (Ʌ ʌ) is more common in Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Serbian. Thus it looks like it is a valid Cyrillic letter. Less common in Russian, but not unknown. Mjroots (talk) 18:50, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

In El (Cyrillic), the larger character is U+0245 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER TURNED V, which Unicode grouped under Latin Extended-B#Miscellaneous additions. U+028C LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED V is grouped under IPA Extensions. I did, however, see it in a number of images of Bulgarian alphabet as the 12th letter. @Mjroots: The small letter (U+028C) does appear below the edit window in the IPA group but apparently, you can add custom entries fairly easily; add the following one-liner to to your common.js:

window.charinsertCustom = { "Cyrillic": 'Ʌ ʌ' };

—[AlanM1 (talk)]— 14:12, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, you could do that, but I don't think that you should. If you must do that, use the Greek Ʌ U+039B GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMBDA and ʌ U+1D27 GREEK LETTER SMALL CAPITAL LAMDA; these, at least are characters intended to be part of readable words.

I do not think that this should be done merely to mimic the style of the name as it is painted on the ship. In the article is this:

{{langx|ru|Воʌочаевск}} → Russian: Воʌочаевск

A major reason for using {{lang-ru}} is so that non-English text renders correctly for sighted readers and for readers who consume en.wiki articles using assistive technologies (screen-readers). Dropping a non-Russian, non-Cyrillic character into a string of Russian Cyrillic characters will likely confuse screen readers. According to Turned v:

Its lowercase is used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent an open-mid back unrounded vowel, the vowel in plus in many dialects of English.

That is not the sound of Cyrillic el.

I think it best to use Cyrillic el л until Unicode creates a Bulgarian variant of Cyrillic el:

{{langx|ru|Волочаевск}} → Russian: Волочаевск

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:28, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

AlanM1 thanks for your reply, which confirms that the letter is a valid alternative, which needs adding to the character set so that it can be used where needed and also so that it is correctly rendered by screen readers. In essence, its omission is an accessibility issue and it needs to be corrected. Trappist the monk, There are at least four photographs of the ship I found, all of them show the name rendered as described. There is no good reason to change the display of the name in the article. Mjroots (talk) 15:55, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Accessibility. That is precisely why I wrote all of that about {{lang}} and the various character sets. All of the characters in the Cyrillic char-insert panel are Unicode Cyrillic characters except the last one which is U+0301 COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT. Inserting a Greek character or worse, an IPA character, into a Russian-language word written using Unicode Cyrillic characters is, I think, detrimental to accessibility.

You and I have likely seen the same photographs of the ship. Yes, the ship's name, as painted on the hull, appears to use something that looks like the Greek lambda Ʌ. But, accessibility is a very good reason why the article should not use characters from other scripts (Greek or IPA) in a name that is otherwise entirely Cyrillic.

Here's an experiment: if you give Google translate the Cyrillic ship name with the IPA turned v character in place of Cyrillic el you get Voʌochaevsk; mostly translated but it choked on the turned v. Do the same, replacing the turned v with small Greek capital lambda (ᴧ), you get Vojochaevsk. Both translations are wrong. If google translate, with all of the server horsepower that it has, cannot correctly translate these 'words', it seems unlikely to me that a screen reader on a pc or a mac will get it right. For completeness, using the Cyrillic el, you get Volochaevsk.

Perhaps a note, either in the wikitext or as part of the photo caption to explain what 'we think' the capital Greek lambda-like character is?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:00, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I've tweaked the lede of SS Volochaevsk to accommodate the alternative Cyrillic el. I would still like the alternative form added to the dataset as it is not just Russian that uses Cyrillic letters and it is a valid alternative. Mjroots (talk) 18:23, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Mjroots: I'll note that the El (Cyrillic) mention of the alternate characters is not cited, so we don't know what the editor's choice was based on. I spent some time searching for reliable sources and can only conclude that it needs more research. I imagine it may have been discussed by the Unicode folks at some point. Some input from Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, and language editors/projects would be useful. I can understand the concern that it's not only about which are the "correct" characters, but perhaps even more importantly, what "common usage" is out there. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 04:56, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I didn't think of this as an accessibility issue until now, even though it won't affect that many blind users. Most English-speaking speech synthesisers don't read Cyrillic (but see below). I downloaded the Vocalizer synths, which are generally very high-quality, from this link in Russian and Bulgarian, and both read out the first Cyrillic character correctly but neither read out the second one. I had to download the latest versions of the English voices as well because I'm on a new computer, and I was surprised to find that they also read out Cyrillic ... again, they read the first "l" form correctly but not the second one. These voices are widely used on iPhones using VoiceOver. Graham87 04:57, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I've notified WPs Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Serbia of this discussion. Graham87 does your programme read it correctly in Bulgarian - Bulgarian: Воʌочаевск or not? Mjroots (talk) 06:36, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Mjroots: As I said above, it doesn't. Graham87 06:43, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

 

Thanks, that's useful. The illustration of the Bulgarian language alphabet - file:Bulgarska Azbuka.png certainly shows the alternative version. Mjroots (talk) 06:50, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Mjroots: Right, but note that the source of the first two images (the infobox image and this one, under History) is "own work" of Vaskots7, who last edited six years ago. The third one is "own work" of infrequent editor Добромир Костадинов. They only show what the 12th/13th character looks like (instead of "Л"), as opposed to exactly what standard code point should be used on computers to represent it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlanM1 (talk • contribs) 08:43, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Mjroots and AlanM1: As a native user of Cyrillic script, I think I can help here. In my opinion, this discussion is baseless. Those different forms of Cyrrilic El are a matter of style (i.e. font) and are not "alternate forms". Many letters (including English letters) have different forms in different fonts, and preferred styles change over time. Wikipedia uses certain font, and we write all letters using that font. We do not try to use different font just to mimic the original version of a name. Many products, movies, bands etc. use different font in their official name, but we do not try to mimic that in Wikipedia titles. So, it's "Волочаевск" in the font used by Wikipedia. Vanjagenije (talk) 17:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

 

@Vanjagenije: That's an interesting take. Can you point to a font where the Cyrillic capital el "Л" (U+041B) is displayed with the shape of a turned V? —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 21:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• I can answer my own question, at least partially. In Microsoft Word 2016 on Win10, I looked at the rendering of "Л" (U+041B) in all the stock fonts. The following fonts had the turned V appearance: Bookman Old Style, Buxton Sketch, Century Gothic, Franklin Gothic Book (and the rest of the Franklin Gothic fonts), Gabriola, Garamond, Monotype Corsiva, Palatino Linotype, Segoe Print, Segoe Script. Some of these are quite well-used I think, including Bookman, Franklin, Century, and Palatino. I'll note that in all but Palatino Linotype and Segoe Script, the glyph for U+041B has the same appearance as U+039B (Greek capital lambda) (image to follow later at right).
  It seems that the right answer is to use the standard Cyrillic el characters "Л" (U+041B) and "л" (U+043b). (Pinging Mjroots) —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 22:01, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• I design fonts and agree with Vanjagenije. This situation is like arguing that we need different characters for the five principal categories of Q tail. The regular л should be used. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 22:37, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi

I know I've used the automatic citations tool to link to Youtube videos from news organisations before but I can't get it to work today, the videos I was trying to link to are below for Black Lives Matter Plaza, they are all from reliable sources

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3prAYfIL28
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTMjxBkNkPY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCmsEva8H6Q
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncf38hZciRs

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 13:30, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@John Cummings: are you using the Wikipedia:RefToolbar gadget or something else? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:12, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: thanks for the reply, no, I haven't enabled any gadgets but I do have beta features enabled. Does it work for you? Could you try adding those references to the article. John Cummings (talk) 16:17, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@John Cummings: RefToolbar is a default gadget, I just put an extra label on it to let people know which tool they are using, can you try now and see if it says "RefToolbar" on the input screen now? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:19, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Xaosflux: where should I be looking for RefToolbar? I don't understand what you mean by input screen. John Cummings (talk) 16:23, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@John Cummings: when you are using whatever tool you are using to do this, does it have a popup box to type/paste into? If so, look at the title of that box, does it say RefToolbar on it, something else? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:25, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Looks like this is a problem with RefToolbar at the least, in the external lookup component that is maintained by User:Kaldari and User:Mr.Z-man, they would need to look in to that. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:37, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks very much @Xaosflux:, so I do:

1. Click edit on the article
2. Click 'Cite
3. Paste the URL (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3prAYfIL28) in the 'Automatic' field
4. It says 'We couldn't make a citation for you. You can create one manually using the "Manual" tab above.'

At no point do I see any additional notifications about RefToolbar

John Cummings (talk) 16:55, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

John Cummings is using Visual editor, not the WikiEditor. VisualEditor in turn uses Citoid for its references.--Snaevar (talk) 22:22, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

phab:T254700 opened. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:49, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Update from the phab ticket, looks like Youtube/Google is blocking us, at least intermittently. Maggie Dennis - are there any official WMF:Google channels a whitelisting request can be submitted to? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:51, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Whatamidoing (WMF) maybe can identify a resource? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:53, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

It looks like Mvolz is already on it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:24, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Access has been very slow for the last little while. Is that happening for everyone or just in my part of the world? Nurg (talk) 06:11, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Phabricator extremely slow as well - unusable. Nurg (talk) 06:30, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Seems to have come right. Nurg (talk) 08:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Why are category and template creations possible for registered-but-not-confirmed/autoconfirmed editors? (edit to add: contributions link only included as example, that editor is already under investigation for sock-puppetry.) Schazjmd (talk) 14:36, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Schazjmd: At Wikipedia:User access levels#Table there are two separate rights listed, "createpagemainns", the right to create a page in the main namespace, and "createpage", the right to create pages in other namespaces. I think newly-registered accounts need the "createpage" right to create pages in the Draft namespace, so it would be disruptive to take it away from them. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:16, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

John of Reading, thanks, I didn't realize that and the reasoning does make sense. Schazjmd (talk) 15:29, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I've noticed the Reflinks and expand citations bot both appear to be down. Is this something that can be fixed please as it really hinders content creation without them? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 16:44, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Cathymichaud13 raised an issue at Talk:Wild boar. The primary search term should be sus scrofa, but on typing "sus sc", the incorrect sus scofa (tagged as {{r from misspelling}}) only is shown. Similarly "sus scr" shows only "Sus Scrofa" (tagged as {{r from miscapitalisation}}). The correct search term is never shown. This is a misfeature, if not a bug. Is there a fix for this behaviour (potentially inserting some magic categorisation into the rcat templates to reduce search precedence?) Thanks, ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 04:19, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The only option I know is to delete Sus Scrofa to probably make Sus scrofa appear instead. Special:WhatLinksHere/Sus Scrofa only shows one link. It sounds risky to let editors influence searches. Some users would probably try to abuse it. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:06, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I've noticed the Reflinks and expand citations bot both appear to be down. Is this something that can be fixed please as it really hinders content creation without them? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:24, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

When I switch between pages such as the main page and WP:Contents and the screen we use to log in while logged out, the sidebar changes. Is this meant to be intentional? If not, can someone fix it? Interstellarity (talk) 22:20, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: Which changes? You import a lot of scripts in User:Interstellarity/common.js. Some of them add sidebar links so logged in and out is different for you. Sidebar links can also depend on the page, for example whether it is in mainspace or has a Wikidata item. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:31, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: The changes happen while I'm logged out. I am not logged in when it happens. Interstellarity (talk) 09:51, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: As mentioned, you have scripts which add links to the sidebar. They aren't supposed to show for logged out users so there is nothing to "fix" unless you refer to something else, or you want some of the links to be default for logged out users. You add way too many links for all users. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:23, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Hello again. I have uploaded some files that demonstrate how the sidebar is different. Although I don't normally edit Wikipedia with my phone, I was able to repeat the issue with my phone. I tried disabling all my scripts and I wasn't able to repeat the issue while logged in. It's only an issue when logged out. Please compare the sidebar in the files that I uploaded. Were you able to repeat the issue? Let me know. Interstellarity (talk) 15:22, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: Your screenshot of Wikipedia:Contents shows the old version of MediaWiki:Sidebar from before [3] on 4 June. I see the current version. Try to bypass your cache, or purge pages where you still see the old sidebar. All pages should eventually display the current sidebar to everybody. The "Wikipedia store" and "Upload file" links were hidden in [4] 4 June. They still show at Special:UserLogin where local JavaScript and CSS is ignored, probably for safety reasons to prevent a local script from intercepting your password. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Thank you for your help. Purging the cache didn't help. However, the problem is only when I'm logged out. I think I just need to wait a little bit before the new sidebar displays to everybody. Interstellarity (talk) 16:46, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Are the global preferences active on en wiki yet? --Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 01:15, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Hanyangprofessor2, they should be enabled for all Wikimedia projects, you can access them at Special:GlobalPreferences. – BrandonXLF (talk) 07:06, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

They've been live for nearly two years, see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 167#Global preferences came to the Wikipedias today or Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 167#Tech News: 2018-29, both from July 2018. The second one is also available at meta:Tech/News/2018/29. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:08, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Category:Disambiguation page with short description is to be renamed to Category:Disambiguation pages with short descriptions following a CFD discussion but it is not at all clear what needs changing to move the thousands of pages over. Can anyone work out what's generating this category and need amending? Timrollpickering (talk) 16:02, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Timrollpickering: This would need to be changed at Template:Short description - but that template currently uses the "X with short description" format for everything, not just disambiguation pages. Personally, I don't see anyone objecting to them all being switched over to "descriptions" plural, but it will have a wider impact. I'm not a template editor, and don't personally have experience with that template, so pinging RexxS for any insight he may have as the creator of the shortdesc template. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:12, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Timrollpickering and Naypta: the text is actually generated at Template:Disambiguation page short description and Trialpears has already changed it to plural. You may need to purge the pages to see the update, but please ping me if the issue persists. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 18:41, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually I had to change both {{Short description}} and {{Disambiguation page short description}}. {{Short description}} to add the s in short descriptions and Template:Disambiguation page short description for the s in Disambiguation pages. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 18:50, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but that's only because the TfD perversely changed the format which is in use by all the other tracking categories, which are of the form "SomethingPages with short description". Singular "short description" because pages can only have one short description each. So now we have an inconsistency between the category for dab pages and all the others. --RexxS (talk) 22:05, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@RexxS: You did play an unintentional part in the confusion. Before [5], {{Short description}} was called with pagetype = Disambiguation page. Before your edit [6] it always added s to pagetype so the added category was Category:Disambiguation pages with short description which still exists and hasn't been moved but is slowly being emptied when template edits take effect. After your edit the added category became Category:Disambiguation page with short description which was red at the time. A user noticed this and created the category but did not add Category:Pages with short description. This probably caused the systematic naming to be overlooked in the CfD. The original Category:Disambiguation pages with short description was not notified of the CfD about moving Category:Disambiguation page with short description to Category:Disambiguation pages with short descriptions, so we could say the CfD is not valid and the templates should return to adding Category:Disambiguation pages with short description. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:21, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: I see. I added the plural parameter to {{pagetype}} to solve the problem that adding the 's' created "Category:Categorys with short description", so I removed the 's' once the plurals were coming directly from {{pagetype}}. The consequent problem, of course is that dab pages are articles, so that's what {{pagetype}} returns:

• {{#invoke:pagetype|main|page=0s (disambiguation)}} → page
• {{#invoke:pagetype|main|page=0s (disambiguation)|plural=y}} → pages

That means we can't create the "Category:Disambiguation page with short description" in the same way we do with the others. I had missed that the category is created via a different route (the dab template calling {{Disambiguation page short description}}). It looks like that's been trapped now. At least the current naming schemes are grammatically correct. No doubt somebody who looks for these sort of things will spot the inconsistency and propose more CfDs. But not me. --RexxS (talk) 00:14, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

After years reading and editing articles on my iPad Mini4, just in last several days article images became grey boxes the size of the article images with instructions at the bottom, and inside, of each box to tap to see the image. Tiresome and takes away from reading to continually tap to see images. Have cleared browser just in case and checked all my settings but, as I wrote, have never had this problem before in years. Have always used Safari w/ Google as search engine in Private mode (which I have used for years, also.) My iPad Mini 4 has Safari version 13 (iPadOS 13.5.1) while the iPad’s Safari entry just gives a selection of Search Engines: Google, Yahoo, etc. and you select one. Have selected Google, then Yahoo, then Bing, and then DuckDuckGo - all with same results as above. 128GB iPad w/cellular w/3.9GB stored in iCloud. Noticed that images return if I disable Javascript, but don’t want to continue this for the usual reasons and, as with my other settings, have had it enabled for years. ????? Thanks Quaerens-veritatem (talk) 05:10, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

In some browsers it is possible to block images, to reduce data usage through 4G (although there is also an option to also block when you are on WiFi). Firefox has that option, for example. That is probably what you are experiencing. You can change that in your browser settings.--Snaevar (talk) 09:36, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Do you have the same problem in Google Chrome? Is it possible to upgrade your version of Safari/iOS? This happens when you have an outdated browser. Jdlrobson (talk) 19:34, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I’m also experiencing this on my iPad on WiFi with mobile Safari. New in the past few days. Clearly something changed. Jkatzen (talk) 21:36, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

This has happened to me in mobile safari in the last few days too Rasd (talk) 04:00, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello Snaevar, Jkatzen, Rasd, Jdlrobson. @Jdlrobson: seems to be on right track, but it may not be the Safari browser, but the problem may involve the automatic selection of Google as the search engine on iPad w/o Apple providing a way to update it to Google Chrome - as @Jdlrobson: suggested, the images DO work if you use the Google Chrome app. It may be Wikipedia updated software so Google Chrome works, but it is not fully compatible w/ the Google search engine that Apple has selected automatically for iPad (including images not appearing on Apple search engine selections of Yahoo, Bing and DuckDuckGo). It could be a Wikipedia problem w/Safari, but Apple does not have a way to change browser settings for the images that I can find, my Safari is updated to version 13 (the latest version), and I’m not technically educated enough to see how that browser is the problem versus the search engine. If anyone in charge of programming is reading this perhaps Wikipedia and Apple could get together to resolve this problem. I’m not certain if this is a bug problem, but iPad readers may consider reporting this new problem @ https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/BUGREPORT (WP:VPT) If so, please let us know. Thanks Quaerens-veritatem (talk) 02:29, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

It seems the browser is no longer supported. The best solution here would be a user script in User:<name>/mobile.js

Something like this should do it:

mw.mobileFrontend.require('mobile.startup').lazyImages.lazyImageLoader.loadImages(Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('.lazy-image-placeholder')))`

Jdlrobson (talk) 04:06, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi all, could I request some help with a wonderful and supremely useful script by Writ Keeper? (I am asking here as their activity is sporadic). The script is: User:Writ_Keeper/Scripts/peerReviewCloser.js and acts to auto-close peer reviews, which saves a lot of time.

I have noticed an error where the script doesn't close articles where the title includes characters other than letters and spaces, for example:

• Wikipedia:Peer review/Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor/archive1 - contains a comma
• Wikipedia:Peer review/5th Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry/archive1 - contains a number
• Wikipedia:Peer review/The Offies (The Off West End Theatre Awards)/archive1 - contains parentheses
• Wikipedia:Peer review/Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga/archive1 - contains a colon
• Wikipedia:Peer review/Self-managed social center/archive1 - contains a hyphen

Thanks for your help! --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:46, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Tom (LT), the issue actually seems to be that those pages are missing {{Peer review}} from their talk pages, either because it's just not there or because their talk pages are redirects. – BrandonXLF (talk) 10:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Tom (LT) that’s strange, have you tried messaging an admin? DerianGuy40 (talk) 09:11, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Good thought, but that's not necessarily going to be that useful. This is a technical issue and not one related to user rights, and not all admins are skilled at coding - that's why I've posted here. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• True, well you have to wait for someone as I’m not a coding expert. DerianGuy40 (talk) 09:24, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Tom (LT), my activity might be sporadic, but I'm definitely still around. ;) Can you elaborate on the behavior you're seeing? What error do you see, and at what part of the process does it happen? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:08, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

To elaborate, I've looked at the code, and I don't see any reason to suspect that non-alphabetic characters would cause a problem. I'm thinking that BrandonXLF is correct, and the issue is that none of those articles have the peer review template on there, which is what the script keys off of. I'm not sure what the expectation for behavior is in that case; adding an "old peer review template" at the top isn't difficult, but it's outside the bounds of the closing instructions that I used as specificiations. There are non-trivial decisions to make: should the script create a nonexistent talk page for the purposes of adding the template? Should it break a redirect? should it still tell the user that something weird happened? etc. Erroring out and letting a human handle it is the safest option. I'm more than hapy to add handling for cases like this, but as someone who doesn't do peer-closes myself (someone else requested me to do it), I don't really want to make those decisions myself. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:30, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello! Pure speculation on my part - I guess I won't win my next game of Mao then! Your descriptions remind me of the Tolstoy quote "All happily happy families closed peer reviews are alike; each unhappy family unhappily opened peer review is unhappy in its own way" as, above, there is quite a lot of variation in why the reviews are marked as in error - eg moved, or already closed, or PR not on talk page. Some potential solutions (I don't know how easy these would be to code so please treat them as suggestions only)

For every instance the script is run, mark the actual peer review page as closed, regardless of the talk page circumstance... will still be very useful

If the talk page has the "closed" peer review template on it, then report the script as completed (even if the talk page hasn't need to be edited)

For all other cases, mark the peer review page as closed and display to the editor a message, something like "the review has been marked as closed on this page. However for an unknown reason, the talk page review notice is unable to be closed and will require manual closure." so that it's very clear to editors what to do next.

Thoughts--Tom (LT) (talk) 15:48, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I was also wondering if a link to the script could be added to the edit summaries made by it, like for most other scripts like twinkle, rater and so on (see the edit summaries 1 and 2 for what I mean). The name of the script is "PR closer". I think it's useful to track which edits were made by script in case there were problems, lets other editors know about the script, and is consistent with the summaries provided by other scripts around here. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:51, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Writ Keeper also - this :). --Tom (LT) (talk) 15:48, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Tom (LT): Try that. I switched around the order of operations, so that it should edit and close the peer review page regardless of the state of the article talk page. It should have a more informative error message in the notification popup, as well. I didn't add the closed peer review template detection, though; I think that that would cause a false positive in the case of an article that has undergone multiple peer reviews, due to the closed review template for prior reviews. That would cause the script to fail silently, and I think it's better design to tell the user anyway, and let them figure it out. I also added the link in the edit summary that you requested. I'll leave my sandbox in testing configuration for a while, if you wanna test it out there; feel free to mess with it as much as you like to hit different scenarios. Cheers! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:32, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

That's great! Thanks Writ Keeper... I used it on a few more articles at peer review and it worked much better. I would like to request one other order change. When there is an error, the error message displays and the page doesn't refresh. I think it would be better if the peer review page refreshed (so that I can see the new "Closed peer review template" on it) and then the error message displayed. Other than that it works great and has saved a loooooottt of time. --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:24, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I thought of that, but that's not easily doable, as a page refresh also resets the state of the script. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:38, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Did it anyway! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:58, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:08, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I know that Twinkle/XFDCloser has a function that allows for backlinks to be automatically removed (e.g. removing links from a page to be deleted). Is there an analogous tool for automated relinking of pages (i.e. change links from page A to page B so [[A|link text]] becomes [[B|link text]]? This is desirable when a page is moved to make way for a different page (or a DAB page). Cheers, Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 13:13, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi,

This week the format of Recent changes and Watchlist changed so that the (diff | hist) no longer show in a vertically aligned list. I used this a lot on Recent changes to quickly review dubious changes, but even on the Watchlist I feel this just makes opening up the diff much slower. See this image for what I mean (and I still see the old format when not logged in).

Is this a new feature/permanent change or a bug, and is their a way to go back to the old format (I've looked at the preferences and cant see anything).

It certainly makes catching vandals via "Recent changes" slower and annoying, and I cant see why this was done (if on purpose) as if you want to view the change quick access to the diff or hist is the key actions people need?

Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 12:46, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

For me the recent changes and watchlist page looks similar than the photo on the left side in your screenshot. Do you have "Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist" enabled on your preferences here? Stryn (talk) 15:33, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks Stryn yes it was that! I had tried turning that off but had the watchlist open in another tab and refreshed to see if that fixed it, unfortunately that appears to reset the setting so you see no change. Changing the setting, closing the tabs, and then looking worked! Thanks again KylieTastic (talk) 16:13, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
  • KylieTastic, I copied an ugly workaround for this problem to phab:T202916. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:57, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks Whatamidoing (WMF) pity a known problem like this still not fixed in almost 2 years :/ Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 16:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

On pages with a lot of code, why when you put it to visual mode it glitches heavily. Any response would be kind. How to fix it? DerianGuy40 (talk) 07:51, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

DerianGuy40, do you have an example of a page where this is happening? – BrandonXLF (talk) 08:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

BrandonXLF this is one. 2019-20 FC Barcelona season also there is another glitch when you copy something onto source code it won’t let me type and auto deletes. DerianGuy40 (talk) 08:34, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Pasting problems in the “edit source” screen? I’ve seen them too, but mine are a bit different: pasting anything with formatting makes it go haywire (can’t edit what was pasted, have trouble editing what’s around it, edits don’t show up at all when previewing/saving), even on small pages. In some cases, even cutting something from the “edit source” screen and pasting it somewhere else on the same screen creates these issues. Brianjd (talk) 14:25, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I’ve had that multiple times and it’s really screwey DerianGuy40 (talk) 18:12, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

DerianGuy40, you've used several different editing environments, so it's a bit hard to tell which one's causing the problem. Would you please look at mw:Editor and tell us which screenshot looks closest to the one that's producing this problem? (It looks like your last edit to that article was in the mobile wikitext editor.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:18, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) there is two problems I wish to report, one is the buggy visual when there is a lot of code and the second one is a paste/copy problem in source mode which makes it go haywire DerianGuy40 (talk) 08:02, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

DerianGuy40, I'd be happy to help get your problems reported to the devs, but I need more information. To start, I need to know:

• what kind of computer/device you're using (e.g., "Android" or "Windows 10")
• what web browser you're using (e.g., "Chrome")
• whether you're on the mobile site or the desktop site
• which editing environment you're using (e.g., the mobile wikitext editor).

If you don't want to post all of this, you can send it to me in Special:EmailUser/Whatamidoing_(WMF). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) ok so

• IPad iOS 13.something
• Safari
• Both
• I use wiki.ed, mobile visuel and also source mode.

both problems need looking at. DerianGuy40 (talk) 07:03, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, User:DerianGuy40, but I have more questions: Did you mean that you use WP:WikEd (the local gadget, which has lots of bells and whistles) or mw:WikiEditor (the most common old wikitext editor)?

Also, in that wikitext editor, do you have syntax highlighting turned on (colorful text vs plain black)? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

21:36, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I wrote some code that generates a year:

{{#ifexpr:{{CURRENTMONTHNUMBER}}<5|{{LASTYEAR}}|{{CURRENTYEAR}}}}

I'd like to set it up to substitute, but when I just make all the elements {{safesubst:<noinclude/>...}}, it only goes down one level, so I end up for instance with {{#expr:{{#time:Y}}-1}} in place of {{LASTYEAR}}. Is there some template I can wrap around the whole thing so that it'll keep substituting everything within until it just gets to the plain year? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:15, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Each of the used templates must be designed for substitution. {{LASTYEAR}} isn't so you either have to edit it or avoid it. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:24, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

There is a request from 2005 at phab:T4777. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:32, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

PrimeHunter, thanks for the phab link; it's interesting that it's been around for that long. I set up {{LASTYEAR/sandbox}} to work alright, but it seems {{CURRENTMONTHNUMBER}} also isn't set up for substitution, nor {{MONTHNUMBER}} beneath it, so this might be more trouble than it seems. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:57, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

mw:Help:Magic words#Date and time has {{CURRENTMONTH1}} so I'm not sure why {{CURRENTMONTHNUMBER}} was made. The easiest way to compute your function is using mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##time to get the year 4 months ago: {{#time:Y|-4 months}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:40, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

That worked; thanks! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:53, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd like for editors who click on the "Test what you've learned in the sandbox" button at Help:Introduction_to_editing_with_Wiki_Markup/6 to go to a subpage of their userpage automatically preloaded and saved with something like User:Sdkb/sandbox/testpage. Is there any way to add an action onto the URL for the button so that a single click will create and save the page and take them to it? I've reviewed mw:Manual:Parameters_to_index.php#Edit_and_submit but I haven't been able to find anything promising. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:29, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I think that would require adding some sitewide JavaScript. I would oppose anything that enables somebody to make a link which saves something without user confirmation or a clear user act like installing a script or clicking a rollback link. For privacy and other reasons, users should be able to control whether they save something others can see. Some users sometimes want to keep it private that they are logged in. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:46, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb, you mean like.... I could write a JS page that would be automatically saved as a user’s subpage and then loaded in his browser and post his credentials to my phishing server? (aka, no that is not possible) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:36, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@TheDJ and PrimeHunter: the privacy concerns definitely occurred to me, and I'd be alright with having a confirmation step similar to the one at the start of WP:Adventure. Is there any other solution for giving people a private prefilled sandbox, so that they don't have to worry about encountering others' edits or having theirs instantly reset? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 14:58, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Is it good enough to just open an edit window to create a new section on the designated page with preloaded text? See the "Add a new nomination now!" link on Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Editor of the Week/Nominations for an example. isaacl (talk) 16:45, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Isaacl, that wouldn't be ideal, since new users can get confused very easily, and adding an extra step to the process where they have to click save to get to the page adds to the complexity. I know we do something like that for submitting drafts, and that causes plenty of confusion itself. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:28, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

If I'm going to test what I learned about editing, though, then going to an edit box where I can start testing seems reasonable. isaacl (talk) 22:12, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I really do not like this idea. There should be more consistency between the learning experience and the horrible truth, not less (one reason I was against Teahouse's principle of top-posting - it was encouraging people to top-post elsewhere). If users get the idea that certain links will create a page without the means to check and amend before saving, they may expect that to occur in other places besides. Also, if they do not consciously use a Publish changes button (or equivalent), they may not realise that they have saved something new. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:10, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Redrose64, that's a fair point. But I would appreciate some brainstorming as to what a viable alternative might be. The current sandbox system is really bad—we're sending users to a communal page where they're encountering junk (including potentially offensive content) from others, and their edits often conflict. The personal sandboxes for logged in users are obviously much better, but they still don't start with any preloaded content that could make them a more useful place to experiment; they're in effect an empty playground. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:49, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Have you looked into using users' personal sandboxes with mw:Manual:Creating pages with preloaded text? Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 19:53, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Naypta, I've used preloading before (for instance while renovating the Teahouse), but the page you linked to doesn't seem to have a one-click option. I gather from this thread that there are concerns about that, so I'll probably end up using preloading as the best available option. But as I mentioned above to Isaac, I don't think it's ideal; part of what we want to teach people is how to open editing mode, and having a button that takes you directly into editing mode rather than to a page violates the principle Redrose64 is advocating for not creating too different an experience. I think the best solution might be somewhere in between: have a pop-up confirmation message (similar to what's used at WP:Adventure) rather than an editing box.

Longer-term, we might want to discuss whether there ought to be preloaded content in your personal sandbox the first time you click on it. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:07, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Here's a completely crazy idea - although sometimes crazy ideas are the best: Send people to a Tool Labs page to start the introduction bit. They click a button there, that calls a bot to create their sandbox page (or a sandbox page in the bot's own userspace, perhaps) with some predefined content, and then redirects them to that page. That way, there's the best of both worlds - nobody's security is compromised, you can teach the user how to click the edit button, etc etc. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 20:09, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Naypta, ooh, I like that! Having a bot make the edit takes care of the security concerns very nicely. Is everyone who's logged in on Wikipedia also logged in at Tool Labs? For users who click the button while logged in, I think it'd be best to put the page in their userspace, and for users who click while logged out it could be made in the bot's space. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: OAuth can be used with Wikimedia SUL to make sure that everyone with an account on any Wikimedia site can log in the same way on Tool Labs. They would have to go through an authorisation process, but not enter their login again - just click a button to "allow" access to their account. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 20:34, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I think at that level of detail, a tutorial with screen shots and a screen capture video would be more helpful as a step-by-step guide that new users could follow along. isaacl (talk) 20:26, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Just plopping it here for my own and others' reference: the sandbox preload is at Template:User sandbox/preload and MediaWiki:Sandboxlink-preload-pagename. There appears to be no preload when one creates one's talk page or user page, which is a shame especially in the case of one's userpage. Anyone feel like designing something? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:16, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Bypassing the display of the copyright notice and affirmative "publish changes" push is a bad idea, especially for new users. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:52, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Win10, Firefox 77, source editor. If I edit Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#reFill appears to be down again, and press Ctrl-F to find the word "pinch" (which appears once in that section), it first finds the occurence in the rendered preview, highlighting it in light green. F3 finds the word in the edit window, highlighting it in a somewhat darker green. F3 again finds a third occurrence in the same place, highlighting it in light green (i.e., the same word is highlighted – the color lightens). The status line confirms that it finds 3 matches. The general case (I think) is that it finds doubles of everything in the edit window. Other case with more hits don't always find them in the same place – I get brief flashes of text in different places.

The problem goes away with the Syntax Highlighter gadget disabled. I'll note too, that the (new?) blue pencil on the toolbar to the left of the advanced menu with the tooltip "Syntax highlighting" appears to be depressed all the time; clicking on it makes no difference in syntax coloring or the bug. I have wikEd loaded, but disabled. The issue has been going on for maybe a week or so (like maybe since Thursday). Nothing unusual in the browser console. Was there a recent change in the gadget, maybe that added that pencil button that doesn't work? —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 13:41, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Please click this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)?dtvisual=1#Try_this_one_weird_link

and "Reply" here to tell me what you think. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): It did nothing. --qedk (t 愛 c) 20:41, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

It "should" be giving you a little "Reply" link at the end of each datestamp. Is it not there? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:46, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

No. —Cryptic 20:46, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Well... I suppose that's the definitive feedback: "Not working for anyone else". Thanks to all of you for testing it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Afraid I can't tell the difference - what am I meant to be looking at?   Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 20:40, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF), I'm not seeing anything different when I click the link. I don't know if it's conflicting with reply-link.js though. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 20:49, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): I was briefly getting a "Visual" tab when using dtenable.js earlier today, but it seems to have gone away. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:10, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

When I clicked it, it jumped to this section (in reading mode). Same as a normal section link. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:42, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): I examined your subpages. I get a "Reply" link after each signature when I run the code in User:Whatamidoing (WMF)/common.js:

:if ( $( '#ca-addsection' ).length ) mw.loader.using( 'ext.discussionTools.init' );
:

The link produces a new box I used to write this post. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:51, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

The reply feature automatically added colons to the above code inside <syntaxhighlight>...</syntaxhighlight>. I guess it tries to make indentation and doesn't know where colons should be omitted. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:58, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I still get the "Visual" tab (with the link above, with the Javascript to load it; also, note that this tab is visible only after clicking the Reply button), and I don't know why it's not working for everyone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)?dtenable=1#Try_this_one_weird_link should bring you to this section and add the "version 1.0" (plain text box) "Reply" links (which I believe are going to become "[Reply]" links soon). The ?dtvisual=1 version either shouldn't work for anyone (including me), or it should work for everyone (as it does for me). Hmm...

PrimeHunter, the Reply tool adds colons, and in the short term, it will mangle multiline syntax. So, for example, you can add a gallery of one image, if you type it in a single line, but not a gallery that requires multiple lines. In the medium-term, they're planning a technical RFC to add another bit of wikitext, which will prevent that (and which, as a happy side effect, will be useful for corralling the kind of invalid wikitext that mangles the rest of the page). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): dtenable=1 works for me without mw.loader.using( 'ext.discussionTools.init' ). dtvisual=1 only works for me with it. Does it work for you without it if you log out or blank User:Whatamidoing (WMF)/common.js? PrimeHunter (talk) 09:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Did nothing noticeable for me, just went to the section in reading mode. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I think it's only working for me because I've got the "version 1.0" tool enabled in my .js already. They're supposed to be changing the config "real soon now", at which point it's possible that this will start working for people without a user script enabling it. Perhaps we'll try again on WP:THURSDAY.

  Thank you all for trying this out. I'm sorry you couldn't see the tool after all. (Also, if you copy the line from my common.js file – I love it – please remember that you'll need to remove it at some point in the future, when the tool is available for more general use.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

In a template, I am passed a date that may consist of simply "June 12", which needs to be sorted in a table as June 12, 2020. Anything else that isn't of the form Mmm Dd should be sorted as-is. Is there a better way than the following? Have I understood correctly that there's no "%l{2,8}"?

| data-sort-value="{{{4|}}}{{#if:{{#invoke:String|match|s={{{4|}}}|pattern=^%u%l%l%l?%l?%l?%l?%l?%l? %d%d?$|nomatch=}}|, 2020}}" | {{{4|}}}

—[AlanM1 (talk)]— 18:14, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

My preference would be to emit some sort of error message and not process the date. The old saying is "garbage in, garbage out". Jc3s5h (talk) 18:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

That, or shove it through {{#time:}} which in the absence of certain components, uses the corresponding component of today's date. So, {{#time: j F Y|June 12}} → 12 June 2024 and of course {{#time: F j, Y|June 12}} → June 12, 2024. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:25, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

To be fair, the solution to most time problems is "shove it through {{#time:}}"   Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 20:31, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

The problem with #time is that it provides the current year as the default. Next year, the dates would all change to 2021 (incorrectly). In this case, I'm trying to allow a yearless date to mean 2020. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 20:47, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

You can put the call to #time in a template and subst the results, I think? isaacl (talk) 20:58, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Sure: {{subst:#time: j F Y|June 12}} → 12 June 2020. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Even better; I wasn't sure that subst: would work on the function call directly. isaacl (talk) 22:57, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I remember reading about a user script that hides usernames. The idea was that if you were patrolling RecentChanges (or maybe evaluating an RFC) and wanted to reduce the risk of being biased by the user's reputation, then you could switch this script on, and the usernames were all hidden. However, I can't find anything about it now. Does anyone else remember this and perhaps know where the script is? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:08, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Yair rand wrote the script, and it's over here. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 19:12, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): The primary purpose is to avoid bias at places like ANI. I gave some explanation here, and there's also some discussion at ArbCom's ongoing RFC. Note that the script does not yet work while editing. It's mostly supposed to be a proof-of-concept, tbh. --Yair rand (talk) 19:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! That is exactly the post that I remember reading last year.

I'm not sure how you'd make it work inside an edit window, but the mw:New requirements for user signatures should (eventually) make detecting signatures in read-mode more reliable. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:01, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello, here on Debian 11, Firefox 68.7 ESR can display images in the "Page previews" feature only if those images are hosted by Commons, but the images whether free or non-free, which are hosted on Wikipedia (en and other languages) are not shown in the pages preview. I don't know about Google Chrome or Chromium, it can be tested for example on Patrick_Swayze#Film and Category:1990s crime thriller films. To editor Ahunt: Hello, if you have latest version of Google Chrome or Chromium installed on a Linux system, please check them for this problem and report their status, thanks.--Editor-1 (talk) 05:27, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry don't have either, but I can tell you that the page previews, including the images, work for images on both Commons and Wikipedia on Firefox 76.0.1 on Lubuntu, so I suspect it must be an issue with either the ESR version of Firefox or something in Debian. - Ahunt (talk) 16:17, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Works fine on Debian 10 with Firefox 68.7.0esr on WSL. There is never a popup for categories when using Page previews and the page image at Patrick_Swayze#Film is hosted on the commons. Try Cadillac, the page image is hosted on the enwiki. – BrandonXLF (talk) 03:55, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

@BrandonXLF: "There is never a popup for categories when using Page previews" It is wrong, the feature I am talking about is located at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering under Reading preferences:
"Page previews (get quick previews of a topic while reading a page)"
and it works also in categories, my problem is that non-free infobox images, e.g. films articles, are not shown in the pop-up/balloon when using Firefox on this system.
"Page previews and the page image at Patrick_Swayze#Film is hosted on the commons."
just its infobox image is hosted on the commons, not the listed films.--Editor-1 (talk) 09:02, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Editor-1, I see what you mean, I thought you meant the links to Patrick_Swayze#Film and Category:1990s crime thriller films weren't working, not the links on those pages. Do you have any specific links that don't work for you? – BrandonXLF (talk) 19:52, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

@BrandonXLF: Sir, as I said "non-free infobox images, e.g. films articles, are not shown in the pop-up/balloon when using Firefox on this system" and it applies to all the articles that have a non-free image in their infobox.

Not someone else have this problem?!--Editor-1 (talk) 03:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Do you have any scripts or extensions installed in Firefox? Those can sometimes cause unpredictable effects. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:42, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): No, I don't have any extension, it is vanilla Firefox.--Editor-1 (talk) 16:00, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Editor-1, can you try it in mw:safemode? If it works correctly in safemode but not normally, then the problem is in a user script or gadget. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:39, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): When I report this problem I ran Firefox in private mode several times in different days, and also cleared its cache and logged-out from WP to make sure the problem is not from my side, this is not a new problem, it exist for many months. By the way, if rapid versions of Firefox don't have this problem as User:Ahunt said it, I really don't care to this problem because I no longer use Firefox even as a second/backup browser, because its problems are not limited to this, there are better options to use. I actually reported this for other people, Thanks.--Editor-1 (talk) 03:49, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Firefox's private browsing mode is not the same as MediaWiki's mw:safemode. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:49, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF):Allright! I followed mw:safemode and again there was no success, this problem is older than "many months", it actually exist for several years! I always thought it is a standard behavior because those images are non-free and there is no link or explanation about this feature at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering, when I could recognized that this is a problem/bug that I used a Chromium-based web browser and noticed that it shows all the films posters which are non-free.--Editor-1 (talk) 05:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Editor-1. I've reported the problem at phab:T255484. I can see from your contributions that you're not using any version of the mobile editor or the visual editor, but that leaves a lot of territory open. Could you take a look at mw:Editor and tell me which editing environment you're using? (The most likely options are WP:WikEd or the 2010 mw:WikiEditor.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): I use "2010 wikitext editor" because it is very fast and provides enough and easy-to-use features, I only use visual editor when I want to edit a table, by switching to it from this editor. Thank you too.--Editor-1 (talk) 03:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

mw:Naming things is hard, and the way some software got named seems to be confusing here. I thought you were talking about "previewing pages" – like, click the [Edit source] button, make a change, click the Preview button – but the Phab task sounds like you're talking about Page Previews, which used to be called WP:Hovercards. In that case, it doesn't matter which editing environment you're in. Sorry for the extra questions. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:12, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Cyberpower678/statusChanger.js which was working up until this morning, is now broken, and plastering the dropdown across the screen rendering Wikipedia unusable. Anyone have an idea what's going on?—CYBERPOWER (Around) 13:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

@Cyberpower678: It's gonna be related to phab:T254797 - specifically, see MusikAnimal's comment there about this week's train. Easy fix, though; just add vector-menu-dropdown as a class to your p-stress and p-status elements, then add vector-menu-content-list to the <ul class="menu"> you've currently got, and all should be right as rain again. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 14:13, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Naypta, awesome, thanks. Works again. —CYBERPOWER (Around) 14:26, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

User:FloridaArmy has been banned from creating new articles in mainspace. Is there any good way to audit compliance? A search for new page creations in mainspace isn't useful, because a page created in draft space and ultimately accepted, shows up in the search results. I'm looking for pages that were originally created in mainspace. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:18, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

RoySmith, perhaps something like this? And Ctrl-f for "Draft:", any non-highlighted lines would be what you're after, perhaps? There might be a better way. Never mind, this suffers from the same issue. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:52, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Creation log, if you don't need anything created earlier than 23:10, 27 June 2018. There's no on-wiki interface to filter by namespace, but querying for it is straightforward (just be sure to use logging_userindex instead of logging). —Cryptic 17:56, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Cryptic, Yeah, that worked, thanks. It took me a few iterations to get the query right, but that's about par for the course with this schema :-) https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/45926. Continued at WP:ANI#Possible Violation ?. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:22, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

You're probably better off looking for the 'new redirect' tag, or at least page.page_is_redirect=0, than for 'redirect' somewhere in the comment. Even better would be to inspect the redirects manually, so you can find hypothetical cases where the user created a page as a redirect and then converted it to a normal article, but of course that can't be done programmatically. —Cryptic 19:34, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Cryptic, That's a good idea; I wasn't previously aware of the is_redirect field. Unfortunately, that's page.is_redirect, so it gives me the current status of the page. I'm looking for what happened at the original time of creation. I'll chase down the new redirect tag idea; that sounds like it might be more what I need. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

@RoySmith: Does the ban include creating redirects in mainspace? Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 18:26, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  Done resolved thanks to the help received here, esp from @Cryptic. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:40, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

What's the simplest way to get machine-readable lists of:

1. all pages in the category namespaces
2. all pages in the article namespace

In each case I just need a bare list of titles, with no extra fields, and no exclusions. (If extra fields are unavoidable, I can strip them out, so that's not barrier; it's just a not a want).

In each case, it would be nice to exclude redirects, but that's not essential.

I guess this could probably done using Quarry, but I don't speak SQL.

Can anyone suggest an alternative method? Or maybe draft a Quarry query for me?

Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:15, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Is Special:Allpages suitable? Quarry isn't going to work well for this; it starts to choke when there's more than a few thousand results, and there's more than fifteen million pages in the main namespace and almost two million in the category namespace (neither excluding redirects). —Cryptic 17:41, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl, if I understand what you're after correctly, which is a list of categories and a list of articles (such as at Special:AllPages, but without limit) here's a Quarry query:

SELECT page_title FROM page WHERE page_namespace = 14 AND page_is_redirect = 0;

This might take a while to run (not even sure if it'll complete, due to size), so if you want a demo of how it'll look, just add " LIMIT 10" to the end, before the semi-colon. This is fast to run so it'll give you a preview.

For pages in the article namespace, replace page_namespace = 14 with page_namespace = 0. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:42, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader and BrownHairedGirl: A list of all pages in the article namespace is already available in the database dumps. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 17:47, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

The dump includes redirects.

The query does complete - I'm currently cleaning up results from essentially the same thing. The problem with doing it on Quarry is that, although the query finishes in 30ish seconds (for namespace 14) or 70ish (for namespace 0), it takes a very long time to move the data to Quarry, and a ridiculously long time to display the results page. —Cryptic 18:00, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Nuh, sorry, missed that we were looking to exclude redirects. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 18:04, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks for the prompt help @Naypta, ProcrastinatingReader & Cryptic. I am trying the Quarry query now, at https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/45923.

For article space, it would be lovely to also exclude disambiguation pages, i.e. all pages in Category:All article disambiguation pages. Can anyone help me with how to use Quarry to do that? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:17, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

quarry:query/45924. But again, it's not going to scale - increase the "LIMIT 100" at the end, or remove it entirely, and you'll see things grind to a halt.

I've got lists of category/main-namespace non-redirect titles; they're about 80 megabytes total gzipped. How do you want them delivered? —Cryptic 18:27, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, @Cryptic, that sounds brilliant. I think if we try email, we will probably hit a size limit at some point in the process. Is there anywhere you can upload it to so that I can download it? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:56, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I'll mail you shortly. —Cryptic 19:05, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

BTW, this is for BHGbot task 6. My work so far has shown me that only a small proportion of eponymous categories are categorised as such, so in practice I have been generating my edit lists by: 1/ using Petscan to generate lists of categories under a particular heading 2/ converting the category titles to article space 3/ using AWB in pre-parse mode to exclude article titles which are either redirects or non-existent.

This is all massively inefficient, because Petscan won't give me more than about 800,000 titles at a time, and the category trees are massively polluted, so each Petscan dump gives me massive duplication. And then the AWB trawl is very inefficient.

So I reckon that it will all be massively easier if I start with a complete list of category titles (minus redir & dab) and a complete list of article titles (minus redir & dab), and then just use a few Unix utilities to compare the two lists (sort, comm). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:50, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

If it's going to run more than once, getting me to send you the output isn't going to work. I'd say the easiest way is to request a toolforge account (instructions) and run the queries there. Example: echo "SELECT page_title FROM page WHERE page_namespace=0 AND page_is_redirect=0 AND NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM categorylinks WHERE cl_from=page_id AND cl_to='All_article_disambiguation_pages');" | sql enwiki_p | tail -n+2 > main-ns-no-redirs-no-dabs —Cryptic 19:05, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

@—Cryptic, my intention is that this will be a one-off run. So if you do find a way of implementing your v kind offer to let me download your files, that will do me fine.
I'll try toolforge if that doesn't work out. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:24, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

{{YGM}}. Let me know when I can remove them. —Cryptic 19:35, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks, @Cryptic. Mail received, and all three files downloaded, so you can remove them. This has been very very helpful. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:16, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi. Is there a bot which can monitor a category, such as the category that {{helpme}} requests are added to, and leave notifications of each new addition on-wiki at a specified target page, such as my personal talk page? Just checking as I am looking for something similar for AfC WikiProject, and I suspect that it might be already implemented. Thank you. Regards, --Gryllida (talk) 01:48, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know much about the bots (all I know is that you can ask at WP:Bot requests if no-one replies here). However, if you just want to get notified when a new page gets added to a category, you can do that via your watchlist: as long as you're watching the category in question and you've unticked "page categorization" from the controls at the top of your watchlist (it's ticked by default). – Uanfala (talk) 00:40, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Anyone have any idea why after the DNS change it would not work? https://translation-server.toolforge.org does not work since change described at https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/News/Toolforge.org Discussed problem at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Citation_bot#URL_expander_down_-_anyone_have_any_idea_why?? and https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/issues/3141 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 11:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

In Bengali Wikipedia, in the pages of country/ district/ city, while editing, the Infobox is missing. Please help... ANUPAM DUTTA 10:50, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Anupamdutta73 (talk • contribs) 10:47, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Anupamdutta73: Hi there, can you provide links to some of the articles to help explain the problem? Darren-M talk 11:12, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, is this only in mobile? — xaosflux ^Talk 11:16, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Darren-M: Hi Darren, Thanks for replying to me... I got my answer.. I was referring to "Visual editing"..... But now I have another question. What is "area_magnitude" and how is it calculated ? Some cities/states/countries have it , but not others... Thanks in advance.

ANUPAM DUTTA 11:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Anupamdutta73: bn:Template:Infobox settlement is based on Template:Infobox settlement (this isn't always the case for templates in different languages), so see the latter for documentation of area_magnitude: "Setting this to any non-empty value will create a link to the appropriate order of magnitude of area page (e.g. 1 E+6 m²)." Maybe the Bengali Wikipedia doesn't have any relevant link. In fact, it appears that neither do we. A lot of small articles were redirected [11] to Orders of magnitude (area). PrimeHunter (talk) 12:18, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, in the advanced search I know you add a $ and click the treating box to add something on the end of a line. Does anybody know what I have to enter to add something at the beginning of a line on a long list. Also if there are lots of sub sections, here for instance (now here) how would I go about adding es: ''' ''' | fr: ''' ''' |de: ''' ''' |it: ''' '''| pt: ''' ''' | nl: ''' ''' between the lines? I'm working on developing something which will be moved to the mainspace eventually. Ping me if anybody has the answer, cheers.† Encyclopædius 13:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I guess you refer to the search and replace icon at the far right when "Advanced" is clicked in the standard toolbar above the edit area. It uses regular expressions. I use Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Regular expression for the syntax. ^ matches start of line and $ is end of line. I haven't found out how to enter a newline in the replace box so I capture one with (\n) in the search box and insert it where wanted with $1. It's complicated in some contexts but simple in your case. Search for (\n) and replace with $1es: ''' ''' | fr: ''' ''' |de: ''' ''' |it: ''' '''| pt: ''' ''' | nl: ''' '''$1. The first $1 replaces the original newline and the second adds another newline after your string. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:00, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Special:DisambiguationPageLinks has the potential to be a useful page to support link cleanup, but the way it's currently constructed seems like it has two major flaws:

1. This page will contain hat notes, even when they are legitimate. The first entry on the list today is Anarchism → Anarchists (disambiguation). Investigating the article in question reveals that this is a perfectly legitimate use that shouldn't be in scope: "Anarchist" and "Anarchists" redirect here. For other uses, see Anarchists (disambiguation). This means a huge amount of trawling of the list is required in order to find a legitimate issue. It would be helpful if the page could exclude any links contained in a redirect2.

2. This page only updates every 2 weeks, which seems far too slow in order for it to be a useful cleanup tool. At the very least, there needs to be a way for users to mark an issue as resolved.

Thoughts? Darren-M talk 08:02, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

It's also probably worth noting that similar issues have been reported a handful of times on the Wikipedia_talk:Special:DisambiguationPageLinks page, albeit none for several years. Darren-M talk 08:04, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Links to a title such as Mercury (disambiguation) are usually deliberate and correct, because someone has decided to make an intentional link to the disambiguation page. We normally need worry only about Disambiguation pages with links where the target is a dab whose title does not end in (disambiguation), such as Mercury. Certes (talk) 16:47, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Certes, I agree, but that still requires manually hunting through the Special: for pages that are actually errors. I think amending it so it only captures links that don't end in disambig would make sense and is a good shout. Thanks, Darren-M talk 17:23, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Please put mw:New requirements for user signatures on your watchlist. The first technical bit might arrive here on WP:THURSDAY, July 2nd. The first step is just to stop letting people accidentally save new broken signatures in their prefs (e.g., without appropriate links, with unclosed formatting tags that will screw up the rest of every page, etc.). This isn't too dramatic, but I wanted to make sure that you all knew about it, since there's a chance that you'll get a question. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

We will probably get questions about this change on VPT, especially after editor notifications begin to happen. The basic idea behind the most significant of the changes is that editors attempting to create or modify signatures with almost any Linter error will no longer be permitted to save their signatures. This may be frustrating for some editors. Existing invalid signatures will continue to be usable, but not changeable. There are additional, less onerous requirements that will have a more limited impact here on en.WP, namely technical enforcement of existing requirements that signatures link to a user, user talk, or contributions page.

Examples of signatures that cause problems, and their fixes, can be seen in this edit and this edit, which might be tricky to parse. (These links are included here for educational purposes only, not to "syntax shame" any individual editors. Wikicode can be hard to get right every time; I know I fail a lot.)

Obsolete tags, namely <font>...</font> and <tt>...</tt>, will continue to be supported after this change, although WMF developers are building a switch that will allow en.WP to request that they be disallowed in signatures if we get consensus to do so. They are already not recommended here at en.WP. We can have that discussion at VPP, Wikipedia talk:Signatures, or another appropriate venue. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Forbidding redirects wasn't in the proposal, and seems well out of scope. There are plenty of users who link only their redirected user page in their sig - even just among admins, I can think of four just off the top of my head. Making us choose between being redlinks or not seeing pings from new users who just cut-and-paste the now-mandated user talk: link can't be the intended effect here. —Cryptic 02:41, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I see what you mean; the "Outcome" has a result that does not appear to have been proposed or discussed on the MW talk page or in the related task for signature links, T237700: For clarity, there must be at least one local link that is not a redirect. The developers did make some minor errors in their statements in the phab tasks, that they later revised when asked for clarification, so maybe this is one of them. You might want to ask at mw:Talk:New requirements for user signatures. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Cryptic, AIUI your sig will be fine, as are the sigs of the other three editors you link. You are providing a direct link to your actual userpage. The fact that your actual userpage redirects elsewhere is not important. The "redirect" thing is about people whose usernames have changed, but whose sigs point only to their old usernames. I should figure out a better way to explain that on the page.

Anyone who's curious about a specific sig (yours or someone else's) can check a tool set up by AntiCompositeNumber. Compare, e.g., what it says at https://signatures.toolforge.org/check/en.wikipedia.org/Cryptic against what it says about this outdated signature at nlwiki. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:33, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I can't imagine how it could made to not work - would it validate my sig every time I signed? If not, what's to stop me from unredirecting my userpage, setting my sig, and then redirecting it again?

My real concern is that a mismatch between documented and actual behavior is a bug, and there might be nobody around who remembers the context n years from now when someone helpfully fixes it. —Cryptic 19:16, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I updated the page to "there must be at least one local direct link (not via a redirect, e.g. from old username) to one of those pages", I hope that makes it clear. (As a side note, it would indeed validate the signature every time you sign, because you can use substituted transclusions in the signature, and we can't really "validate" pages you transclude in your signature when you edit them.) Matma Rex talk 20:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Am I mistaken, or have the 'languages' and 'in other projects' links in the sidebar changed their order? I'm sure I used to look above languages to find the link to Commons, but now I have to scroll down the page to find it. I've seen Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2020 left sidebar update (but only after the fact), but that doesn't seem to cover this change. Does anyone know what happened, or am I misremembering? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi Mike, I remember hearing about someone moving this higher as a result of reader research, but now I can't remember who told me about it. Perhaps it's part of the mw:Desktop improvements project? Or it might have been the mw:Language team. If you have mw:Compact Language Links enabled (I do at most wikis, but not here), then the amount of scrolling is reduced. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:50, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

This is phab:T254546. --Izno (talk) 21:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I am looking for continued discussion on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 180#Proposal: Allow wikilinks and other wikimarkup from tooltip text to be displayed on WP image pages so that the proposal will be either accepted or rejected. The proposal is for Media Viewer captions autogenerated from the Template:! text in a photomotage to support wikitext, especially bolding, italics, and wikilinks. It seems that allowing this requires minimal software changes. :@RexxS:--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 19:13, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm in favour of auto-creating useful captions for images displayed by the Media viewer, however that may come about. I'll ping @Naypta and Sdkb: as they also expressed interest in the original proposal. --RexxS (talk) 19:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I would also be in favour of this.StormcrowMithrandir 22:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi

I am the editor-in-chief of the ILAE Wikipedia Project, project trying to bridge the gap between academicians and Wikipedia. We are trying to set up the project page and need help with the use of templates and would be glad to get inputs from interested volunteers. Furthermore, any inputs on how to go ahead with the project are welcome. Diptanshu 💬 07:17, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Deferred changes (WP:DEFER) is the idea that edits can be put into Special:PendingChanges for review, by edit filters, ORES (active/passive), and bots (passive). Active defer is where the edit is not shown until approval, while passive defer simply puts the edit into a queue for review, but does not stop people from seeing it.

The purpose is to reduce the visibility of damaging edits to the public, both on low traffic articles where few people see it but where it can persist for a long time, and on high traffic articles where those are reverted faster but are viewed by more people. Such damaging edits are particularly problematic on BLPs. There is a general aversion to moving edit filters to block, for fear of causing false positives, but this would alleviate those concerns by providing an option for a middle ground between blocking and logging. It is better explained on the page: WP:DEFER

Deferred changes was unanimously approved by the community in a 2016 RfC. It is listed on phab T150594 as blocked on development. The proposer, Cenarium, began coding the technical aspects to implement this RfC, but disappeared before finishing & merging it in. The work he did is public and he was near completion. I pulled it and modified it to make it work with the latest version of the extension, and would like to work on finishing it and getting it deployed onto en.

So I have two questions:

1. Do you think deferred changes would still be useful on en?
2. If so, how do I get this reviewed and merged in (after development is complete)? DC is part of the FlaggedRevs extension (used for pending changes), which is not very popular amongst WMF developers.

Thanks, ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:27, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

How does this differ from WP:PC2, a feature that we rejected a few years back? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 06:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Redrose64, PC2 (WP:PC2016) is about keeping an article subject to pending changes indefinitely, to a greater level than PC1. The amended PC2 was to include autoconfirmed users for review as well, but not extended-confirmed users, hence making PC2 a lesser alternative to extended-confirmed protection. (the original PC2 was to make all non-reviewers subject to review)

Deferred changes is about using abuse filters, ORES and bots to put edits into the queue (technically speaking, achieved by putting the article into pending changes right before the edit is submitted, and removing the pending changes once the edit is approved). Articles are not kept in pending changes with DC. And AbuseFilters can control, with precision, which edits should be sent into review. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:27, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• I can see possible uses for this, certainly. There might be issues that since the edit filter team categorise most filter actions purely internally, and this would be a good compromise option in many cases, there might be a major spike in edits in the queue. @Redrose64: how does it handle non-problematic edits (by non-reviewers) that come in behind it? Do they stack like would be the case for a normal PC page in those circumstances? PC is denied on pages that may be too active (stacked edits being very hard to handle in PC review) - edit filters work on types of edits, across all articles. I can see issues with an edit being queued and every other edit on a busy page stacking up Nosebagbear (talk) 21:32, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
• (1) I would definitely support bringing the feature to enwiki, at least for edit filters. We can develop a guidelines about when to use it later. For the reasons Nosebagbear suggests, it might be a bad idea to enable this on a "busy" anti-vandalism filter. But it would be immensely useful when dealing with some kinds of LTAs; the LTA might not bother, knowing that most readers won't see anything, and the occasional false positives won't overwhelm the pending changes queue. (2) @ProcrastinatingReader: For edit filter integration, at least, you'd want to talk to Daimona Eaytoy about this. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Suffusion of Yellow: Thank you for notifying me. There's already a task for edit filter integration, T51770. Personally, I would be very happy with that change, as I see a huge potential for various situations (especially involving LTAs, as you mentioned). OTOH, I do not plan to work on that, because it seems that the integration wouldn't be easy (and also because I have 0 experience with FlaggedRevs). --Daimona Eaytoy (Talk) 09:29, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

  Daimona Eaytoy, I saw that task (and the others Cenarium made). I spoke with a couple of WMF developers on IRC who effectively stated any changes to FlaggedRevs were practically dead, since nobody wants to review any code for it due to fear of breaking it. T185664. Most of the code is already done, and was reviewed/looked at back in 2016, and this particular change is not so difficult or complex because it hooks in rather nicely into FlaggedRevs, hence I'd hoped it would be easier to get it approved and merged now, but despite some attempts I can't find a reviewer who would be willing to help me move this forward. Hence I'm not too sure where to go from here. From my understanding of the review process, I need a reviewer (or multiple, in this case, I suppose) to take a look and one to give a +2 to get it merged? Though, seems nobody is willing to review code for FlaggedRevs and consider giving that +2. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:37, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

  Suffusion of Yellow, Nosebagbear: appreciate your comments. I have some thoughts I can add?

  • Queue size: Queue size can be controlled due to the power and precision of edit filters. For initial testing in production, EFMs can limit usage to a subset of pages defined by a category (eg a selection of highly vandalised BLPs), or certain forms of LTA, to gauge reaction and impact on queues.
    • there might be a major spike in edits in the queue. The ability for reviewers to deal with queues has been raised. I think the issues in scale come down to a misunderstanding of the reviewer role. The review process is (formally speaking) only intended to remove vandalism or patent nonsense, obvious copyvios and BLP violations. In practice, it has turned into content curation where reviewers feel they cannot approve a review unless the content is properly vetted, like edit requests, resulting in larger queues. We have almost 7,500 reviewers (more than we have rollbackers). To assist with quick approvals of deferred edits, the following may help:
      • Huggle / SWViewer integration, to allow patrollers to quickly determine if an edit is good. Huggle already has good edit functionality. Ideally some highlighting to make it clear that this is a deferred change, so users realise they need to mark it as "good" for it to be reviewed, rather than just skip it. Patrollers can see edits within minutes, so this would ensure low queue times for deferred content. I propose only working on this if it turns out queue management is problematic, and wouldn't recommend this for an initial release.
      • Highlighting deferred changes within Special:PendingChanges (eg red background), to make clear that reviewers should only review for edits not being vandalism or BLP violations, rather than aiming to entirely vet the content. This could result in a greater chance of error, but I think any vandalism prevented is a net positive, and since the current default is that edits go into live anyway, a reviewer accidentally approving a possibly problematic change is not much of a problem compared to the status quo imo - it'll just get picked up by a patroller or an editor more familiar with the page. To throw an extra idea in the air, perhaps the standard for approval can vary with each edit filter (LTA filters going into defer queue may have different 'not good' criteria to BLP filters, so each filter being able to leave a couple of guidelines for the reviewer on what constitutes a 'pass' may be helpful). Sometimes reviewers aren't sure whether to accept a revision, so they leave it for someone else. This extra clarity, which is variable on the reason the edit was flagged, could help reviewers feel more confident in approving/rejecting.
    • how does it handle non-problematic edits (by non-reviewers) that come in behind it? Do they stack like would be the case for a normal PC page in those circumstances? That's correct. Although, the PC queue will only show the flagged edit (even though the others are technically also 'pending', they should be auto-approved if the problematic one is). The difference in behaviour also comes from whether the defer is active or passive (explained above):
      • Active: The visible page is the stable (pre-edit) version, but when users go to edit they see the latest version (just like current PC). No content splits, simply a delay on when the change goes live (until problematic edit is reviewed). With the measures mentioned above, this time should ideally be low
      • Passive: The visible version and the edit version are both the latest (unstable). The edit is sent to the pending changes queue, but it goes live as well, so the queue only serves for checking after the fact, to ensure no problematic edits are missed. In this form, it causes no visible "disruption" to the wiki.
  • Regarding guidelines on when to use: the RfC approved usage but didn't define guidelines, as you've noted. Hence, I presume discretion would fall onto EFMs and the BAG for edit filters and bot usage respectively. My personal opinion is that further guidelines are not required; EFMs already have discretion in when to move from log -> block, and I think they're also right to use discretion on when to use filters. The BAG should also be competent to decide, ideally with consultation of the EFMs, in which cases it would be appropriate for a bot to take on the passive flagging role. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:27, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

When I go to "what links here" and then "Show redirects only", I'm taken to https://dispenser.info.tm/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=[where I'm linking from], which gives me a security warning. Then when I bravely continue I get one of various ad pages, like Norton or EasyFileConvert. Am I misconfigured, or did the URL get misdirected? David Brooks (talk) 19:41, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I tried it again, and now it's just a blank page; hopefully that means it's getting mended? David Brooks (talk) 19:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@DavidBrooks: The domain has lapsed, and you're being sent to a parking page. The tool maintainer probably hasn't renewed the domain. Pinging Dispenser, although they've not been around for a number of months. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 19:53, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Dispenser formerly had a number of tools hosted on WMF servers and all was well with the world. Around 2013-14, the WMF decided that any tool which they hosted would need to be open source; but Dispenser was not happy with this, and moved their tools to private servers. This means that if problems occur with those tools, we at Wikipedia can do nothing about it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

What you can do about it is remove the link from Special:WhatLinksHere, if only to protect the innocent from potential harm. David Brooks (talk) 21:08, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

DavidBrooks, give me a sec. I'll get rid of it. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 21:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

DavidBrooks, aaaaand gone. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 21:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. I would imagine a replacement would be pretty easy to cook up (not volunteering!) David Brooks (talk) 21:19, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

DavidBrooks, not from me. I've got a full plate already. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 21:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Back in August-September 2014 when all this kicked off, volunteers were invited to write replacement tools that would satisfy the T&Cs of the WMF. I don't recall much in the way of positive response. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:41, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Redrose64, Cyberpower678, and DavidBrooks: It's a trivial task to do; the relevant data is already available through the MediaWiki Action API, it just takes throwing a user interface of some sort on it. I'll try and cook something up when I get the time - no promises, but should be doable. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 21:54, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

In fact... why is this even necessary? MediaWiki already exposes this information to the user nicely on WhatLinksHere! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 10:56, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Necessary, probably not, handy, yep. Not too long ago I needed lists of all redirects for a whole series of templates. While the list from the tool needed massaging to get it into the form that I needed, using the tool's list saved me the initial step of trimming the extraneous text from each redirect:

Wikipedia:VP(T) (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit) → Wikipedia:VP(T)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:10, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Dispenser has a few other links as well which we might consider removing or revisiting. --Izno (talk) 22:30, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I seem to recall (sooo long ago) there was a "show transclusions only" link that User:Cyberpower678 also deleted. Was that also from Dispenser? David Brooks (talk) 22:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

DavidBrooks, there was only one link there when I deleted it. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 22:40, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Cyberpower678, you also removed the link to https://tools.wmflabs.org/templatecount from MediaWiki:Linkshere, but the tool is working perfectly fine. – BrandonXLF (talk) 23:23, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

BrandonXLF, should be fixed —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 00:59, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Cyberpower678, I only see the label "External tools: with nothing after it. Of course, I can see transclusions by selecting "Hide links" and "Hide redirects"; maybe with appropriate messaging they can be the only UI we need. Or a set of three complementary "Show only..." links. David Brooks (talk) 03:36, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

It's looks like it's because the comment "ends" with —-> instead of --> in MediaWiki:Linkshere. – BrandonXLF (talk) 05:20, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

A few more, inaccessible to us mere mortals. --Izno (talk) 11:06, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

And actually, there's a lot of uses that may be less-centralized... --Izno (talk) 12:32, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Are the changes mentioned here related to the fact that I cannot find the "transclusion count" tool (I think that's what it was called) in "pages that link to"? For example, Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Convert shows "external tools" with no external tools. I don't think this tool had anything to do with Dispenser. Johnuniq (talk) 05:32, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I found the problem and fixed it (at MediaWiki:Linkshere). Johnuniq (talk) 07:15, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Can someone look at Template:Automated tools/core and decide what to do with the dispenser links in that template? Thanks. -- WOSlinker (talk) 11:11, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I removed that whole mass of unnecessary complexity. --Izno (talk) 12:32, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

The "transclusion count" tool was from Jarry1250 (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:45, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

From a security point of view, encouraging editors to visit an external website (dispenser.info.tm) was always dubious. Template:Automated tools/core has now been fixed by replacing dispenser.info.tm with what is presumably its IP address (69.142.160.183). That has to be a temporary measure because it is really unsatisfactory to encourage people to assume that a random IP is not spreading malware or tracking the IP address and other identifying features of editors. Training editors to accept a broken https certificate is super bad. Somehow, the Dispenser tools have to be brought into WMF toolforge, even if with reduced functionality. Johnuniq (talk) 00:55, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Some of the source code is available at http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/sources/. – BrandonXLF (talk) 05:01, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

There is source code, yes, but it is All Rights Reserved (as I see nothing stating otherwise). Any replacement tools would have to be re-written from scratch to be freely-licensable and able to be hosted on WMCS servers. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:01, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Let's just use the 69.142.160.183 address if it works? This tool is sorely missed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:54, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

It does not work, as it generates an unfixable SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_DOMAIN error. It is an incredibly bad idea to link to a page with an HTTPS error, as it will train people to click through HTTPS errors in the future. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:03, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

That's what I'm doing, using http: rather than https: and taking the risk that eavesdroppers may get a few seconds' advance notice of my Wikipedia edits. (I had the IP address squirrelled away from previous outages.) However, if the domain name has expired, there's a risk that the hosting service may soon expire too leaving us with no tools. I find dabfix and dablinks particularly useful, but editors who work in other areas may have other opinions. Certes (talk) 23:15, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Hey, I was wondering if some enterprising editor (familiar with code, unlike me,) would be willing to make a template out of my sandbox, to be used by WP:CVUA trainers upon students completion of a course. The way I see it, such a template would require three parameters - grade, link, and sign. If this isn't feasible, or would take a lot of time, that's fine, this all is for conveniences sake alone. I was thinking it would look something like this: {{CVUA-completion|grade=...|link=...|sign=...}}. If more details are required, please just ask! (But do try to ping me, thanks.) Thanks! -- puddleglum^2.0 00:32, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Puddleglum2.0 OK so I merged the grade parameter with the score parameter so grade= and score= will do the same. I have moved it to {{CVUA-completion}}, so there you go with your template! {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 05:05, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay so I just realized there is Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Academy/Graduate. DId I just waste a lot of time just on this? Is this template even needed though? Okay well if it gets TfDed, ... {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 05:22, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Can I Log In, Thanks a ton! I don't think you wasted your time - that template is from an older version of CVUA (The entire program underwent a complete overhaul a couple years ago) thanks again, your work is appreciated! Cheers -- puddleglum^2.0 05:33, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

CVU Academy Graduate

Congratulations from both myself and all of the instructors at the Counter Vandalism Unit Academy on your successful completion of the Counter Vandalism Unit Academy. You completed your final exam with a score of 0%. Well done! Further information on your achievement can be found on this page. It has been a pleasure working with you these past few weeks, and thank you for offering to help out in removing vandalism from the project's articles. If you ever need any advice or assistance in the future, you're always welcome on my talk page. Hope to see you around! ~~~~

Yeah I think the wording after the score may need some work, but there is zero chance that a CVUA student will fail. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 05:42, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Hey all, I'm looking at WikiProject India's membership list and I'm curious how many of those people even edit anymore.

Is there a tool in existence that I can load in my common.js that can look at that list and tell me how long the person has been inactive? These lists are rather pointless if you never know who's current. Alternatively, is there a tool that can periodically cull out the name of any user who lapses in activity for a set time. Kind of like how we have talk page archivers remove content? Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:48, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb: I made a one-off script to do something very similar to this this as part of my software for the Feedback Request Service. You can read my Golang code for doing the pruning here, but if there's appeal for something similar, I'm happy to get something configured to work with that more broadly. It's slightly complicated by the fact that it really needs a direct database connection, as standard MediaWiki outputs don't really cut it for that type of high-volume usage, but that's doable through the Toolforge DB replicas (and indeed is how I did it before). Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 17:05, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Naypta: I probably should have mentioned in my request that I am not technically minded, so my eyes will gloss over if I read code.   Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:21, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, there are probably tons of these sorts of lists spread across the project. Here's another: Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Subtle Vandalism Taskforce. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:25, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb: Ack, sorry - I have a tendency to techbabble a lot of the time that I ought to kick! Perhaps it would be an idea to create a web interface for de-cluttering these sorts of lists, is that the sort of thing you were looking for? i.e. put in a list title, tell it the format people's names are in on the page, and it will check the names and get back to you with updated wikitext and the removed names. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 20:02, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

If there was an easy way to do this, then yes. Take this script for instance: User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/cuStaleness.js. When I'm looking at a sockpuppet investigation report with multiple users reported, the script automatically tells me how long ago a user edited, and calculates whether or not any CheckUser data likely exists, since data goes stale after 90 days. It reports this information to the right of the user's name. I guess it identifies user names by looking at templates like {{checkuser}}, {{checkip}} and {{SPI archive notice}}. So even something that would overlay this data on a preview page would enable someone to manually delete any inactive account. Although the more awesome tool would be something that you leave on the page, like a talk page archiver, that checks once a month or every three months, and deletes anybody who hasn't edited in a year, let's say. I dunno, maybe that's not worth the effort.

One thing I notice, is that most of the names at Wikipedia:WikiProject India/Members are formatted like {{Mailing list member|user=Aaqib Anjum Aafi}}. So if we removed non-active members, it would potentially help reduce needless mailing list traffic. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 21:09, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb: Either of a web interface or a bot to do it are possible; I'll wait for a few days and see if anyone else here points anything out that already exists. Failing that, I can add this to the list of things for me to do   My only concern with a bot doing it is the potential for abuse - for someone to maliciously use the bot to remove people automatically who oughtn't be removed. Any ideas as to how to avoid that would be thoroughly welcome! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 21:53, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Naypta: I've asked at WT:IN to see if anyone even wants me to pare down their list at all. I suppose I'll wait for some feedback before inadvertently wasting your time.   Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 22:00, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Hey Cyphoidbomb, it looks like the only expressed opinion was positive, and looking for use on another WikiProject too. Have you found a tool already to do it? If not, I might design a template that lets people configure a bot to automatically remove users who've not edited in a long time from lists, and sends those users a message informing them of that (+removes indeffed users automatically). Would need to get it through BRFA, but I think it's probably worth it - it'd be useful for me in managing the FRS, and it seems like it might get used elsewhere too   Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 11:57, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Naypta: If you don't mind creating, it I wouldn't mind using it! Thanks! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 15:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb:   BRFA filed!   Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb, the WikiProject I participate in most simply redirected their manual participants list to the one created automatically by bot. In this case, the equivalent page is WP:WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject India. --Izno (talk) 19:14, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

(The question of why the bit hasn't run for that project in 3 months would be a good one for the operator. --Izno (talk) 19:27, 14 June 2020 (UTC))

@Izno: Interesting, but then I wonder what value is in having a massive list of participants if you can't tell who's actually interested in the subject area (as opposed to being a casual passer-by), who's a vandal, who's since hopped to another IP, etc. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:29, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I think that page is just representative of how WikiProjects aren't really worked on actively. Mine is one of the active WikiProjects, with some 80 people who regularly contribute to the WikiProject pages directly and are accordingly in the interesting list. --Izno (talk) 19:39, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Izno: Worth noting that, as that page points out, it's a list of active editors who happen to be editing articles within the purview of that WikiProject, and "distinct from a membership list that the WikiProject may maintain". Definitely useful though! Nuh - I'd not refreshed the page since Cyphoidbomb's comment above. Sorry for the needless ping! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 19:43, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Why Gaurav Taneja article is not showing on Google search Princepratap1234 (talk) 12:51, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Because it's only four days old. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

See more at Wikipedia:Controlling search engine indexing#Indexing of articles ("mainspace"). PrimeHunter (talk) 10:43, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of examples of signatures set off in monotype, like Ctvaughn555 did here. This is due to leading whitespace. Has something changed recently in some tool (Twinkle, maybe?) which is causing this? Or some global CSS update? -- RoySmith (talk) 15:28, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@RoySmith: they may have just entered a space, examples here aren't showing the problem. Note, that user is not using a custom sig either. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:15, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I haven't noticed more of this lately than the usual new users who don't know to avoid leading spaces. The double signature and formatting in your example indicates Ctvaughn555 signed with a leading space. Reports there aren't supposed to be manually signed. A signature without leading space is automatically added to the post by {{SPI report}}. In this case it became the second signature. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:21, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

PrimeHunter, OK, I might have just noticed a false pattern. Regarding Reports there aren't supposed to be manually signed, there's a generic problem around that. Many of our tools and templates automatically add a signature (like the reply tool I'm using now), but many don't. Unless you're familiar with the particular tool, there's no way of knowing. This particular tool has a preview function, so I can see that it's adding my signature. Most don't. There should be (a lot) more standardization around this. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:09, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Why is it so technically difficult to edit around names written in Jewish and Arabic print? GoodDay (talk) 13:36, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Arabic and Hebrew are written right-to-left, while English is written left-to-right. In other words, in "ABCD" the leftmost letter ("A") comes first and the rightmost ("D") last, while in "אבגד" the rightmost letter ("א") is first and the leftmost ("ד") is last. Modern browsers try to take this into account in mixed text, meaning that in "ABCD אבגד EFGH" even though "א" is adjacent to "D" in the character stream and "ד" is adjacent to "E", when displayed correctly it appears the other way around. What's worse, numbers and most punctuation aren't inherently left-to-right or right-to-left, instead they pick up the directionality of adjacent text, which can result in things like date ranges that are intended to be left-to-right being interpreted as right-to-left instead. Wikitext sometimes doesn't help matters, as the directionality handling can have different results when applied to the plain-text markup (which includes a lot of punctuation) versus the resulting HTML.

Fortunately, the fix is usually pretty easy if you can manage to do it: Adding ‎ or {{lrm}} after the right-to-left text will generally make things render sensibly both in the editor (because of the Latin alphabet letters "lrm") and in the rendered HTML (because the resulting invisible character is also considered strongly left-to-right). Anomie⚔ 14:11, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Ok, because countless times, I've had to give up on making gnome edits, like fixing dashes. GoodDay (talk) 14:29, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

There are templates such as {{Rtl-lang}}, {{Lang-he}} and {{Lang-he-n}} that you can wrap around, e.g, Hebrew, text. They won't solve all problems, but they should help. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:32, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The advice I got once (from a dev) was that when all else failed, to type the article in an e-mail message, and then copy that and paste it into the editing window. The visual editor is usually pretty good at handling bidirectional text, but fixing a problem (rather than typing new content) can be difficult. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:02, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, for anyone who's interested in this subject, I love and recommend Mooeypoo's talk for Strange Loop. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

18:48, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Please note that "The developers" in the third item means the people at Wikimedia Deutschland working on their own community wishlist, so if you have questions about this, you want to find Robyn and Max. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Here is how an external link works. If you type [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ not a not funny link], it will return not a not funny link. This means that inside single brackets, everything after the first space is the name of the external link.

So when you have a template that contains [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:BlockList&wpTarget={{{User|<includeonly>{{REVISIONUSER}}</includeonly>}}}], and the User parameter is any spaced username, like Can I Log In, you expect it to go here, but instead it returns I Log In. Spaces in URLs like that would be replaced with + or %20. If you google "Never Gonna Give You Up", in the URL, it will show "Never+Gonna+Give+You+Up" or "Never%20Gonna%20Give%20You%20Up".

I'm no Lua programmer, so I'm wondering if someone more technical than me knows Lua and know a solution to this (e.g. replacing " " with "+" or "%20"). {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 18:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Can I Log In: You may want something like unspacedString = mw.ustring.gsub("Spaced string", " ", "%%20"). The double % is needed because "%2" would otherwise denote the second captured substring. Further details: mw:Extension:Scribunto/Lua reference manual. (I'm not sure whether your signature asks me to reply to your talk page rather than here, so I kept the reply with the question.) Certes (talk) 19:24, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

You want an existing MediaWiki feature: {{urlencode:}} at mw:Help:Magic words#URL data. Many special characters in usernames also require encoding. If you also use {{fullurl:}} then it becomes more portable when other wikis copy our templates. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:34, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

You may also want plainlinks to avoid the external link icon: <span class=plainlinks>[{{fullurl:Special:BlockList|wpTarget={{urlencode:{{{User|<includeonly>{{REVISIONUSER}}</includeonly>}}}}}}}]</span>. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:40, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I've already tested the URL magic words; it brings similar results. Not a solution. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 20:23, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

mw.uri.encode( string, "PATH" ) might give you the best of both worlds. Certes (talk) 20:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Not a solution to what? It works fine in your example: <span class=plainlinks>[{{fullurl:Special:BlockList|wpTarget={{urlencode:Can I Log In}}}}]</span> produces [16]. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:53, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Hmm {{urlencode:}}. Didn't get that the first time. WIll do. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 21:43, June 19 2020 (UTC)

@Can I Log In: You can just use the normal wikilink to Special:BlockList/Can I Log In in this case. Nardog (talk) 00:59, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

This is already resolved; you have misunderstood my intentions.

I am trying to rework {{Edit partially-blocked}}, discussed at VPP, now at TfD. Like other types of edit request, particularly pending changes, which quotes Furthermore, reviewers should take special consideration of the reason given for protection and attempt to uphold it. I wanted something similar to that, in this case, attempting to uphold the reason for the partial-block. Due to things I didn't know and how external links work, I came here for help just for that. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 01:47, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Out of nowhere, unvisited links are blue and underlined and visited ones are black and underlined. What in the world happened? I just saw this spontaneously change in my browser when I loaded a new tab. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:28, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

What on Earth?! This even happened at WikiIndex... At en.voy, links aren't underlined and are black. Wow. Something very odd is going on in my browser. This is outside the scope of en.wp but if anyone wants to be nice enough to help me diagnose it, that would be great. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:33, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay, it was the Firefox Relay extension: it got updated today and went haywire. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:58, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

The template Template:Railway companies disestablished in year cat generates different categories for some years eg see Category:Railway companies disestablished in 1876 and Category:Railway companies disestablished in 1875. For 1876 they are “Transport companies disestablished in 1876” and “1876 in rail transport” while for 1875 they are “1875 disestablishments” and “1875 in rail transport”. I think they should all be as for 1876 and I would create all the extra “Transport companies disestablished in XXXX” categories needed (template available), but cannot do so while “Railway companies disestablished in 1875” etc does not generate the “Transport companies disestablished in 1875” category etc needed. Hugo999 (talk) 13:42, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

It's good when templates are coded to not add red links to categories. Are you saying that after 655,000 edits you don't know how to create a page? Just enter the wanted page name in the search box including namespace and click the red link on the resulting page. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:31, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The most recent article I created (about a notable Himalayan expedition) was 1960–61 Silver Hut expedition, but here I wish to create categories not articles (and will create the missing categories if the template option is changed). Hugo999 (talk) 21:31, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Categories are created the same way as articles. If there is no existing red link then make a search on the page name Category:Transport companies disestablished in 1875, and click the red link after "You may create the page". Or make a red link in any other way, or modify a url, or do whatever you do with articles. The template checks whether the category exists and only adds it in that case. I think that's good, not bad. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:09, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Having created Category:Transport companies disestablished in 1874 and Category:Transport companies disestablished in 1875; the 1875 category is empty and the 1874 category only contains a canal company article I added, i.e. neither has as subcategories Category:Railway companies disestablished in 1874 or Category:Railway companies disestablished in 1875. And though there are earlier-created Transport company categories for 1871, 1872, 1874 and 1876 they are not accessible from the new 1874 and 1875 categories, which show only their own year. Anyway this method of searching by year is laborious compared with clicking on a redlink in the “Railway companies disestablished in XXXX” category; for 19th century disestablishments there are c70 “Railway” categories compared with c15 Transport categories, leaving c55 Transport categories to create. Hugo999 (talk) 01:58, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Another method to create a new category or other page is to manually modify the url of a similar page to get for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Transport_companies_disestablished_in_1877, and then click the "Create" tab if the page doesn't already exist. A null edit on Category:Railway companies disestablished in 1875 listed it in Category:Transport companies disestablished in 1875. A purge updates a page itself but a null edit is needed to update link tables. The missing links to other years in the decade in the box at Category:Transport companies disestablished in 1875 is an unrelated issue caused by [17] by BrownHairedGirl. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:34, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

There seems to be three issues here:

1. The navigation templates don't create red links. This has been a common feature of catnav templates since I created and deployed Template:LinkCatIfExists2 in Feb 2018. The greying out of redlinks was soon adopted by {{Navseasoncats}}, so greying out is now used on over 300,000 categories. If @Hugo999 really wants to go back to having navboxes which spew out redlinks, then they can propose that at WT:CATP ... though I doubt there will be much support.
   I am very surprised that after over 650k in nearly 4 years, Hugo seems unsure how to create a page without a redlink. Like others above, if I don't want to type it out, I just edit the URL of a similar category.
2. To create a long of run of categories in a series, I use a text editor to create a list, and do a quick AWB run to create the categories. Creating these series manually seems to me to be a form of masochism: about 20- times as much work, with less accuracy. If Hugo wants to post on my talk explaining which series they think is needed I will be happy to do the work (unless I think creation would be a bad idea).
3. The {{Transport_companies_disestablished_in_year_cat}} and {{Transport_companies_established_in_year_cat}} populate "Category:Transport companies (dis)established in YYYY]] only if it exists. As PrimeHunter noted, a null edit is needed to make that happen ... or alternatively, if a lot of such purges are needed, i just tweak the cat header template, which makes it purge all transclusions. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:06, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl: There was also the unrelated issue of [18] making greyed out years for categories which do exist. It can be fixed by adding a pipe near the end of {{Navseasoncats with decades below year|Transport companies disestablished in |{{Title year}}|}} to indicate an empty third parameter, or by changing {{{3}}} to {{{3|}}} in {{Navseasoncats with decades below year}} to allow not having a third parameter. I usually prefer the latter approach. Editors will often assume they can just omit a parameter and don't have to explicitly pass it as empty. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Ooops. Thanks for pointing out my error. Now fixed.

{{Navseasoncats with decades below year}} needs to be luafied. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Well using my sandbox I could create the missing categories “Transport companies disestablished in XXXX” quickly. Mainly 19c but there were some (c11) missing in the 20th century. Then an edit/save of each “Railway companies disestablished in XXXX” category populated each Transport category. There were c12 “Airline disestablishments in XXXX” to transfer to the “Transport companies dis… “ category. And none of the “Transport companies dis… “ categories showed the “greylink” problem. Thanks for advice.Hugo999 (talk) 04:59, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I reported it at the template page and EDU noticeboard few months back but I guess those are low visibility places. Could a friendly gnome fix this? Shouldn't be that hard, just need to add a paramater/functionality to display external link in a template. See Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#Edu_assignment_template_still_can't_link_to_dashboard for my recent repost of the problem. TIA. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:53, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I would like to update table here [1], but the stable versions/dates are hardcoded. There exist templates such as [2] but I can't find a way to output only one parameter (eg only release date). Furthermore, those templates include a ref, that I dont need. Is there a way to kind of automate the table update using software main page (via existing templates or wikidata)? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_server_software#Overview [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Latest_stable_software_release/Nginx — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:1811:371B:2300:1D6F:CE56:75AD:C7D2 (talk) 07:37, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Device: iPad (2017)

Browser: Safari

OS: iPadOS 13.5.1

Issue: While in source mode, the citation tool prepares a citation but doesn't add it to the article regardless of whether the citation was made automatically or manually. The issue is absent in Visual editing mode. This issue came after I updated to iPadOS 13.5.1.

Can someone file a bug report? It requires my email ID but I have chosen not to give it till I turn 18. RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 15:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, User:RedBulbBlueBlood9911. I'll file the bug report and tell the team. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for filing the report, Whatamidoing (WMF). However, I noticed another bug (Again, in the source editor) in which I can’t copy-paste Wikipedia URLs (the inbuilt linking tool still works, thankfully). Other URLs from news sites work, however… RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 05:22, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Looks like even the template addition tool is messed up now (it worked earlier today). RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 11:21, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this is a pretty serious bug. It all seems to be the same bug. The unifying factor seems to be that it can't do things that use the medium-size dialog box to insert wikitext (refs, templates, images, galleries, etc.). You can still make links, do character formatting, and insert tables. Unfortunately, I don't know how soon it will be fixed.

Tell me more about the URL problem, please? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:10, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The issue is this: when I copy-paste a URL for anything within Wikipedia (copied from Safari's address bar), the editor usually converts it to a wikilink. But for some reason, it does nothing now. RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 04:41, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Adding on to that, copy-pasting part of the URL (like kipedia.org/…) works, and the inbuilt wikilink tool also works, Whatamidoing (WMF) (pinging in case the mention in my last edit summary didn’t work). RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 04:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

In the 2017 wikitext editor, in Safari 13.1 on macOS 10.15.5, when I paste a URL to a Wikipedia article into an article, it pastes in the whole thing (i.e., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example). If I paste the URL into the link box, it turns it into a plain link (i.e., [[Example]]).

Are you getting nothing when you paste the URL straight into the article? And do you also get nothing if you use Safari's Edit > Paste and match style? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:02, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, nothing comes when I paste a URL (on iPadOS, it usually converts a URL into a wikilink automatically). And there is no "paste and match style" feature in Safari on iPadOS, Whatamidoing (WMF). RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 10:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) I don't know about RedBulbBlueBlood9911 but I can now add citation again. I've just added my first couple of references, after 3 days of being unable to. Danstarr69 (talk) 18:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) RedBulbBlueBlood9911 Actually, no I can't. I can add references in visual mode, but I still can't add references in source mode. Danstarr69 (talk) 18:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

This should be fixed by now.

RedBulbBlueBlood9911, I don't know what supposed to happen when you paste a URL into an article on iOS. The "expected" behavior varies a bit by platform. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:57, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

RedBulbBlueBlood9911, could you check the pasting behavior again, to make sure that it wasn't fixed along with the other problems? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:59, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

^[1] 2020 United Nations Security Council election

Yep, citations, templates and automated wikilinks are all working as demonstrated here, Whatamidoing (WMF). Thanks for your assistance! RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 06:59, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm glad it's working again. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:35, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Is this the proper place to file WP:Refill error reports, like this and this? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:19, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

GoingBatty, well it sort of depends on what the api request returns. I don't have time to test now, but citoid and refill are basically a wrapper around zotero, so check if it works there. If Zotero has the same problem, you need to fix it in Zotero. The API results can be retrieved using this, if you understand a bit of programming. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:26, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

i mean quick check with https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/jul/01/riddle-of-the-sands-the-truth-behind-stolen-beaches-and-dredged-islands.. That's not the guardian, It's the guardian's magazine The Observer, republished via the guardian website. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:27, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

The Observer is the Sunday edition of the Guardian, not its magazine. There is also an Observer Magazine that comes as a supplement. Like most of the British papers the Sunday papers started off as separate enterprises, with separate editorial staff, journalists and ownership. Since the Guardian acquired the Observer in 1993 the amount of separation has decreased, although the Observer still has a separate editor. The website makes little distinction. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:54, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

And Reflinks is still down - there's no way to fill in bare URLs right now, unless there's a tool I'm missing. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 22:06, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Ser there is Citer. It is laborious since you can only do one ref at a time and, as with the other two, there are some it won't format - PDFs chief among them. Even more laborious is doing them manually but that option does work. Refill has been down for a few hours but reflinks has been down since last week. Trying to get someone to tell us what is happening is difficult to say the least. I wish there was a Wikipedia:Refill noticeboard or maybe a Wikipedia:fixing bare url tools noticeboard where the boffins and us plebes could keep each other up to date. It would seem to make sense on a collaborative project. MarnetteD|Talk 05:17, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@MarnetteD: Yeah...that's the thing. I feel like reFill is down often enough that we ought to have someplace to discuss issues. Any idea who oversees the workings of either tool these days

Thanks for the Citer tip - it may do in a pinch. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 05:46, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Ser I've asked a few times in the last several months. I think Cyberpower678 was working on it but that might have changed. Other than that I can't get any definitive answer. MarnetteD|Talk 05:53, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@MarnetteD: That's unfortunate, not to have a point of contact to work with. Ah, well - I'll continue to raise issues here as they happen. You have no idea how much I loathe preparing references... --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 08:06, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

MarnetteD, what about about it appears to be down. Loads fine for me. Though I would welcome anyone with more Python experience than me to help maintain this tool until I can get around to merging it with IABot. —CYBERPOWER (Around) 12:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

The Toolsforge Expand citations tool is also down. It's saying error authenticating. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 08:08, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

The C of E, that tool hasn't properly migrated to the new domain yet. Go to the old domain. https://tools.wmflabs.org/citations —CYBERPOWER (Around) 12:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Cyberpower678: Both tools remain unavailable for me this morning - I've checked both. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 14:08, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your posts Cyberpower678. Starting last Wed or Thur I would click to access Reflinks and it would try and load for a minute or so and then go blank. Today I get the big yellow warning box and the message "Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead" which has never happened before. As to Refill yesterday afternoon it would go to the "Pending - waiting for available worker" screen and just stop there. When it is working normally you can hit Ctrl+F5 to get it going but that does not work now. So as with Ser neither tool is working for me. I do appreciate how busy you are C (all one has to do look at how how many requests to fix things on your talk page) so just understand that for those of us who work on fixing bare urls this is very frustrating. MarnetteD|Talk 15:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@BStorm (WMF): Would you be able to work your magic again? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 21:40, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for coming to get me on IRC! I hadn't logged in here in a bit. This tool would restart itself when it is down if it had a sane liveness probe added to it. It won't do that on its own because it is a multi-container pod in a hand-coded deployment. We should probably get a ticket up to talk about that if nobody is able to fix the resource issues that cause it to collapse periodically. BStorm (WMF) (talk) 18:28, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Is ReFill something that can be kicked to Wikimedia (or whatever), in the same way that the XTools were? Refill seems like a "critical tool" that is very important to be kept operating for this project, and it's maybe too important to just let single editors tinker with now that its author is no longer with the project. Heck, I just saw another WP:BLP get slapped with a {{Bare URL}} tag today, and I can't easily fix it because ReFill is down. Not sure if/when Wikimedia is do another one of their "critical projects" survey, but when they do I suggest ReFill be added to that list. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 00:43, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Refill and Reflinks are both critical (not hyperbole) to formatting urls. There is some overlap in what they do but there is much that isn't. The two together can get, at a guess informed by 3 or 4 years of working with them, about 90% of the bare urls - citer and manual work gets the rest. The current situation of fixing them one at a time grows more tedious by the hour. It sure would be nice to get any info about what is going on and I reiterate that a notice board about these tools would be a benefit to the whole project now and in the future. MarnetteD|Talk 05:51, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Totally support that. ReFill is so incredibly helpful, particularly when you're doing a new article and might have 10 or more links that need fixing. I've just done Leeswood Hall manually, and it's a pain of the first order! KJP1 (talk) 05:58, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Guys, We still have a problem with Reflinks @Ser Amantio di Nicolao: . While the tool is back up now, when you try to run it, it gives you a security warning and if you bypass it then you end up getting redirected to some random website. Here is where I got redirected (I don't know if it's dodgy so don't click it unless you know please). The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 07:21, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

@The C of E: Yeah - I ran into that yesterday, too. And still didn't get Reflinks at the other end of it. ReFill also seems to still be down. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 14:12, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Worked for me just now, thanks to everyone. Caro7200 (talk) 15:55, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

While reflinks no longer goes to the security warning it when I click on it I get a blank screen labeled "info.tm" so it isn't back yet. Maybe we are a step closer though. MarnetteD|Talk

Yes - reFill works again, but Reflinks still doesn't. Still, thanks to those who worked on the issue. I do agree, though, that a longer-term solution needs to be considered, because this isn't the first time reFill has been down when I've wanted it. Although I think it might be the longest. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 16:05, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

This time (and the last few times) the problem with reFill has been resolved by the Wikimedia Cloud Services team who I alerted via the #wikimedia-cloud IRC channel. Brooke has been superb. This time, the problem went away (for now) after she restarted the pod. The underlying issue remains unclear. It needs better tooling, to automatically flag to the team when there's a problem (and restart it automatically?), rather than it relying on someone pointing it out to them. It may also need a fundamental code review. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 16:42, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Having refill back is such a help. I agree that this is the longest time down for reflinks. As Ser says thanks to those who are working on these. MarnetteD|Talk 16:45, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the update Curb Safe Charmer. MarnetteD|Talk 16:45, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

It looks like translation-server (a zotero instance that citation bot uses) is also down, which the operator cannot figure out why the hostname change did that. citations is down too, but thats the account being temporarily blocked and the lack of updated OAuth credetials for user authentification (operator is too busy right now). AManWithNoPlan (talk) 22:04, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

@AManWithNoPlan: @Curb Safe Charmer: I don't want to put a damper on anything but Reflinks is still not working. I tried to run it on a userpage draft of mine and it came up blank. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 14:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

To follow up on C of E's post if anyone knows what is being done to reflinks can you please update us. Having refill back is a big help but there are several refs that it wont fix - especially those using YouTube. Reflinks also tags most (but not all) dead links with the proper template and that saves a lot of time. MarnetteD|Talk 15:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Updating to say that reflinks is still down, and it's becoming extremely aggravating. ReFill does a lot, but it doesn't do everything - reflinks helps close most of the rest of the gap. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 19:59, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Agreed @Ser Amantio di Nicolao:. I'm now getting "DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN" error messages whenever I try to run it on a page. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 07:43, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Redirects tool URL misdirected?. In the short term, since the tool is running on a private server, only Dispenser can resolve any issues. In the longer term, someone would have to replicate the functionality on the WMF toolforge server (whether via reFill or some other tool). isaacl (talk) 08:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the update. With reflibnks gone fixing these is like having one hand tied behind our back - but its better than when both hands were tied last week:-) MarnetteD|Talk 19:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I've noticed Refill 2 replacing URLs of dead sites by the current URL to which they redirect. This is sometimes unhelpful. For example, some dead sites redirect to the top level of ee.co.uk, when a deep link to an archive site would be more useful. Examples: Malagasy ariary and Broken Dog. Is this the expected behaviour? Please ping me if you reply, as this is a busy page. Certes (talk) 16:42, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

A long time ago, The John B. Sails got moved to Sloop John B, but the talk pages didn't get handled properly. Now we've got Talk:Sloop John B and Talk:The John B. Sails which forked. What's the best way to merge them at this point? -- RoySmith (talk) 17:57, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

For talk pages it is acceptable to do a text merge, in my opinion. If all the posts are signed (and unless some posts got removed or changed due to a war) then you don't have to consult the history to know who said what. EdJohnston (talk) 18:29, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

It's probably just me, and I don't expect anybody else to do this, but I like to have article history lined up with its corresponding talk page history, where possible. However in this case it already is, and no page history was ever moved ... as far as I can tell all that happened was a text merge, and both articles and their talk pages were started and grew independently of each other. Graham87 06:42, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

What if the English Wikipedia finally put a boxes with rounded corners on the Main Page? It's not 2008 anymore, I think every browser supports boxes with rounded edges. It could make the page nicer. There are already a number of other Wikipedias that do this two. My suggestion would just change the template boxes on the main page -- nothing else would change. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contributions) 16:10, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

The world moved on from rounded corners c. 2010. Even if it hadn't, the main page has a long history of requiring significant numbers of people to agree, and corners aren't where that's at. --Izno (talk) 16:34, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Izno, lol, watch the WWDC presentation and tell Apple that ;) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 06:53, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Can't do much about that eccentric pile of designers. --Izno (talk) 11:35, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @P,TO 19104: This is the wrong venue. See Izno's comment of 05:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC) at Talk:Main Page#Color scheme. It's even a FAQ for the main page itself. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:36, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I see. Thank you. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contributions) 16:49, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Special:Watchlist and Special:Contributions have pulldowns to select a namespace, for example to see my contributions to Talk: pages rather than to all pages. Is there a way to filter the list of pages in a Category? DMacks (talk) 04:28, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Not on the category page but you can make a search with incategory: and limit search results to a namespace. A link to such a search can be added to a category page when it's especially relevant like [19] in Category:Pages with syntax highlighting errors. We should probably have a template for that with mainspace as default. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:14, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I have made User:PrimeHunter/Articles in category.js. It adds a "Search articles" link under "Tools" in the sidebar on category pages. There is also a "Not articles" link which shows everything except articles. Install with this in your common JavaScript:

importScript('User:PrimeHunter/Articles_in_category.js'); // Linkback: [[User:PrimeHunter/Articles in category.js]]

PrimeHunter (talk) 08:07, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

The "Not articles" link includes Commons files in a Commons category by the same name. That was unexpected. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:17, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Very cool thanks! DMacks (talk) 13:17, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I just learned of the existence of https://fontcdn.toolforge.org/ . I can't find any documentation on the site itself; the supposed GitHub repository for the site, https://github.com/toolforge/fontcdn/, seems to indicate that the site is a caching proxy for Google Fonts (and links to a Phabricator ticket). Does anyone know more about the site? Can I use it to avoid accessing Google Fonts directly and feel assured in relying on it for privacy? isaacl (talk) 04:23, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it is basically just an anonymizing proxy for Google Fonts. It's briefly mentioned in wikitech:Help:Toolforge/Web#External_assets. – Majavah ^{talk · edits} 07:05, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks; knowing that its role is documented is helpful! isaacl (talk) 18:52, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I have found myself in a dispute with an editor who disagrees with the content of a section in an article, and appears intent on deleting the section. I don't particularly care whether the section is kept or deleted, but each time they delete the section, they break about a dozen reference templates, leaving about a dozen "Cite error" alerts in the references section. This has led me to wonder if there is perhaps a tool that can be used to remove a section while automatically preserving the citations by moving the deleted citation template to the next available call for that citation. BD2412 T 01:17, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Some articles (don't remember which ones) have the wikicode for all named references in the reference section. That would be enough to fix any reference issues from an removed section, as the software will not throw an error over citations that are only in the removed section.--Snaevar (talk) 01:55, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

That is WP:LDR but it can be controversial, so WP:CITEVAR applies. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:59, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

For books you could move the book references to the "References" section at the end and have the page references in the sections as just "^[1]" or ^[2]. But it wouldn't work for magazine or website references (?) Hugo999 (talk) 13:09, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Of course {{sfn}} works for magazine and website references. Check out Reading Southern railway station#Notes particularly the refs authored by Beeching, Cooke and Tyler. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:36, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@BD2412: AnomieBOT should eventually rescue missing citations from older revisions automatically. Not sure if there's a way to run it on demand. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:35, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

There isn't, the bot just comes by on its own after the article hasn't been edited for an appropriate period of time. It posts to User:AnomieBOT/OrphanReferenceFixer log every 6 hours or so to log what it looked at and what it did, which is also a good way for any interested humans to find things the bot can't fix. Anomie⚔ 20:34, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

If you have rollback and you look at someone's contributions, you always get a [rollback: $ edits] link next to an edit that's the most recent edit to a page. There's also a rollback bit on the latest edit in a page history, e.g. on my Monobook it's (rollback: $ edits | undo | thank) instead of (undo | thank). There's an exception: if the latest editor is the only editor to have edited a page, there's no rollback link on the history page; see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=USNS%20Albert%20J.%20Meyer&action=history for example. So why does Special:Contributions/Nyttend backup have a rollback link next to the entry for the second edit to Albert J. Meyer? If our software knows to omit it at one page, it shouldn't be too hard for the software to know to omit it on another page. Nyttend backup (talk) 23:20, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Nyttend backup, one is the core software, the one in square brackets is provided by Twinkle or another gadget/script. As you don't have access to full page history from a contributions page, the script needs to make an educated guess and it does so by only checking if the entry is the current version of the page, the only information available to it on a contributions special page. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:54, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't believe I've ever activated any scripting on this account (I've never used Twinkle, in particular), and the only rollback-related gadget I've activated is "Require confirmation before performing rollback on mobile devices", which doesn't apply because I use a laptop, not a mobile device. Both of those are core-software, as far as I know. Nyttend backup (talk) 19:38, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

This shows a quirk in MediaWiki that is not related to Twinkle or any other script. USNS Albert J. Meyer is a new redirect with a total of two edits, each by Nyttend backup. Its history shows the two edits with no rollback option. However, Special:Contributions/Nyttend backup includes "23:13, 22 June 2020 ... Albert J. Meyer ... (current) [rollback: 2 edits]". As TheDJ says (although I'm only guessing) is that the page history knows that you cannot really rollback a page creation, whereas Special:Contributions is not coded for the special case of rolling back page creation. You can see the same thing at any page that only one user has edited. For example, this history shows a user subpage with three edits, each by me, with no rollback. Yet my contribs from that time offers rollback. Johnuniq (talk) 23:21, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

This is a known bug in core, but unfortunately, it will not be fixed. I wrote patch to fix it 575764 but later closed the task phab:T244655 as declined to reflect the reality of the comments in code review which I did disagree with. After all, what the patch did is exactly what makes it to work correctly on history pages, and the database has not exploded. But you know, this minor bug is not worth it, so you just have to live with it and pretend it is normal. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:46, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ammarpad: The best choice is to write a patch removing the function in the other place then. ;) --Izno (talk) 11:33, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Izno:. Hmm, I believe you can guess that will probably not be approved either. I won't hold someone if they want give it a try though. The 'verify' option found here in HistoryPager is what makes the rollback link on history pages to not be the same with the one on Special:Contrib. – Ammarpad (talk) 13:57, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Over the past few days I've been noticing a lot of new users creating drafts under the title "Draft:Sample page/XXXXXXX", for example, Draft:Sample page/7878784. Some of these pages seem to be vandalism or test edits whereas others have usable content. What is causing this page creation pattern? If users are following a link from some tutorial page, we should fix it so that they instead create pages under proper titles. Thank you, Passengerpigeon (talk) 01:31, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Passengerpigeon [20] There you go. Haven't checked who added them yet though. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 01:58, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb may know more about those pages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:00, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I just had a look in Help:Introduction to Wikipedia, and will assume for the others; apparently it's visible for IPs. Now I'm assuming it's this way because IP editors normally don't have a personal sandbox though you could do User talk:IP address/sandbox. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 02:03, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Special:Diff/962845141 is interesting. Sdkb, would you like to comment? {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 02:03, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I see now. Why are we encouraging new users to create individual pages to test out editing, rather than directing them to the sandbox? Draftspace is for work-in-progress articles, not editing tests or other nonsense creations that the editor has no intention of submitting. Passengerpigeon (talk) 02:16, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hi all — yep, the pages with that structure are being created by IP editors. This comes about from the discussion at Help talk:Introduction#Adding interactive components, where we decided it would be good to send people going through the tutorial to sandboxes filled with preloaded content, rather than blank ones or ones they'd have to share with other editors. Logged in users are sent to create a subpage of their userspace (similar to what TWA already does), and IP editors are sent to create a page in draftspace. The template for the main sandbox is here, and there are a few others (e.g. an image-filled sandbox for the end of the image tutorial). If this is creating any issues, please feel free to let us know and we can hopefully find a way to adjust the functioning. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:22, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb Change the linking to maybe a subpage of Wikipedia:Sandbox or User talk:IP address/sandbox, or someplace else where we can track these pages.. Draft space doesn't seem appropriate. Also consider maybe a G6 template 6 months after the last edit. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 02:43, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Can I Log In, which do you think would be better? There's also Draft:Sandbox vs. Wikipedia:Sandbox. And I'd be fine with having the sandboxes self-destruct after six months; I thought that that's what tends to happen in draftspace, which is why I directed IPs there. Is there a way to trigger it automatically? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:48, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

G13 eligible draft deletions are logged at Wikipedia:Database reports/Stale drafts, but still don't do draftspace. The sandbox is okay. You could also make it a subpage of Help:Introduction. What ever works provided it's not disruptive, broad constured. I'll work on figuring out how to auto-tag G6. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 02:54, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually, keep how things are, but rework how the title works. Make it so you are prompted to enter a title. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 03:04, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

OK I've lost my mind. Do not come to be for further advice on the fundamentals of what ever this is. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 03:18, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, we should direct users to the sandbox if they want to make test edits rather than draft a new article. Passengerpigeon (talk) 03:13, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If we decide to keep this IP sandbox system, I think these would be better off as sandbox subpages, but we would need to rewrite criterion G2 for speedy deletion, because it says that subpages of the Wikipedia sandbox created as tests are eligible for deletion. As for deleting them, there's probably a way to add a G6 template to the preloaded text that is timed to appear after six months have passed, but that runs the risk of users removing it - if we were to do this, setting an admin-bot to delete the pages after six months is up would probably be a better idea. Passengerpigeon (talk) 02:55, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Let's not use G6, it's misused far too often as it is, usually as a kind of catch-all "none of the others fit" criterion. This is not its purpose. If it is desired to delete one of these IP-created pseudo-test pages, and none of the existing CSD criteria fit, and the community is unwilling to wait the six months that G13 requires, send the page to WP:MFD. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:52, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

So now that we've figured out the technical issue - we've got a different problem - why are we encouraging creating pages with random number titles? (c.f. Special:PrefixIndex/Draft:Sample_page/). This should get a wider discussion at a better venue, looks like it is just going to make admin backlogs to clean up messes that could be avoided. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:27, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: was there a somewhat well attended discussion to change this page to start creating pages with random page names? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:31, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Xaosflux, the discussion was at Help talk:Introduction#Adding interactive components; it was widely attended by Help Project standards (i.e. four people is a crowd in a ghost town) but won't come off that way if you're looking for more general consensus. I'm happy to have additional discussion, although I think it may be useful to brainstorm more about how best to achieve the desired goal (giving IP editors a prefilled sandbox where they won't run into conflicts with others) without putting burden on admins before holding a yes/no !vote. I like Passengerpigeon's suggestion above of creating an adminbot to auto-delete the pages—are there any feasibility issues with that? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:31, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: using random means these could collide, but these appear to be getting used to actually make draft articles - not to just sandbox editing tests. Is user_talk:x.x.x.x/sandbox not sufficient (possible because of the same collision concern?). Would using User_talk:x.x.x.x/sandbox with a link that auto clears it and then loads in the prefill work? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:43, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Xaosflux, a link to User_talk:x.x.x.x/sample_page that auto clears first would be perfect, although I'm not sure how to do the auto-clearing — is that a function that exists?

Regarding how people are using them, since the sandbox is linked from the editing tutorial, the intended purpose is for it to be used to learn how to edit, not to draft an article. There are a lot of people who want to create autobiographies, though, and since we (intentionally, to avoid giving people ideas) don't make Help:Your first article or the Wizard all that easy to find, some of them seem to be making their way there. Keep in mind that the population we're talking about here is somewhat bottom-of-the-barrel, since IP editors are instructed to create an account at Help:Introduction to Wikipedia (go there in an incognito window to see), so the people who are making the pages showing up here are the ones who ignored that suggestion and jumped right to the sandbox. The rest are just creating a page in their userspace. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:17, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: so it may be able to get built - using javascript, a button can call a server-stored javascript 'on click' so possibly an on-click that just clears the entire edit box and replaces it with your subst'ing template. Any scripters that follow this page want to take a try at that? If this could happen, could the number of pages be much smaller (perhaps just a few fixed sandboxes)? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:53, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

So it was discussed at Help talk:Introduction#Adding interactive components, which Sdkb admits is not a high-traffic page (although it has 240 watchers). That seems to have been a good place to start and for agreeing on the major features; but after that discussion concluded, I think that instead of going direct to implementation, it should have been taken to WP:VPR to get sitewide consensus. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:05, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I tried to replace the Pokémon Unite logo image with the one originating from here containing transparency. The moment I upload it, it takes me back to the file page, but it's still showing the previous, non-transparent version originally uploaded by a sysop. I tried following WP:PURGE - purging the cache, both on my browser and the server, and trying to visit the file page from my mobile phone, to no avail. Tried following the Commons help page for purging; still nothing, other than the fact that I can actually make enwiki show the new transparent version by using this link - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/thumb.php?f=Pokemon_Unite_logo.png&w=425. Help? theinstantmatrix (talk) 07:36, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

For me, Pokémon Unite shows the transparent version (the background is not white but the grey of the infobox). Also, at File:Pokemon Unite logo.png, the main image is the transparent version - this may not be obvious, since the chequered background isn't used unless you hover your mouse over it. That's normal for transparent images on en.wp, and commons behaves differently in this respect. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:55, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

It gets even weirder - I can fix this problem as well... if I switch out of my home network IP address and use something else like my mobile data on my phone, now it's properly showing the transparent version. But if I switch back to my home network, the problem reappears agian. theinstantmatrix (talk) 08:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

After a while of waiting I can finally see the transparent version properly on my home network end. theinstantmatrix (talk) 20:06, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like phab:T256313. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 20:10, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I just noticed that Spore: Galactic Adventures and Spore: Creepy & Cute are inaccessible, due to "spore:" being an interwiki prefix like "commons:". I know that there are ways to find out the page IDs for these, e.g. via the XML dump, and then use index.php?curid= to rename the pages. But perhaps there is an easier way? And what to rename them to? Or maybe it's better to de-activate the spore:-prefix? --bdijkstra (talk) 22:17, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Bdijkstra, Spore: Creepy & Cute is a redirect to Spore (2008 video game) and Spore: Galactic Adventures is a normal article. You can use something like quarry:query/46183 to get the page_id of a page even when it's inaccessible. – BrandonXLF (talk) 23:55, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes Quarry of course. Here is a more complete overview of inaccessible pages. These need to be renamed, or the prefix needs to be renamed. --bdijkstra (talk) 07:59, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

This has been around for some time now. It seems that section editing of COVID-19 pandemic in Peru is not possible. The only way to edit the page is to use the edit button that appears on top of the page. In addition, indefinite semi-protection was implemented in late March. Is there a bug? LSGH (talk) (contributions) 11:26, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Fixed by removing __NOEDITSECTION__.[21] PrimeHunter (talk) 11:35, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Here are currently 12 others: insource:NOEDITSECTION. Some users probably make the same search and clean it up regularly. Only Main Page should have it in mainspace. Maybe MediaWiki should have a configuration option to disable it in some namespaces. There could be a MediaWiki message with a list of pages or regex page name patterns where it's allowed. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:50, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. Someone else may have placed it there by mistake. There could be legitimate uses, since most of the search results point to BLP articles. If there are content disputes, page protection is more efficient in preventing certain user groups from editing articles. Maybe a good practice right now could be that its use discouraged in mainspace, talk pages, and elsewhere? LSGH (talk) (contributions) 12:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

There's phab:T122884 already. I actually forgot about it. – Ammarpad (talk) 13:05, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

PS, I just understand they're not really the same but related. The phab task is about __NEWSECTIONLINK__. But the problem is the same, and maybe there should be a way simple of turning them off in a particular namespace. – Ammarpad (talk) 13:51, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I could suggest that, especially in mainspace. How about a change in behavior that affects only particular sections and not an entire page? For example, when a notice about general sanctions is pinned as the first section of a talk page (not as a template before the TOC) and is intended not to be archived? LSGH (talk) (contributions) 08:28, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

It's not a bug, it's a "feature" (hint, hint) in VE. Go to an article, edit it with VE. To the left of the pencil icon (Switch editor) there is a three bars icon (Page options); click it and select "Page settings". Then select "Disable the edit links next to each heading on this page", Apply changes and Publish changes. In this case, the relevant edit was several weeks ago, so I'm surprised nobody spotted it before. Certainly it was moved by a bot later on. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:53, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I haven't seen that before. The help info beside that option suggests that it may be used "in the unusual case where that is appropriate". The page (in its previous title) was already protected before those edits were made, and the option may have been clicked or tapped with respect to the context at the time. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 08:28, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to @PrimeHunter, I’ve fixed the issue of deleted articles showing in blue. They are now back to red.

A far more annoying situation is the one where mobile editing now shows you a grey blank space with a “Tap to show image” as opposed to automatically opening. This has gone on for a month plus now & i thought I’d get used to it but no! It’s ruining my editing experience. Is there a fix for this? I use safari & have had the same settings since 2016. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Celestina007 (talk • contribs) 21:44, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Your edit will not have notified PrimeHunter (talk · contribs), because you didn't WP:SIGN it. This edit, however, will have done. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:49, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Redrose64, ahh! Thanks! A mistake on my part. The stress from all these technical challenges got to me. Celestina007 (talk) 22:01, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

On this page...

Template:Blockquote paragraphs

...LintHint gives me this error...

 Missing end tag  blockquote
 Stripped tags    blockquote
 Missing end tag  blockquote
 Stripped tags    blockquote
 Missing end tag  blockquote
 Stripped tags    blockquote

...which is caused by this Wikimarkup...

Blockquote and templates that call it, and are indented with colon (:), bulleted with asterisk (*), or numbered with number (#), will generate errors and incorrectly display anything after a newline character.
<!--Please do not "fix" these deliberate errors. -->
 
{{markup</nowiki>
|<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
:<blockquote>Paragraph 1
Paragraph 2</blockquote>
</syntaxhighlight>
|
:<blockquote>Paragraph 1
Paragraph 2</blockquote>
}}
 
{{markup
|<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
*<blockquote>Paragraph 1
Paragraph 2</blockquote>
</syntaxhighlight>
|
*<blockquote>Paragraph 1
Paragraph 2</blockquote>
}}
 
{{markup
|<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
#<blockquote>Paragraph 1
Paragraph 2</blockquote>
</syntaxhighlight>
|
#<blockquote>Paragraph 1
Paragraph 2</blockquote>
}}

This LintHint error then shows up at Template:Quote.

Is there any way to keep the display of the deliberate error without it showing up in LintHint?

If I can't do that, is there a way to stop the error from showing up on other templates? I had to go through a long "Pages transcluded onto the current version of this page" list to find the actual error.

--Guy Macon (talk) 01:34, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I miss that button; would appreciate it if it was on tablet. Oops I put it on the wrong page — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.6.124.195 (talk) 12:18, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

The menu icon with three horizontal lines at the top left of mobile pages has a "Random" link. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:56, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

We have several pages of the form User talk:aaaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd:0:0:0:0/64. Would a message there be highlighted to someone editing from aaaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd:123:45:67:89? I'm wondering whether these pages are errors, or if we have finally found a way to communicate with users who hop IP but remain within a /64. Certes (talk) 09:59, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

We have not found such a way; that's phab:T112325. --Izno (talk) 13:59, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

16:30, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I use three different devices. A few hours ago from now, I realised I required to login again on one device, I took it casually at that time. But later I had to login on second device. Just a few minutes ago, I had login on the third device too (the one I am currently using). I am aware if you log out from one device, you get logged out from all the sessions; but I hadnt logged out from any. And my pasword was changed a few weeks ago, and I had to login to all the devices with new password, that was less than 365 days. Is it just me, or has this happened to someone else too? Just as a precaution, i will change my password after posting this. —usernamekiran (talk) 06:29, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: It wasn't just you; I had to log in 30 minutes ago. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:49, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2020-June/093543.html. TL;DR is that there was some issue which caused some sessions to be cached and sent to other users. It affected only very few people but as a precaution the WMF decided to log everyone out after they fixed the issue which caused this in the first place. – Majavah ^{talk · edits} 07:26, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Likewise. It also happened to me on a non-SUL WMF wiki. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 07:22, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Me too, but remember, WP:ITSTHURSDAY a few hours ago. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:09, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Redrose64: For the records, this incident had nothing to do with the regular Thursday software version deployments but was brought up and investigated on a day that turned out to be a Thursday. :) --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:46, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Me too. Logged me out on all wikis I use, including En Wikipedia, Commons, Wikiserve. — Maile (talk) 11:19, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Maile66, Same here. S Philbrick(Talk) 13:04, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I was also logged out of three different devices mid-editing. Definitely something hinky with logons last night. It happened around 1900 Pacific. The experience made me very glad I'm using WP:2FA. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:07, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Holy cow, Users reportedly had full access to the accounts of other users. [24] (Tim Starling, WMF). ☆ Bri (talk) 16:14, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Bri: While I was reading the conversation, idk how it happened, but I read Tim's first response Sean Spicer's voice. It was weird. —usernamekiran (talk) 20:33, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I've noticed this several times in the last week or two: I create a new user's talk page, with the checkbox saying 'Watch this page' checked, but after clicking 'Publish changes', I find that the page link to watch/unwatch it says 'watch', as if the checkbox hadn't been checked. Since I've set my prefs to 'Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist' and 'Add pages I create and files I upload to my watchlist', the box is pre-checked; this isn't a matter of my forgetting to check it. It happened again just now when I welcomed an IP user. I use Monobook with JavaScript turned off, Firefox on a Mac. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 14:34, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

@BlackcurrantTea: I've seen that behavior before, but it is just a race against that tab display - if you reload the page, or check the actual entries on your watchlist, is it as expected? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:42, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

It is indeed. Maybe I never noticed the lag before. I'm glad to see it working; far preferable to checking my contributions against my watchlist. Thanks. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 15:04, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

@BlackcurrantTea: I've opened phab:T256654 on this. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:48, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

It sounds like it's readily reproducible, always good in a bug report. Thank you for doing that, Xaosflux. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 16:05, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

It's been happening to me for six months or more. Reloading the page is sufficient, but I sometimes verify by clicking the history tab. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:12, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

93.136.89.70 (talk) 20:58, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I too noticed this but thought it's just a quirk in one article. Test: this article does not exist. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 21:00, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Yep. It's showing as blue despite it actually being a red link. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 21:02, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I noticed this happening yesterday evening (26th June). The problem is across multiple wikis (en, ga, fr, de), browsers (Chrome, Firefox) and OSs (Android, Windows 10) that I have tried, so it must be due to a recent change to 'm.wikipedia' itself. Marcas.oduinn (talk) 06:49, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's a problem when editing with mobile equipment since slight spelling/capitalization errors in published wiki links aren't red. ETA on the repair, by chance?Pasdecomplot (talk)

You can make your own fix with .new {color: #BA0000;} in Special:MyPage/minerva.css. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:29, 27 June 2020 (UTC)