Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 

• Table of contents
• First discussion
• End of page
• New post

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

Newcomers to the technical village pump are encouraged to read these guidelines prior to posting here. If you want to report a JavaScript error, please follow this guideline. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk.

« Archives, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212

Hideous history page

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T107069

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T220555

How do I get rid of this new ridiculous box that takes up half the history page? Natureium (talk) 20:16, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

@Natureium: what page are you looking at? --DannyS712 (talk) 20:19, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Oh nevermind its all of them - let me see if I can make a user script --DannyS712 (talk) 20:21, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

• @Natureium: You could add this to your Special:Mypage/common.css to shrink it, but really the interface should be modified so it doesn't put each element on its own line.#mw-history-searchform { font-size: 0.8em; } Bradv🍁 20:25, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks! Natureium (talk) 20:27, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

For some context, this is phab:T107069. Changes were done today rather than last Thursday as they were blocked (see email). ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:33, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Is there someone we can bribe to re-block this? Natureium (talk) 00:09, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

• Agree this is hideous, takes up about 1/3 of my vertical screen as well. The prior incarnation (shown IN the phab ticket description) had the selectors laid out side by side, @Bradv: is right, restoring that layout alone would greatly improve this. Anyone got a hack for just that? — xaosflux ^Talk 21:09, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
• Unambiguously terrible, just like the rest of the oo-ui disaster. This mitigates it a little, but it's fragile, and still ugly, just not unusably ginormous. (The #histlegend rule is unrelated.) —Cryptic 00:41, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

  @Cryptic: anyone who wants to easily import Cryptic's hack can use script-installer to add User:DannyS712/history.js (pseudocode: if looking at history, add the CSS) --DannyS712 (talk) 00:53, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

  Loading css through JS creates a annoying content jump so it is better to add

  @import url("//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:DannyS712/history.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css");
  

  at the top of your common.css. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:01, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

• Agreed. Is this a bug? That is, were the elements supposed to be on one line, but something went wrong? If so, then let's not pile on with the anti-WMF snark just yet. Shit happens. But if this intentional, I'd really like an explanation. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:00, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

  My hack: Move it to the bottom of the page. See User:Suffusion of Yellow/history-search-at-bottom.js. If you don't want an annoying page jump after the script loads, you'll also need to hide it using your common.css. Also probably fragile, but it works for me. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:10, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Def. needs to be hidden/reverted back! Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 06:42, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

It adds an extra click for every page, which is an unacceptable waste of the editors' time. Needs to be reverted back or made collapsible or made opt-in/opt-out.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:18, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Clarification: For me, it takes more than 1/2 of the screen, pushing the first edit in the history off the first screen.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:23, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: With feedback here, we've made the form collapsible and collapsed by default. You can already try out the change on Beta Cluster. For completion, corresponding task is phab:T220555 Volker E. (WMF) (talk) 21:03, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Great, thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:06, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Can somebody please translate the above tech stuff for a Luddite like me? How do I get rid of this and go back to how it was before? Glad I'm not the only one that's pissed off with it... GiantSnowman 12:07, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

GiantSnowman, copying @import url("//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:DannyS712/history.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css"); to User:GiantSnowman/common.css should do the trick. I think I might just zap it with my adblocker for the next few months though. Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:29, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@Alpha3031: thanks but that hasn't worked, even after purging... GiantSnowman 12:38, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman: to be clear, adding an @import to your css/js pages means that it will also copy whatever the current contents of that other page are in to your running session, keep in mind - anything they change in the future (purposefully, or if their account is compromised) will also be loaded to you. Admins should take extra caution when importing from other users. You can always go to that page and just copy/paste the code to your page if you want a point-in-time version. (Think of the @import like a template transclusion). — xaosflux ^Talk 12:48, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: thanks for clarifying - I have removed and will leave it as it is until somebody comes up with a workaround for plebs like me! GiantSnowman 12:50, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for those who've been involved in the code for the common.css page - much appreicated. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 13:37, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

The workaround is to copy-paste the contents of that page to your CSS page. --Izno (talk) 13:51, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@Izno: lovely, thanks! GiantSnowman 14:02, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi everybody, Volker E. (WMF) here, one of the folks behind the original change. After looking through feedback here, the comments on phab:T107069 and talking to other long-term contributors, we've merged a patch to Beta Cluster by my colleague Jon Robson to collapse form by default and make it expandable. As the overwhelming majority of use case seems NOT to involve interacting with the form at all.

With the patch we're focussing on three sides:

1. if functionality is rarely used, it's useful to have it hidden by default,
2. if vertical space is main issue – collapsing is providing more vertical space than before OOUI transformation without
3. introducing technical/user experience debt by inlining form elements unlike other OOUIfied forms.

The change can already be tried out on Beta Cluster and we could SWAT it 24h of now to all wikis, depending on feedback either on the tracking Phabricator task or here from you volunteer contributors…

Thanks for your patience and your feedback, Volker E. (WMF) (talk) 23:52, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

"OOUI", "technical/user experience debt", "SWAT". --Pipetricker (talk) 10:08, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

What I'd like is a way to opt out of this completely, not a way to get round it. I don't want to change my css or use JavaScript to hide it; I have, for now, but I want to opt out. Please. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 04:04, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Complete opt-out and keeping the old code would be the best solution for me too. The new one takes a noticeable additional time to load, and this is irritating. Tricks that diminish or hide the box are rather trivial, I can even implement them myself, but they don't bring back the lost performance. — Mike Novikoff 10:04, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

• Is there a way to go the old history page toolbox back, perhaps using the Gadget menu? I get that this is simpler and more intuitive but it's also slower because it's JS heavy. I found the old one much faster, especially since the things I wanted were often only one or two clicks away. For example if I wanted to go back to the year 2007 I'd just select the year box, type "2007" and press enter, while now I have to make six clicks. Daß Wölf 00:21, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

  Daß Wölf, when you say slow, you mean 'slow to operate' ? In my opinion, it would help if the date widget would be able to autocomplete based on what I type. It's rather 'mouse'-heavy, I either need to type out the full date, or part of the date and then select the day by mouse. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:32, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

  @TheDJ: slow to operate, and also slow to load, although the latter is probably unavoidable given the ubiquitous CSS and JS heavy design choices that WP seems to be adopting. <rant>A little annoying that my internet connection is 1000 times as fast as ten years ago, yet websites take longer to render.</rant> I would also appreciate an autocomplete feature. For example, it would be nice if it could autocomplete e.g. 2017 or 17 to 2017-12-31. Daß Wölf 20:59, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Volker E. (WMF), having read the comments on the Phabricator task and yours above, both of which state that the form (or similar functions) isn't used much (the overwhelming majority of use case seems NOT to involve interacting with the form at all), I'm wondering why the response to this unpopular change is if functionality is rarely used, it's useful to have it hidden by default rather than 'if functionality is rarely used, it's useful to have it off by default'.

Why is this something we have to work to get rid of, rather than an option? I understand that it's meant to help users on mobile devices. Why not make it part of the mobile interface – preferably one that users can turn off if they don't like it – and an option for desktop editors? BlackcurrantTea (talk) 02:29, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

@BlackcurrantTea: If I understand you correctly, you're asking why can't it be visible for desktop users and hidden for mobile users? And a collapse/expand functionality is left out of the question. It's important to say that there is not one homogenous group of users. There might be a majority of users that don't interact with that page any different than to look up recent changes for a specific page and never touch the form. It doesn't matter for the main use case if they are on mobile or desktop, any form is in their way. There might be a minority of users that want to limit the revisions shown to a certain date. It doesn't matter for where to access the filter functionality as long as it's accessible, no matter what device they are on. There might be a minority of newcomer users that have no idea yet, what a tag filter is. But later on they are curious and try the functionality and instead of hiding it away in a setting, that needs to be explained in complete different context (settings page) and maintained and kept working for years, it's in a minimal interface on the place where it is meant to be without confusing to the first group. With these examples I'd like to share that no matter what solution it should please the main use case user while not excluding other use case users independently of the device. Volker E. (WMF) (talk) 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

@BlackcurrantTea: ^^^ --DannyS712 (talk) 03:18, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick response, Volker E. (WMF). No, I'm asking the opposite (let it default to 'on' for mobile users, 'off' for desktop), based on the suggestion at Phabricator that this is supposed to help mobile users. What I want as a user is a way to turn it off. I belong to the group of users that don't interact with that page any different than to look up recent changes for a specific page and never touch the form. It doesn't matter for the main use case if they are on mobile or desktop, any form is in their way. I want to remove it from my screen entirely. Not hide it nor collapse it: I want to turn it off. Can you make that possible, please? BlackcurrantTea (talk) 03:52, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

@BlackcurrantTea: For such, you'd only need to add

 /* Hide Edit revision history page's form */
 .action-history #mw-content-text > .mw-htmlform-ooui-wrapper:first-child {
   display: none;
 }

to your common.css. Volker E. (WMF) (talk) 20:36, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Volker E. (WMF), whilst I appreciate the help and suggestions from you and others here, I feel strongly that we shouldn't have to fight the software. As I said, I don't want to change my css or use JavaScript to hide it; I have, for now, but I want to opt out. and I want to remove it from my screen entirely. Not hide it nor collapse it. By 'it', I mean this new version that has been imposed on us. The old version was fine. It worked. It didn't take up an inordinate amount of my screen.

The new version should be optional, and something anyone can turn on or off with preferences. Not something that requires mucking about with css or JavaScript to get rid of it or to get a semblance of the old version back. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 00:32, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Volker E. (WMF), you must be kidding. Are we supposed to teach the developer what {display:none} is and how it differs from turning the bloat off? Ok, I'll do: it's always the last resort when nothing else could be done, it's practiced by users when developers are out of reach, source code is unavailable, insufficient knowledge to modify it, etc. But it's you who can really change the underlying code, and that's what we ask of you. Let me repeat that magic word: 'please'! — Mike Novikoff 18:00, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

At the very least, reduce the width of the "Tag filter:" box - I don't see why it has to be full width, when Special:Contributions has one that is about 15em wide, and has sideways scrolling so will accept more input. That way you can put everything (labels, input items and checkboxes) on one line. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:15, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Shhh! Don't talk about the form at the top of Special:Contributions, lest the WMF decide to do their shit (read OOUI-fication) on that too. SD0001 (talk) 09:04, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Completely concur with Redrose64. All elements inside <form id="mw-history-searchform">...</form> could easily be shown in one line (or at least as inline-blocks). Nardog (talk) 09:14, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Does anyone have the HTML code of the box before the OOUI-fication, so that we can make a script to restore the old version? SD0001 (talk) 09:23, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

In Vector skin, it was

<form action="/w/index.php" method="get" id="mw-history-searchform">
  <fieldset id="mw-history-search">
    <legend>Search for revisions</legend>
    <input type="hidden" value="Events" name="title">
    <input type="hidden" value="history" name="action">
    <label for="year">From year (and earlier):</label>
    <input id="year" maxlength="4" size="7" type="number" value="2019" name="year">
    <label for="month">From month (and earlier):</label>
    <select name="month" id="month" class="mw-month-selector">
      <option value="-1">all</option>
      <option value="1">January</option>
      <option value="2">February</option>
      <option value="3">March</option>
      <option value="4">April</option>
      <option value="5">May</option>
      <option value="6">June</option>
      <option value="7">July</option>
      <option value="8">August</option>
      <option value="9">September</option>
      <option value="10">October</option>
      <option value="11">November</option>
      <option value="12">December</option>
    </select>&nbsp;<label for="tagfilter"><a href="/wiki/Special:Tags" title="Special:Tags">Tag</a> filter:</label>&nbsp;<input name="tagfilter" size="20" value="" class="mw-tagfilter-input mw-ui-input mw-ui-input-inline" id="tagfilter">&nbsp;<input type="submit" value="Show">
  </fieldset>
</form>

That is from wmuk: which is several MediaWiki versions behind. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:51, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Excellent! Those who want to revert back to the old version: Add importScript('User:SD0001/oldSearchHistory.js'); to your js page, and @import url("//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:SD0001/oldSearchHistory.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css"); to your css page. The latter (css) is optional but prevents the new version of the box from flashing momentarily. SD0001 (talk) 13:57, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I move to make that userscript a gadget, preferably one that is enabled by default. * Pppery * _{fades away} 00:53, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I would also much appreciate having this as a gadget or in general as a preference that lets user not waste time by rendering/loading both the old and the new search box into memory - especially since the CSS hack doesn't seem to be working for me (the new box still displays for 1-2 seconds). Daß Wölf 20:45, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Not only does this look hideous, it doesn't work

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T220781

Go to the history of any given page, let's say this page, i.e. [1]. Select a date, let's say 31 December 2018, and click "Show revisions". You are led to this page. Now click "older 50". You are led to this page, which shows you the exact same things as the previous page. This time, click "newer 50". This one works. But click "newer 50" again. You are led to here, which shows you the exact same things as the previous one. Tested on Chrome & Firefox. What is going on here? In the meantime, the previous version, as much as you can't choose a specific date, still works. Nardog (talk) 22:02, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

What happened is that the cook mixed in grasshoppers and live maggots in all editors' food even so he knew that only a few might enjoy it and on top he didn't even check for mold before forcing it down our throat. Same business as usual here. (Yes, I like to point out shortcomings due to missing professional oversight and authority on Wikipedia).--TMCk (talk) 20:19, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

This has been fixed as of today and is already visible on Beta Cluster. Going to roll-out to all Wikimedia Foundation wikis next week Tue 16 April–Thu 20 April. Volker E. (WMF) (talk) 22:35, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Bug in history when I use date

There were so many pages in the history of Notre-Dame de Paris fire that I took advantage of the date feature at the top. When I did, clicking on "older 50" gave me the same list of edits.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:14, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Just for a confirmation. Did you check the time mentioned when you click the "older 50" button each time? Adithyak1997 (talk) 15:17, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't see anything about selecting a time.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:19, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Actually, that specific page has undergone a minimum of 1300+ edits on 16th. So, when you click on the "Older 50" button, I guess you will experience a repetition. Just click on the number 500 present near to "older 50" and then just click on the "older 500" link two times and check if your getting any changes in the date. Adithyak1997 (talk) 15:23, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

This has been brought up above, see #Not only does this look hideous, it doesn't work. Per the phab task it's been fixed, so it'll be deployed here on Thursday. – Ammarpad (talk)

Sorry. I misunderstood. Adithyak1997 (talk) 15:41, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I was looking for just edits on the 15th and I kept seeing the same ones.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:46, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't suppose it's possible to see the edit that removed the wording I had a problem with. The problem language was gone by 23:59 on April 15 and, of course, the article was started on the 15th but then, that's the date I complained.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:50, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Template:Infobox presidential administration

Hi, the infobox in Second presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez contains square brackets and duplicated links. I had a quick play but could not see how to fix, can someone take a look ? Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 12:32, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Further to the above it looks to be an issue with the Infobox template itself rather than this particular use of it...GrahamHardy (talk) 12:33, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Template:Infobox presidential administration looks to be the one... GrahamHardy (talk) 12:35, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

You can't wikilink a wikilink. The infobox creates a wikilink [[Presidency of ...|...]] for both predecessor and successor. This suggests that there should already be articles: Presidency of Jaime Lusinchi and Presidency of Octavio Lepage. There is not for the latter so you might want to create a redirect from Presidency of Octavio Lepage → Octavio Lepage and cleanup the |predecessor= and |successor= parameters in the infobox.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:48, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

{{Infobox presidential administration}} was previously a redirect to {{Infobox administration}} which just displays the predecessor and successor parameters. The redirect was changed [2] to {{Infobox presidency}} which assumes the parameters are plain names and can be used to link articles about their presidency. Either the change should be reverted or many articles should be updated to fit the new parameter expectation or call {{Infobox administration}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:57, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

See Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Infobox presidential administration for affected articles.

Pinging users who have edited Template:Infobox presidential administration: 1,2,3. --Pipetricker (talk) 13:23, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter and Pipetricker: Nominated {{Infobox presidency}} and {{Infobox premiership}} for deletion. Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 12:22, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

How to become a MediaWiki hacker

Some of you might be interested in the upcoming presentation described at mw:Tech talks#Upcoming tech talks 2019 season. Srishti is going to give a general talk about how developers and their allies (designers, documentation writers, testers, etc.) can contribute to MediaWiki and related software. If you are (a) a dev-type person yourself or (b) hang out at this page, then you might find this useful.

Time: April 24, 2019 at 18:00 UTC (11:00 a.m. PDT), for about 45 minutes

Place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXyeRujCrAs

If you're online during the talk, then there will probably be an opportunity to ask questions (maybe on m:IRC?). These talks are normally recorded, so you can watch it later. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:02, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF), looks like "Wikimedia" is spelled wrong in the title of that YouTube page. (Didn't know who else to ping, sorry!) Enterprisey (talk!) 06:49, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Watchlist for WikiProjects

Is there a way to set-up a WikiProject based Watchlist? Mitchumch (talk) 20:08, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

• User:MusikAnimal/customWatchlists --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 20:10, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Is this something I can add to a WikiProject or is this only added to a users "Preferences" tab? Mitchumch (talk) 22:59, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

@Mitchumch: Help:Public watchlist – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:38, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

@Mitchumch: Good description in Help:Public watchlist. WP:WikiProject Chemistry has this box: Template:Recent changes in Chemistry. The list was made with WP:AWB and an external editor to create the wikilinks. Christian75 (talk) 15:48, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

It could be really nice if Special:RecentChangesLinked had the option to show both the page and the talk page for a given page. Then all the "Category:WikiProject X articles" (e.g. Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:WikiProject Chemistry articles) could be used as a "watchlist" for the WikiProjects. Is this request in phab:? Christian75 (talk) 16:52, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

To editor Christian75: See phab:T14889. – Ammarpad (talk) 17:10, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Edit summary drop-down

I'm glad to see that visual editor edit summary box will now show past summaries in a drop-down box ([3], mentioned in the weekly update above) but I don't like that the first one is automatically selected, so I can't use the ctrl+enter shortcut to submit it. Is there a way to change this functionality? Reywas92^Talk 06:08, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I and Whatamidoing (WMF) both left a comment on the task that you linked therein. You don't need to support it any further, just subscribe to the task and either it will change there or on a task linked from there. --Izno (talk) 23:35, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Press the Escape key if you need to make it not-select the wrong edit summary. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:29, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Template import issue

I've imported {{Coord}}, including sub-templates and modules, from this project to Wikispecies. However the page at species:Repositories/Wikidata is giving "Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#coordinates" was not found." errors. what's missing? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:17, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

#coordinates is apparently a parser function that does not exist on wikispecies. It looks like it is part of the GeoData extension. See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GeoData#Parser_function for more details. See Special:Version here on en.WP compared to Special:Version on en.Wikispecies. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:47, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-16

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

Recent changes

• All wikis now have the TemplateWizard for the wikitext editor.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 April. It will be on all wikis from 18 April (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Wikidata will get a new constraint status called suggestion. This will change how the WikibaseQualityConstraints constraint checking API works. [4][5]
• You can test the depicts property for structured data on Commons.

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

23:00, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

The first item above may result in a greater need for the Template Data programming code that is stored in template documentation pages. Those of you who understand and are interested in the esoterica of adding Template Data may want to give some attention to the templates listed at Wikipedia:TemplateData. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:16, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Vorlagenfehler/Vorlage:TemplateData

Resolved

This revision to the TemplateData code block in a template's documentation appears to have resulted in that template's documentation page being added to Category:Wikipedia:Vorlagenfehler/Vorlage:TemplateData. Based on web translation, that looks like a category used for pages with TemplateData errors. Why is it in German? How can we activate an English-language version of this category here on en.WP? It would be useful to have such a category to catch TemplateData errors. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:04, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

It comes from {{Format TemplateData}} which was imported from de:Vorlage:TemplateData by Xaosflux. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:06, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. For some reason, I didn't think to search for the category name in Template space. Silly me. I have translated the template's error message and category into English and created the maintenance category. – Jonesey95 (talk) 10:08, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Moving files

How I can move files? There is no button "move" like in the articles. Eurohunter (talk) 13:59, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

You cannot move files because only users with (movefile) userright can do so. You should use {{Rename media}} template to request renaming of files. – Ammarpad (talk) 14:24, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@Ammarpad: Thanks. Eurohunter (talk) 14:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Solving an issue stated in Community Portal

Please do check if somebody can help me out for the problem stated in Incubator. Adithyak1997 (talk) 14:06, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Servers under maintenance

Just for documentation.

Error Our servers are currently under maintenance or experiencing a technical problem. Please try again in a few minutes. See the error message at the bottom of this page for more information. If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 98.21.227.217 via cp1085 cp1085, Varnish XID 371130561 Error: 503, Backend fetch failed at Tue, 16 Apr 2019 18:36:41 GMT

— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:43, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I saw a few as well, looks like there's been quite a few since 18:14 UTC. (30.5K/min peak at 19:03) rchard2scout (talk) 19:09, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

It's been at less than 10/min since about 19:20, so it seems to be fixed for now. I saw some WMF Operations people in IRC trying to find the root cause, it doesn't seem like there's anything us mere mortals volunteers can do right now but wait for the incident report. rchard2scout (talk) 20:02, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

System message

Resolved

Where can I find the system message that replaced MediaWiki:Movepage-summary? - FlightTime (open channel) 20:59, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@FlightTime: perhaps MediaWiki:Movepagetext-noredirectfixer? — xaosflux ^Talk 22:01, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: No, I found that one earlier. I was thinking we might be running MessageCommons, but we're not. I've been actioning file rename request and the page header where you enter the new filename needs some link target updates. I'll get a screenshot in a few and post a link here. Thanx for your reply. - FlightTime (open channel) 22:37, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@FlightTime: that page includes MediaWiki:Movepagetext, which has some conditional for file namespace - if that's not it, link a screen shot and I'll try to help! — xaosflux ^Talk 22:56, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: It's displayed just below the message you linked to (had to upload the screenshot to my wiki) here. It's no big deal, I just wanted to update the lime green link targets. - FlightTime (open channel) 22:59, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@FlightTime: those are in MediaWiki:Movepagetext view source just open an edit request on that page's talk and we can process for you. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:14, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Ok :P, Thanx. - FlightTime (open channel) 23:17, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Back to Top

Is it possible to have a "back to top" link added to the footer, of automatically appear at end of page, say, after categories, or even in the categories box. I mostly read, and often edit, via iPad, and getting back up to select watchlist or search or some other option is creating callouses on pages like this ClubOranje^T 08:18, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

@ClubOranje: Try User:Danski454/goToTop.js --DannyS712 (talk) 08:21, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks @DannyS712:, works fine. I do still think it would be worth adding it into page coding so it appears automatically for everyone without having to install a script. Not everyone knows how or has the confidence to. ClubOranje^T 09:10, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

ClubOranje, in minerva (default mobile skin), if you enable Beta features, you have a back to top button. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:14, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

@ClubOranje: See this blog post - I think Safari on iPad supports this depending on your version. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:09, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

As noted at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 172#Is it possible to have a floating 'sidebar' that follows you up?, there is {{Skip to top and bottom}} and other templates mentioned in its doc. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:40, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Nested refs error?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T22707

Can't someone figure out why English phonology#Onset is throwing up the error Cite error: A list-defined reference named "FOOTNOTEMcColl Millar200763-64" is not used in the content (see the help page).? It has multiple instances of {{sfnp}}, inside {{efn}} inside {{notelist|refs=}}, and for some reason only one of them is resulting in an error. Upon toying with the code on Special:ExpandTemplates, it seems MediaWiki is parsing nested <ref>...</ref> tags in a peculiar way. Nardog (talk) 13:37, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's been pointed out before that WP:LDR does not coexist happily with either {{efn}} or {{sfnp}}. It may be in the archives of Wikipedia talk:Citing sources or a similar page. Trappist the monk may remember. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:46, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

@Nardog: Aha, I've found Template talk:Efn#This template goes crazy when things get long and phab:T22707 but I'm pretty sure that there are other threads on this matter elsewhere. In short: don't do it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:07, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Thanks. I wonder, then, what is the best way to offer an in-article list of footnotes. I've seen various ways, from {{ref}}/{{note}} to simply superscript numerals and an ordered list. <ref group="xxx">...</ref> seems most straightforward but the long superscript links ("") can be annoying and disrupting the flow of the text. Nardog (talk) 14:44, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Just use {{efn}} in the documented way (With lower-alpha labels), but put the {{notelist}} in the section of prose rather than in a section at the bottom. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:07, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Ah, obvs. That wouldn't work if the article already uses {{efn}} for a footnotes section for the entire article, but such an article structure would probably be stylistically objectionable. Nardog (talk) 15:36, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

You could use different groups, each of which has its own templates, see Template:Efn#Template use by reference group type. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:50, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I have no special knowledge of this problem. I know it exists and I know that its a right pain, but beyond that, nothing.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:28, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Administrators

How to find administrators which recently did any action? Eurohunter (talk) 14:48, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

toollabs:apersonbot/recently-active –xeno^talk 14:53, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Special:Log/block is effective (or Special:Log/delete or Special:Log/protect). Johnuniq (talk) 00:50, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@Xeno: @Johnuniq: Thanks Eurohunter (talk) 10:21, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Duplicate wikilink scrubber

Do we have any good tools for scouring away duplicate wikilinks from sections like Mahesh Bhatt#Filmography? Years ago I remember seeing some javascript tools. I tried two of them, but they didn't work consistently. Seems like the things that it would need to do are:

• Spot duplicates
• Be able to convert piped wikilinks to text. (Ex: [[Om Prakash (cinematographer)|Om Prakash]] → Om Prakash)
• Leave the first instance of a link, or a number of links the user specifies. "Keep the first _2_ links"
• I don't know that running it on an entire article would always be the best way to go. If there was some way to limit it to when you click Edit on a section, that might be ideal, unless it could process each section uniquely.
• Sometimes sections (like a film soundtrack) have introductory text that may intuitively have wikilinks that are duplicated in a secondary area like a soundtrack table. Maybe some flexibility would be helpful there.

Thoughts on this? It's a massive headache to clean up WP:OVERLINKing, and sometimes I run into people who are here solely for that purpose.[6][7][8]. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 14:52, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:AWB will let you hack on duplicate wikilinks. --Izno (talk) 15:49, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Nonsense dates

Nonsense dates appear on the screen tables for running the app for "Page statistics" from the edit history page of many if not most articles, in the fields for "First date" and "Last date". The two that I have just run are Herman Melville here [9], and the film article for The Favourite. Could someone look at this? CodexJustin (talk) 14:54, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

@CodexJustin: I see what you mean. For those who haven't found them, they are in the Top editors section, in both the "First edit" and "Latest edit" columns, where dates like "2013-55-29 18:" and "2018-11-9 17:" are displayed. These are linked to diffs, from which I see that these two dates should have been displayed as "2013-11-29 18:55" and "2018-03-09 17:11" respectively. Something is dropping the true month value, and moving the minutes value to the position intended for the month; it might be a simple matter of "MM"/"mm" confusion in a date formatting string. It's definitely one for the tool maintainer, you should file a Phabricator ticket. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:09, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Probably introduced here. I'll create a pull request tonight (as in, somewhere between 17:00 and 21:00 UTC) if MusikAnimal doesn't fix it first. rchard2scout (talk) 10:54, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, and the offer to create a PR! :) I went ahead and deployed a fix. — MusikAnimal ^talk 14:04, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Dark mode / prefers-color-scheme

With Media Queries Level 5 (and in particular, prefers-color-scheme) getting moved into Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox (67) (Safari has supported this since "dark mode" was added to MacOS Mojave), I'm wondering if it's not time to start including support for this within the various skins available here? Windows also has a "dark mode" toggle, and it appears this system value is used by both Chrome and Firefox to set the value within the browser (so websites can adapt to the mode selected by the user). IIRC, Microsoft is going to switch to using Chrome for Edge at some point, so that would cover all the major browsers for support. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:33, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Locke Cole https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/plugins/gitiles/mediawiki/skins/Vector/ ;) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:01, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@Locke Cole: As far as I know the WMF Community Tech team has plans to start investigating meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Reading/Night mode soon in phab:tag/night-mode (hence that project planning workboard in Phabricator is still quite empty). --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 08:03, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you both for the guidance, I will keep my eyes peeled on the progress on that wishlist item. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 06:51, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

No tools

Why I have no tools while editing? I remember I changed something. Eurohunter (talk) 08:30, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@Eurohunter: There are different tools depending on settings. Maybe you disabled "Enable the editing toolbar" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing. If this doesn't help then say whether you have the wanted tool when you are logged out, and briefly describe the tool. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:49, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Yes I had it disabled. This is new toolbar. How I can enable old one? Eurohunter (talk) 08:54, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@Eurohunter: Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets has "Enable the legacy (2006) editing toolbar". PrimeHunter (talk) 08:58, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Thanks. Eurohunter (talk) 10:20, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Double notifications

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T203893

Per User talk:Iridescent#Double notification, is there any way we can disable the double-notification when a username is linked in both the text and the edit summary? I was aware this was an issue when "ping from edit summary" was first introduced (example), but thought it had been fixed months ago. Given the habit many editors have of copying the first line of their comment (which is also where the @whoever ping is most likely to be) to use as the edit summary, this is a bug that's going to keep on annoying people. ‑ Iridescent 09:04, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

This is phab:T203893 with no apparent work. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:28, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

MediaWiki internal error

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T221347

Anyone else getting this error white trying to edit? I've had it happen intermittently three times around the past half hour while either trying to view changes or submit changes. Here's a sample of the output, where it's throwing a ConfigException. Opencooper (talk) 10:42, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I have also seen something like this. It may be to do with the PHP7 beta feature. Has anybody not using PHP7 seen this error? BethNaught (talk) 10:56, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Filed phab:T221358. — regards, Revi 11:54, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Looks like phab:T221347 already exists for this problem. Anomie⚔ 11:58, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Definitely something to do with PHP7, I'm getting this every few minutes too. Gangster8192 12:17, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

FYI, it seems to have been resolved as of 12:20:39 UTC, although the root cause has not yet been determined. Watch the Phabricator task for further details. BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 12:57, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Required property "paramOrder[4]" not found.

Having incorrectly edited {{Colorbull}} with the intention of adding a description option, I am unable correct this edit (in which I mistakenly included <span title=n> inside <span style=n>) without being greeted by this error message: I have tried reverting my edit but to no avail. Please help, thanks. Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 10:57, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I also got the error message on all attempts to save an edit, including a null edit. It's from MediaWiki:Templatedata-invalid-missing. I noticed you had edited Template:Colorbull/doc afterwards [10] so I reverted those edits. Then I could edit {{Colorbull}} without problems. I don't work with TemplateData so I don't know what was wrong with it. I'm surprised it could prevent the template from being edited. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:37, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Krinkle has worked on the code. Is it intentional that a saved /doc page can prevent saving of the associated template? Maybe we should create a custom MediaWiki:Templatedata-invalid-missing with a help link to an explanation. Special:AllMessages with prefix Templatedata-invalid- shows 10 messages. One of them MediaWiki:Templatedata-invalid-parse has a help link but there it could still be hard to guess the save may be blocked by the /doc page. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:24, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Special:Nuke inconsistently working

For the past few months I've noticed Special:Nuke is very inconsistent. Maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the time it loads for 20/30 seconds, then sends it to a WMF error screen. When it does work it's still extremely slow to load the list of pages, even (I tested) when it's 2, 1, or 0 pages, but once I'm there and press delete it very quickly deletes everybody without trouble. Anyone else notice this, and is this a concern? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:45, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I would guess this is phab:T197940. --Izno (talk) 17:00, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Ah. At least someone said something about it, then. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:11, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

AutoEd doesn't work for me

Wikipedia:AutoEd doesn't works? I tried it on few articles but it never did anything. Eurohunter (talk) 20:41, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I went to [11] and then ran importScript('Wikipedia:AutoEd/complete.js'); which yielded . Looking at Wikipedia:AutoEd/complete.js, it's easy to see why. It's yet another case of someone trying to "structure" their code by splitting it up across different pages and then loading those pages with importScript or mw.loader.load. Needless to say, that has never worked and never will. importScript and mw.loader.load are both async and neither allow for a callback to be ran when they have finished fetching a script. This means that they cannot be used to fetch something that is needed for other code to work. They are only fine to use when loading completely unrelated and contained scripts. Nirmos (talk) 01:33, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Nirmos and Eurohunter: from the April script newsletter (User:DannyS712/SPP 04):

• mw.loader.getScript has been added to mw.loader, closing a feature request from 2010. It allows users to load a script via URL (like mw.loader.load()) and specify a callback function (like mw.loader.using()). See mw:ResourceLoader/Core modules#mw.loader.getScript for more.

Maybe use getScript instead, since it allows a callback? (Or use .using() ) --DannyS712 (talk) 01:53, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Nirmos: @DannyS712: If I understood correctly you mean AutoEd can't work in current version but I'm pretty sure sometimes I see edits with AutoEd. Eurohunter (talk) 06:52, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Eurohunter: I was just trying to solve the problem that Nirmos mentioned - I don't know enough about autoed to troubleshoot it myself --DannyS712 (talk) 06:55, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

It works fine for me—for example, I just made this edit using it. Eman235/talk 07:02, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Automatic additions to my watchlist

How do I prevent every page I edit from being added to my watchlist? I can't find an appropriate setting to change in preference menu.--Megaman en m (talk) 09:06, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

It ought to be under Preferences → Watchlist → Watched pages → "Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist". Eman235/talk 09:10, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

None of those boxes are ticked, newly edited pages are still being added to my watchlist.--Megaman en m (talk) 09:13, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I see you use Twinkle. Wikipedia:Twinkle/Preferences has options for when to add pages to your watchlist in Twinkle edits. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:29, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, it was Twinkle that caused it.--Megaman en m (talk) 09:41, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Undo and Redo Buttons

Hello, I'm from ckbwiki. I want to add undo and redo buttons to ours Wikipedia. Who can help me to do that? What should i do? Thank you, ئارام بکر (talk) 11:48, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@ئارام بکر: ,WP:UNDO is built in functionality, you can see there is a link at this random ckdbwiki page I just loaded here. Can you describe this a bit more? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:00, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: No, I mean... add them such as button in Source edit, not history page. Just i want the source code. ئارام بکر (talk) 13:47, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

You can already do that with CTRL + Z and CTRL + Y. Amaury (talk | contribs) 14:18, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

"New wikitext mode" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures has such buttons (and other changes). It's also an option at ckb:Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:00, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: and @Amaury: thank you both, but i am a mobile user (not computer user) and i am use source editor (not visual editor). Mmm... i see the tool (on enwiki) in my preferences and active it. I think so it is an Mediawiki gadget. And i want to add that tool to ours Wikipedia. ئارام بکر (talk) 16:25, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Gadgets are local user scripts.

User:PPelberg (WMF), I think that you might want to consider this for the toolbar improvements project. Without this available as an in-editor tool, then I don't know how else an editor on a smartphone would undo/redo a change inside the editor. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:51, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

References

What character should I use in titles or to separate two titles instead of hyphen-minus ("-")? Eurohunter (talk) 12:45, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Eurohunter: see MOS:DASH for guidance on this. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:56, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Thanks. Eurohunter (talk) 22:10, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Label on the new collapsed box on history pages

The title of the collapsed box is defined by MediaWiki:History-fieldset-title, which since previously is customized to "Show revision history" on this wiki.

The new default content of the message is "Filter revisions", which now would be better.
--Pipetricker (talk) 19:37, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, but I think the correct thing to do here is to file an edit request on that talk page. ;) --Izno (talk) 19:40, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I've deleted the local override, restoring the default message. — JJMC89 (T·C) 23:20, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Blacklisted URL prevents edit from saving

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T36928

I noticed all the links were red for Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2019 April 13‎. I went to the Help Desk history and found where Scsbot had supposedly archived. All the bot did was remove the text; it did not create the archive. So I went to the last edit before the archiving took place, clicked on "edit", and copied the text that should have been removed in the next edit. When I tried to create the archive with that text, I got a big pink box telling me a URL was blacklisted. I removed one use of the URL and saved the edit. I restored the URL and the edit still got saved.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:56, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Vchimpanzee: phab:T36928 has been open for 5 years asking for a way to allow certain accounts to override this. Perhaps scs can check the operations of their bot, to see if it can more gracefully recover from this type of error. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:06, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

The url said http://www.anupmandalcom.wordpress.com when the bot tried to archive [12]. You didn't restore the full url but changed it to anupmandalcom.wordpress.com in the archive.[13] This doesn't create a link so the blacklist doesn't care. It was blacklisted at meta in [14] between the original addition to the help desk and the attempted archiving. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:23, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

• This is trivial to check for when making a save it will return an error if it did not save. The bot should check for errors and abort/log these cases. -- GreenC 23:38, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Scs: -- GreenC 23:40, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

For future reference (on smaller pages, not WP:HD), the blacklist can be worked around a couple of ways. If it's merely a link getting removed, rollback will work to put it back. If it's really important, a history merge can resolve the situation (if a page already contains a link, saving a new revision with the same link will not be rejected), but it would require moving a revision from one page to another, which would be rather silly if it weren't important. Nyttend (talk) 14:45, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Admins shouldn't use such methods to circumvent the url blacklist. We have MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist for that. If a page contains a blacklisted url then editing will easily fail in the future, as already happened here. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:47, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

DYK count tool down

I've just noticed that the tool that counts how many DYK's a person has been awarded is down with a 500 server error. Can anyone shed light on the issue please? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:08, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

The C of E, it's up. ∯WBG^converse 09:56, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric: For me, it only seems to be loading partially then when I refresh, it goes back to the 500 error. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 10:04, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

It's up, but for some reason it doesn't like your user name. Works for WBG and me (tried with space, _ and +), and for TheCofE (empty table). Shows error 500 for The_C_of_E, even if _ is replaced with other characters (space, +, %20). --MarMi wiki (talk) 20:41, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

It may be connected (or not) with this error (use of '). --MarMi wiki (talk) 20:52, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Is there anything we can do about it @MarMi wiki:? 05:33, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

It seems that it's the problem with Betacommand's tools (NOT DYKUpdateBot). Try asking him. --MarMi wiki (talk) 23:08, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

@MarMi wiki: if DYKUpdateBot is malfunctioning, the person to follow up with is its operator: Shubinator. If it isn't running that is also up to the operator to review, if they want to. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:21, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Already asked Shubinator, my above statement was unfortunate - implied that operator of DYKUpdateBot is Betacommand, while bot name was only used as a link to discussion with Shubinator about this topic. --MarMi wiki (talk) 23:41, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Odd protection entry

Some time ago, I unprotected Elephant as a test (it had been protected for years, so I wanted to see if continued protection were warranted), but vandalism quickly recurred and I re-protected it a few days later. No problems. But if you look at the page log, you see a bizarre pair of entries:

05:21, 20 September 2013 Nyttend (talk | contribs | block) protect (It's been seven years since Tripling Elephants, and a year and a half since we last attempted any reduction in protection)
05:21, 20 September 2013 Nyttend (talk | contribs | block) changed protection level for Elephant ‎‎[move=sysop] (indefinite) (It's been seven years since Tripling Elephants, and a year and a half since we last attempted any reduction in protection)

Any idea what happened here? Only the latter item appears in the protection log. There's no indication whatsoever of what I did in the former one; it should tell you what kind of protection I imposed, at least. Nyttend (talk) 13:10, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

When Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool was removed in March 2014, it left behind some log entries which no longer displayed properly. The page history [15] shows you changed settings for the tool the minute of the incomplete log entry. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:45, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Huh. There must have been some tick box to protect both article and AFT, or protection must have been necessarily bound up together; I remember doing the protection and was definitely interested only in the article. I had no idea that it was even possible to protect the AFT. Nyttend (talk) 14:40, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

My page history link says: Changed visibility of the article feedback tool on "Elephant": It's been seven years since Tripling Elephants, and a year and a half since we last attempted any reduction in protection ([Visibility=Enable for all users] (indefinite)). I said the log entries no longer displayed properly. Don't assume it was a protection just because the bad log entry currently starts with "protect". PrimeHunter (talk) 14:52, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Editing Lua module

I wanted to fix the flawed first reference in College of Charleston Cougars women's basketball, but I 'm stymied. I see that it comes from a Lua module, but I'm not Lua conversant. I think it is footnote 146 in Module:College_color/doc.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:18, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed here. Nardog (talk) 14:21, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Nardog, Thanks. Now I see where I should have looked. S Philbrick(Talk) 14:27, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Issue with Citations, Possibly Corrupted Code?

Hello Everyone, I noticed something very strange when I was creating an article this morning. When I tried to input a citation, whether it be automatic or manual, an error message appeared, and has still not disappeared. The message reads: "Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 458: attempt to index local 'content' (a nil value)." I'm not sure why. Does anybody know what is going on? BluePankow ✉ 14:37, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I just noticed the messages above this. Is it possible that something could have been messed up when @Nardog: did something with it? Not to point fingers, sorry, just trying to figure this out. BluePankow ✉ 14:41, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Please link the page with the error message. I don't see it in your recent creations. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:44, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Where? Always say where you are encountering such errors. There was an update to the cs1|2 module suite this morning. Because all of the modules in that suite cannot be updated simultaneously, there will be a period of time (usually less than 30-second) when the actual live modules will be a mix of the old and the new. The usual fix for this is to remain calm, don't panic, pause for a moment (go get a coffee), and then try a null edit. If the problem is temporary, the glaring red error message will be gone, you'll have a fresh coffee, and life begins again renewed.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:48, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, I must have created the page during the mix of modules. Thank you for clearing that up. Sorry for the trouble. Alos, it was at the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colletotrichum_coffeanum BluePankow ✉ 14:54, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

You created Colletotrichum coffeanum after your first post here. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:59, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm aware. It was while I was editing it, that the sources were not displaying correctly. BluePankow ✉ 15:14, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

[Personal attack redacted] --Guy Macon (talk) 00:04, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I"m seeing the same "Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 458: attempt to index local 'content' (a nil value)" today, whenever I try to use a cite template in visual editor. I can use the manual form, but none of the other options, when citing a source in visual. Penny Richards (talk) 01:21, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

CS1 tracking category error

There are hundreds of pages in Category:CS1 maint: others, which doesn't exist. Pinging Trappist the monk who may be able to shine a light on the issue. --DannyS712 (talk) 19:18, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Oversight on my part. In future, Help talk:Citation Style 1 is a better venue – because a missing category isn't really a 'technical' problem ...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:42, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I've created the category. The text may need improvement. — JJMC89 (T·C) 19:35, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I've tweaked the text.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:42, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Template include size exceeded

Was there a recent change that caused this to start happening in one of my sandboxes, and also on my work page? Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  03:18, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think there's any change from the software. Looking at the stuff in that page it just means you've now crossed the limit. That limit has been in force for a long time. – Ammarpad (talk) 06:05, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Are you sure? I ask because the work page looked normal when I made this edit, which did not involve a template at all, late on the 19th. Something does seem to have changed since then. It's as if the limit was lowered since the 19th. Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  07:58, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Just moved a lot of the template material to a different page, but the work page still does not render correctly, so there must be something we're missing. Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  08:18, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

It's caused by {{EP/doc|bare=yes}} after this edit to {{EP/doc}} by Jc86035. Other pages transcluding it are also affected by template loops or template include size. If {{PAGENAMETDOC}} is used in a template documentation then the documentation is not suited for transclusion outside the template. We should maybe do something about that. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:21, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: That... looks like a problem. I don't think it's possible to fix that without updating all of the transclusions to include the template name as a parameter value. Jc86035 (talk) 09:25, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

That's only 21 template calls currently in this search. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:34, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Here is another example of how this may be uncool. Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  11:29, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

@Paine Ellsworth and PrimeHunter: I've tried to fix this on Template:EP/doc (after Paine Pppery's revert of my earlier edit) by using a custom #ifeq: instead. Jc86035 (talk) 12:15, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

It wasn't Paine that reverted, it was me. * Pppery * _{has returned} 12:18, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much, PrimeHunter and Jc86035! That fixed my work page. On the other hand, as for my sandbox, I think Ammarpad is spot on correct about that, so I've self-reverted those templates. Best to ya'll! Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  13:49, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

"Popular pages" report not working

I tried to set-up a Wikipedia:WikiProject Civil Rights Movement/Popular pages, but it hasn't worked or the bot is not running. I left a message on User talk:Community Tech bot in the "Did I set this up correctly?" section on 1 April 2019, but I haven't received a response. Is there anything I can do to get this report running? Mitchumch (talk) 05:22, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

According to m:Community Tech/Popular pages bot#How it works, the bot runs once per month, starting of the 2nd of the month, and it can take up to 2 weeks to run. After it's done, it updates User:Community Tech bot/Popular pages. It looks like the last few months, it has updated that page around the 14th-16th of the month, and it's already the 21st, so there might be a problem. Pinging NKohli (WMF) and MusikAnimal (WMF). Can you look into this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rchard2scout (talk • contribs) 10:08, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

@Rchard2scout: You forgot to sign your message, so the pings wouldn't have worked. I'm therefore redoing your pings of NKohli (WMF) and MusikAnimal (WMF). Graham87 04:05, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I'm looking into this. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 16:31, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Problem with navigation template

The "navseasons" template when used with decades seems to display the 1960s decade twice; eg see Category:2010s murders in Japan or Category:2010s crimes in Japan. Not a problem in practice but a bit odd! !!!! Hugo999 (talk) 13:43, 21 April 2019 (UTC) Thanks Hugo999 (talk) 23:39, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

The template was recently converted to use Lua module. Tom.Reding implemented that. – Ammarpad (talk) 14:13, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

 Done - Thank you for the ping. I actually just fixed that bug! The 'original' code had an overabundance of loops, which overlapped slightly in that edge case; now simplified.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:21, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Navigation popups

I'm trying to install Navigation popups on another wiki; which .js file do I need? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:48, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I guess Special:Gadgets page will help. — Mike Novikoff 20:14, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_popups#Installation_on_remote_MediaWiki_installations,_or_via_your_global.js. Ruslik_Zero 20:20, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. That's guidance for individual users; I'm looking to install it as gadget for all users. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:35, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe this? — Mike Novikoff 20:39, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. That's confusing; it refers to exporting an XML file, then using "Special:Import on destination wiki" to import it there, but the latter has no option to import XML. It's done now, anyway, via an ordinary cut & paste. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:03, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I found the script, at MediaWiki:Gadget-popups.js. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:03, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

And there's also the accompanying MediaWiki:Gadget-navpop.css, you'll need both. — Mike Novikoff 21:10, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Interesting technical issue with duplicate references

At the article List_of_Pokémon_episodes_(seasons_14–current) you can see a citation error here. This error is due to the fact that the overall article is made by linking other list articles like List of Pokémon: XY episodes into the article, but these articles use the same ref tag to give an explanation about how the episodes are ordered. Now I first considered going to the individual list articles and changing their ref names so that the error message for duplicate messages would not appear. However, this would have the unfortunate consequence of cluttering up the Notes section of the main article with duplicate refs. Is there a workaround? 文法楽しい (talk) 21:27, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

If they were all exactly the same it wouldn't be a problem. But Black & White and XY are all like this (referring to Cartoon Network), while Sun & Moon has one version for the first season and another for the two "Ultra" seasons (both referring to Disney XD, with slightly different wording). Anomie⚔ 22:14, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

The error message can be avoided by placing <noinclude>...</noinclude> around the reference in all articles except one. But it will remove the footnote markers in those places in List of Pokémon episodes (seasons 14–current). PrimeHunter (talk) 22:54, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Oof, I didn't realize that the notes were actually different. That means I can just change the ref names then and not have to worry about duplicate notes. 文法楽しい (talk) 21:44, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Curly quotes in <ref name = >

I suppose this topic has been covered before, but haven't ever noticed such. My issue: I have just discovered that "curly quotes" can break the <ref name = "xxx" /> format if the name (xxx) is surrounded by curly quotes instead of straight. Am I correct, and is there a chance the wikimedia software can be modified to silently handle this circumstance and produce the expected results? Error seen in IE 11; Firefox 66; Chrome 73 here. DonFB (talk) 10:37, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

DonFB, they break the reference in that the software sees them as different characters to non-curly quotes. It's as if someone named a reference 1Rpt1 and then typed lRptl – it won't be recognised as the same reference name. They look almost the same on my screen in the edit window, but in preview (and with saved changes) the different font makes it clear that the first Rpt has the digit one to either side, and the second one has a lowercase L. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 11:30, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Right, I was just wondering if it's feasible for the software to be updated so it can recognize either curly or straight quotes for the purpose of correctly producing the result intended by the ref name routine. In pseudo code, something like: "If routine is ref name and value of surrounding punctuation marks equals straight quotes or equals curly quotes, then recognize 'name' as originally specified." DonFB (talk) 16:17, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

This will probably not be done because it would be inconsistent with everything else that uses a mark (that's anything that has a tag-gy markup). Why should we not change the parser for every case? That would be inconsistent with the rest of the Internet.

What might be more interesting is for the parser to flag (in all cases, not just the ref tag) where a curly quotation mark has been used. I don't know how feasible that is. --Izno (talk) 16:33, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

At least within <ref...>, there is some validation performed. If you try to do <ref name=2> or <ref name=foo bar> or even <ref name="hello"world>, it reports an error. See Help:Cite for details of what is valid and what is checked. Sounds like a reasonable phab ticket to file, and a simple bit of validation if someone wants to get hacking into MW code. DMacks (talk) 18:32, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

I fixed up dozens of these a couple of years back (examples). Please don't encourage their re-addition. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:51, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @DonFB: Curly quotes break all attribute values, they must not be used to enclose such values. This is not merely a MediaWiki restriction, it also applies to HTML, XHTML, XML, etc., etc. We must not introduce an inconsistency when everybody uses straight quotes universally. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:36, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, ok. I wonder then if MediaWiki could provide a specific error message, rather than the generic "invoked but never defined". Something like: "Use straight quotes, not curly quotes when defining 'name'". It took me long minutes to ascertain the problem in the article, though from now, I'll be able to more quickly diagnose, but I wonder how many other editors, now or later, may spend too much time searching for the error when the text appears to be correct (or fixing "dozens of these" if they keep getting added). Just out of curiosity, where the heck do curly quotes come from if one is using a standard keyboard? DonFB (talk) 19:15, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

For someone with awb, there are about 1100 articles with <ref name=[“”]... (I have my awb currently occupied or I would fix these)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:32, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Curly quotes are an allowed character in reference names so <ref name=“Rpt” /> works if the definition also says “Rpt”, at least if the name has no spaces or other characters which require straight quotes around the ref name. All curly quotes should still be changed to straight quotes to avoid confusion and future errors. The error message Cite error: The named reference “Rpt” was invoked but never defined (see the help page) is made by MediaWiki:Cite error references no text. We could check the parameter name for wrong quote characters and produce a special error message but I'm not sure it's worth it. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:14, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Even if it's "allowed", it's going to be weird and confusing. Also, I suspect that it'll get normalized to name="“Rpt”" the next time VisualEditor touches it, because theoretically all ref names are supposed to have straight double quotes around them. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:05, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Phantom page

If I look at Category:Actors, it reports the subcategory Category:Actresses as having 19 C and 1 P of content — but if I look directly at Category:Actresses itself, there are 20 categories and zero pages. Is there any way to check what, if any, content is getting miscounted? Bearcat (talk) 00:50, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Category counts are often off. See phab:T195397. It's probably two independent errors and not a page being counted as a subcategory. The most common problem is that the count isn't decreased when a page is deleted while it's in the category. According to category watch (disable "Hide categorization of pages" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist on an account with a small watchlist), the only changes in the last 30 days are removal of two pages: [16][17] PrimeHunter (talk) 08:59, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Unordered lists, indents, and stray bullets

This is from Abortion Law#See also:

• Abortion debate
• Category:Abortion by country
  • Philosophical aspects of the abortion debate

This is from Help:Wikitext#Unordered

• Item1
• Item2
• Item3
• Item4
  • Sub-item 4 a)

With both Chrome and Firefox, I see a stray bullet on the indented item in the first list, but not in the second. That stray bullet seems to sometimes manifest in rendered wikitext and sometimes not. I've noticed this for years and have worked around it by using a colon instead of an asterisk for all but the final indent in unordered lists, but I've not asked about it.

What's with this? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:05, 23 April 2019 (UTC)