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

view · edit Frequently asked questions (see also: Misplaced Pages:Technical FAQ) Click "" next to each point to see more details. If something looks wrong, purge the server's cache, then bypass your browser's cache. This tends to solve most issues, including improper display of images, user-preferences not loading, and old versions of pages being shown. No, we will not use JavaScript to set focus on the search box. This would interfere with usability, accessibility, keyboard navigation and standard forms. See task 3864. There is an accesskey property on it (default to accesskey="f" in English). Logged-in users can enable the "Focus the cursor in the search bar on loading the Main Page" gadget in their preferences. No, we will not add a spell-checker, or spell-checking bot. You can use a web browser such as Firefox, which has a spell checker. If you have problems making your fancy signature work, check Help:How to fix your signature. If you changed to another skin and cannot change back, use this link. Alternatively, you can press Tab until the "Save" button is highlighted, and press Enter. Using Mozilla Firefox also seems to solve the problem. If an image thumbnail is not showing, try purging its image description page. If the image is from Wikimedia Commons, you might have to purge there too. If it doesn't work, try again before doing anything else. Some ad blockers, proxies, or firewalls block URLs containing /ad/ or ending in common executable suffixes. This can cause some images or articles to not appear. For server or network status, please see Wikimedia Status. If you cannot reach Misplaced Pages services, see Reporting a connectivity issue.

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Lua Citation deployment

In the not too distant future, we are likely to deploy the Lua version of {{cite encyclopedia}}, {{cite encyclopedia/lua}}, as a moderate scale test of Module:Citation/CS1. Lua-based citations are expected to reduce citation formatting time by about 80% without sacrificing any formatting options. The current set of test cases for this template can be seen at Module talk:Citation/CS1/test/encyclopedia. As shown, there are a number of cases where errors in the current {{cite encyclopedia}} have been corrected, as well as small formatting changes (often motivated by a desire make the different families of citation templates more consistent). Dragons flight (talk) 01:20, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and deployed the Lua version for {{cite encyclopedia}}. Dragons flight (talk) 03:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

{{cite news}} has now also been replaced with a Lua version. Test cases at Module talk:Citation/CS1/test/news. Dragons flight (talk) 14:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

{{cite journal}} has now also been deployed using Lua. Test cases as Module talk:Citation/CS1/test/journal. Dragons flight (talk) 01:00, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

{{cite book}} has now been deployed using Lua. Test cases at Module talk:Citation/CS1/test/book. Dragons flight (talk) 23:33, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

{{cite web}} has now been deployed using Lua. Test cases at Module talk:Citation/CS1/test/web. Dragons flight (talk) 00:51, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much for all the updates, DF. I must admit I was a bit worried about the conversion to Lua, but everything has turned out great from all the checking I've done. I certainly appreciate all the work you've done. 64.40.54.208 (talk) 05:53, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

{{citation}} has now been deployed using Lua. Test cases at Module talk:Citation/CS1/test/citation. Dragons flight (talk) 23:51, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Easyblock

I use the very useful easyblock script for admins. Initially the "Block" button would show on a contributor's User, Talk, Contribution and Diffs, but now it only appears on Contributions and Diffs. I tried to fix this by adding some extra lines, but no joy. I don't really know what I'm doing, please help! The current script in my commons.js is importScript("User:Animum/easyblock.js"); //User:Animum/easyblock.js ebPrefs = {showOnPages  : };

thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:01, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't ebPrefs = {showOnPages  : }; make more sense? — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 23:36, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

That seemed the obvious thing to try, didn't make any difference though Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:48, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata Bug ?

Hello,

I have a questions on this article Cape Esperance. Using Chrome (and Firefox), I can not edit the interwiki links / have access to Wikidata at the bottom of the interwiki links. Is it a known bug ? What can I do ? Thanks in advance. Poppy (talk) 18:25, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

"Edit links" appeared when I purged the page. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:57, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

It depends: if there isn't any wikidata item, the edit links button doesn't appear. But I sometimes also have the problem, that the link is not displayed in Opera 12.14... I don't know when it happens, but it drives me somehow sometimes crazy, resulting in empty wikidata items... mabdul 02:06, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd recommend asking on http://www.wikidata.org/Wikidata:Contact_the_development_team whether it's a bug and whether to create a request in the bugtracker. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:46, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata phase 2 is coming soon

Hi :)

2 days ago the first 11 Wikipedias got the ability to include data from Wikidata in their articles. These are the Italian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian and Serbo-Croatian Wikipedias. This means they are now able to make use of the structured data that is available on Wikidata. It includes things like conservation status for a species, ISBN for a book or the top level domain of a country.

The next step is to roll out phase 2 of Wikidata on English Misplaced Pages. We are currently planning this for Wednesday next week (April 3). We are currently carefully monitoring performance on the first 11 Wikipedias to make sure everything is ok. If problems arise we might have to postpone the deployment a bit longer but I wanted to give you a heads-up that this is the current plan.

We have prepared an FAQ for this deployment and are looking forward to your testing and feedback. You can already test it on test2.

And some more details about how this will work: There are two ways to access the data:

• Use a parser function like {{#property:p169}} in the wiki text of the article on Yahoo!. This will return “Marissa Mayer” as she is the chief executive officer of the company.
• For more complicated things you can use Lua. The documentation for this is here.

We are working on expanding the parser function so you can for example use {{#property:chief executive officer}} instead of {{#property:p169}}. The complete plan for this is here.

Thank you so much for helping us bring Wikidata to all Wikipedias!

Cheers Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:45, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey Lydia. I was going to email you and Denny about this, but I figure here is as good a place as any to ask, since some community members might be wondering the same thing. To be clear: this is a pretty broad question, not one that I think should hold up enabling Phase II.

When it comes to implementing use of Wikidata properties in infoboxes and the current state of the syntax, what is the actual, step-by-step workflow for updating content? I see description of the syntax linked from the FAQ, but not a clear description of the steps involved in editing something should we implement properties in infoboxes or directly in articles willy-nilly. I am of course looking at this through the eyes of my own editing as an admin on enwiki, and with my editor engagement hat on. This is my understanding: Previously, if an editor wanted to update an infobox, all they'd need to do is click Edit and change the value. For new editors, the hurdle was scary infobox wikitext, but in theory you could figure out the relationship between the markup, values, and what the article looked like. Now, when you click edit, you can't actually change the content in a wiki page by clicking edit here, you have to know to go to Wikidata and update the property.

That workflow is extremely problematic from a user experience design perspective, because it adds a number of potentially annoying and complicated steps to do what once a two-step "edit-save". There seems to be zero indicator of how to do so that is obvious too, which is bound to confuse even experienced editors until everybody across the wikis learns the new system.

How are we going to solve this problem? I don't think asking all editors to head over to a completely different wiki to update infobox values is okay at all, because it forces end users to conform to the needs of the Wikidata software architecture, rather than using software to help us keep the content up to date. The main solution I am thinking is that we allow local updating of Wikidata values which the software then pulls back in to the main revision history on wikidata.org. This would be best accomplished with VisualEditor of course, so it's probably not going to happen immediately. However, I'd really like us to consider how we can reduce user confusion and introducing multiple new steps in to the workflow of updating infobox content. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:29, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

My take: Ideally we should work towards an inline invocation of Wikidata editing for properties. Til then, "edit" links in infoboxes that point straight to wikidata.org may be an acceptable solution. Property invocations in the article namespace should probably be avoided completely and perhaps made impossible. On the plus side, having parameter-less templates will make wikitext less cluttered.

Cf. an example of a parameter-less template invocation.--Eloquence* 18:50, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Inline edit links to Wikidata (ala the interwiki links implementation) is definitely a good interim solution, since it is an obvious pointer to where the content is coming from. That is a good point about templates without huge parameters, and it's actually quite likely to reduce headaches for first time editors around seeing massive amounts of infobox markup at the head of articles. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:54, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Eloquence, in your example, for property with multiple value ("It's named after ... Linus Torvalds, Unix, Linux kernel"), they are not linkable (Linus Torvalds, Unix, Linux kernel. Has anyone raised this issue before? Bennylin (talk) 14:45, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

This will be done. I've filed it as bugzilla:46788 so we don't forget. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

(ec) One quick-and-dirty solution would be a discreet link in the top of the infoboxes similar to the (V D E) links which currently exist for a lot of navigational templates; rather that take you to the template page, however, it would send you to Wikidata.

That aside, remember that this depends on how the infobox is set up; there won't be any changes to enwiki infoboxes until someone actually codes the explicit use of wikidata into them. (It's not like the interwiki links, which effectively superseded existing content). As such, we can't really write guidance until we have some functioning examples to explain how it'll work - wikidata can't dictate that behaviour centrally. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:00, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

One thing for sure: integrating Wikidata to infoboxes will change the dynamic of revision diff. For example let say Yahoo's infobox is automated as of today, and a couple years from now (2020) it's CEO has changed, but looking back at today's revision, you won't find Marissa Mayer as it's past (2013) CEO, instead you'll find 2020's CEO in 2013 text.. Automated infoboxes, while it surely has its advantages, loses it's ability to be checked at exactly what diff the change occur (Wikiblame came to mind). And, as a consequence, automated infoboxes would rely on other website (Wikidata) to be vandal-free, or at least have the critical mass to revert problematic edits which could affect hundreds of projects.. Bennylin (talk) 20:19, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

We already have this problem to some degree with templates, of course! Andrew Gray (talk) 21:35, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

With template,s the diff could still be checked on the corresponding transcluded template's history, which is located on the same site (and listed on the bottom of the edit page). Having said that, it would be great to have list of property used in an article on the bottom of edit page. Bennylin (talk) 03:33, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Isn't there the same issue with Commons as well? Alterations to the file or even deletions could easily happen without a corresponding change to the revision history locally. They just don't happen often because files are less prone to mutability than text. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:50, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and that is recognized as enough of a problem that the {{keep local}} template exists. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:57, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

No. No matter you view the page locally or in Commons, they all have their file history on the image information screen. It's working great already. See if Wikidata can do the same thing, for example, for every "data"/"property" provided by Wikidata using parserfunction, one can click a different colored link (like, black?) which ideally go to a page complete with the revision history on the page itself, akin to image namespace. Bennylin (talk) 14:42, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Update: We encountered some small issues that we'll have to sort out. Deployment will probably not happen on Wednesday as initially planned but hopefully soon after. I'll keep you posted. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 20:16, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I would hope that the wiki page history would reflect changes to both the wiki page and any data which it fetches. Perhaps at the same time, the similar issue with template changes not being reflected in wiki page histories could be handled. There is also the related issue of source citation, the elements of which probably need to be properties of the data (covering multiple data items), which could then be pulled into the wiki page cites. —— 23:13, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I have a request for anyone involved in updating infobox templates: do not make the templates completely parameterless, but instead allow optional parameters to override data from Wikidata. It's going to take time for the data we have in infoboxes to be added to Wikidata, so we still need to use the data in wiki pages. As with the interwiki links, there will probably be some situations where we need to override data from Wikidata. Also, since Wikidata is not so easily edited as Misplaced Pages (both in terms of usability and technical requirements), editing the page on Misplaced Pages is the only way some editors can change infobox content. (Ideally, a bot could pick up such edits and transfer them to Wikidata. The infobox should still display local overrides while waiting for the bot to transfer them to Wikidata.) – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 22:32, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

As just an editor: having stuff like {{#property:p169}} is as un-wiki as it can be - (wiki as in "everyone can edit", without much trouble) It should definitely be only a short temporary use, probably betrer not to be used at all (if if it short and temporary let'«s skip such a incredibly nasty looking thing). Something like {{#property:chief executive officer}} is still hardly easy to understand to the non-programmer mind (I presume, I have a programmer mind, I think it is easy :-), but the gains may outweight that. But please don't go to "The president of {{#property:p123}} is {{#property:p456}}, since {{#property:p789}}", not even "The president of {{#property:company-short-name}} is {{#property:president}}, since {{#property:term-begin}}". - Nabla (talk) 23:18, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity

It seems to have gone now, but yesterday I had a load of 'nanny says' type info coming up when performing admin actions (i.e. deletions and blocks). There was so much, I had to scroll down to get to the blocking bit. What was it there for, and why's it gone again? (Note I am not begging for its return - just being nosy...) Peridon (talk) 20:58, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

If you want them back, set your interface language to "en". Not British English, not Canadian English. All of the "nanny says" kind of stuff only shows up in the plain English version of the site. There was a problem with selecting overrides of the user interface based on language settings. For a while, I was getting volumes of English on every action I took even though I keep my user interface set to Dutch. That change got undone because it really irritated the foreign language users. I think someone should undertake the effort to realign all the English interfaces, though.

The history can be found at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46579 and WP:Village pump (technical)#Language preferences getting mishandled—Kww(talk) 23:54, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. For anyone technical reading this, I hadn't changed my preferences (Brit English), and there's a bit more discussion at AN, 'Repost from VP (Tech)' thread. Peridon (talk) 00:07, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

File upload bot's uploads aren't registering in the log history

See https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=recentchanges&rcprop=title%7Cloginfo%7Ctimestamp&rcnamespace=6&rclimit=200&rctype=log

Why aren't uploads by commons:User:File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) showing up in this log? Is this new or has it been this way for a while? It is totally messing up my bot. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 22:56, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Hmmm. At commons:Special:Contributions/File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske), I currently see...

21:25, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (7070387667).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:25, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307424).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:25, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307270).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:24, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (7070386259).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:24, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307088).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:24, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306760).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:24, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306646).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:24, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306472).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)

At your API link, I currently see...

      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (7070387667).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:25:07Z" logid="59314832" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307424).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:25:07Z" logid="59314829" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307270).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:25:00Z" logid="59314802" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306646).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:24:59Z" logid="59314793" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (7070386259).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:24:59Z" logid="59314791" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307088).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:24:59Z" logid="59314792" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306760).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:24:59Z" logid="59314790" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306472).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:24:59Z" logid="59314789" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />

It looks like everything is getting logged, but some of the uploads have the exact same timestamp, so the order of the results isn't exactly the same. Is this what you mean? --MZMcBride (talk) 02:42, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I've spotted the error; in the querycontinue variable in the API, there is subvariable recentchanges, but there is no longer the rcstart subvariable. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 17:55, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Search term wildcard

I tried to use the asterisk (*) as a wildcard on the Special:PrefixIndex page and it didn't work. I was looking specifically for pages that were prefixed "C*:". If the asterisk had worked there would have been listings like "C:xxxxx", "CAT:xxxxx" and so forth, but the page was empty. Evidently the asterisk is not seen by the software as a search term wildcard, and I wonder if there is another symbol that is recognized as a wildcard? – PAINE ELLSWORTH  04:37, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it works on namespaces, read somewhere it only works on page names. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 05:34, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Neither C: nor CAT: are namespaces. Rather, they are pseudo-namespaces. As far as MediaWiki is concerned, pages with those prefixes are in main article space and the C: or CAT: is just part of their title. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 22:06, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

No, there is no wildcard for Special:PrefixIndex. Anomie⚔ 12:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh  d a r n. Had to give it a shot. Thank you both very much! – PAINE ELLSWORTH  19:58, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

you can't use "prefix search", but you can still use the search: in the special search screen (i.e., the page that opens when you press the little magnifying glass icon in the search box) you can press "advanced", and select exactly the namespaces you want to search. then you can use "intitle:XXXX", to look only for articles where this string appears as part of their title. this may not be as precise as "prefix", but it's much closer than nothing at all (you can look for more advanced search options in the help page linked from "advanced search")... peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 22:31, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Import a Wordperfect document containing footnotes?

Over at this Help desk thread, a new user has prepared a long article in WordPerfect X6 using Wordperfect footnotes for referencing. Can anyone think of a way to get the text and its footnotes into Misplaced Pages? -- John of Reading (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Announcing new Module: Charts

After some discussions in Misplaced Pages:Lua requests, i developed a module that can display bar-charts from user input. There are several options, such as stacking the bars on top of each other or showing them side by side, using different scales for different groups in one chart, and a little more. see Module:Chart for partial documentation and some examples.

{{ #invoke:Chart | bar-chart
| group 1 = 40 : 50 : 60 : 20
| group 2 = 20 : 60 : 12 : 44
| group 3 = 55 : 14 : 33 : 5
| colors = green : yellow : orange
| group names = Apple : Banana : Orange
| x legends = Before : During : After : Post mortem
}}

•   Apple
•   Banana
•   Orange

comments and bug reports expected on Module talk:Chart. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:18, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Very cool. Thanks kipod. Is there something similar to {{Line chart}} in a Lua module? 64.40.54.208 (talk) 01:37, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Overall, very nice. I think the legend is a little awkward, though. Maybe better to have simple text labels adjacent to colored boxes rather than inside them. Dragons flight (talk) 03:05, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

you are correct, of course. this is how i did it to begin with. don't know why it did not work at first shot, and instead of fixing the problem i found a way around it. i think it's better now. one of the problems is that i can't write a decent unit-test. there may also be a better solution for the Y-scale units (see example in Module:Chart). maybe use border instead of background or something. problem is, some light colors may be OK for the bars, but not good enough for text, like yellow, so we can't use it for the text itself. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 04:36, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

oh, and about {{line chart}}: no way i can touch this thing. my sincere admiration to the people who managed to do this by perverting the timeline extension, but i feel that if i state at this convoluted code for two more minutes i might go blind. the only way i can think of ATM for creating line chart is by using something called "transform", which is semi standard. the problem is that i am not sure all browses support it, and i am not sure that the ones that do, behave exactly the same. the problem is not writing the Lua code, the difficulty is that this requires some deep html magic - prolly more than i posses at the moment... maybe what we should do is to lobby the developers to create a decent chart extension. then we can have not only bar and line charts but also pie charts, and more goodies. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 04:55, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

{{line chart}} is well beyond my my ability, but thanks for taking a look. BTW, I've added Module:Chart to WP:Graphs and charts. Cheers. 64.40.54.208 (talk) 06:35, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Which edit counter

Ok back in 2009 I created User:Nthep/Editcounter obviously in connection with an edit counter but for the life of me I can't remember which one. Does anyone know which and is it still functioning? I know it's not tparis's as that relies on User:Nthep/EditCounterOptIn.js. Thanks. NtheP (talk) 22:40, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

See User talk:X!/Archives/6/2010#OptIn. The links there to Interiot's tool don't work - "Account expired". -- John of Reading (talk) 07:21, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

References

In an article i use note references but i also have a real reference i wish to use to back up the note, Is there anyway to add a reference to the note and if not whats the best way to ref a note?Blethering Scot 00:13, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, Help:Footnotes#Embedding references within footnotes is what you are looking for. If that's not it, please provide the article you're working on and I can give you better answer. Cheers. 64.40.54.208 (talk) 06:55, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Navboxes and edit tools broken

Just how soon will all the navboxes on Misplaced Pages be fixed? While we're at it, when will be get the tools at the top of the pages back? -------User:DanTD (talk) 00:22, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

They're all working fine here... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:31, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Not really. The navboxes haven't been collapsible for the past several days, and there's no edit tools above my page. I used to be able to click on an icon for my signature, or bold or italic type, or images, etcetera, and that tool bar is gone. -------User:DanTD (talk) 15:18, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I'll bet you inadvertently disabled javascript on your browser.קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 15:48, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

What kipod said. To check, click on this link; if it says "NO", then you've disabled JavaScript accidentally. jcgoble3 (talk) 18:26, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Nope. It said "Yes." There were other complaints about this earlier this week, but I can't find them. -------User:DanTD (talk) 22:39, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like you have something stuck in your browser cache. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:43, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect interwiki

In articles which I've written in Polish and English Misplaced Pages happened something wrong with the interwikis. It has something to do with recent activity of Addbot, I suppose. I mean the series of articles about Vetulani family - interwiki redirects not to the article about particular person in Misplaced Pages in different language, but to the template with whole family tree (for example interwikis in article Adam Vetulani - Adam Vetulani). I have no idea how to fix it. Can someone help? Francesco 13 (talk) 09:30, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Templates must have interwiki links inside <noinclude>...</noinclude> to prevent the interwiki link from also applying to pages transcluding the template. Fixed in and . PrimeHunter (talk) 12:24, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Francesco 13 (talk) 15:28, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Link to copy page content to clipboard?

I don't even know if this is the right place to ask about this, but it seems more appropriate than any other place I can find. What I'm trying to do is see if there's a way to copy a page's contents to the clipboard - so you can paste in a page you're editing - by clicking a link on another page. Is this something that can even be done with the current wikimedia software? Should I put in a Lua request? Is this just not technically feasible at all for security reasons? I would like to implement it as a template for use on template/module documentation pages to help editors transclue them with the right parameters, eg infoboxes. Any pointers or thoughts would be appreciated. VanIsaac_{WS Vex} 14:04, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Copying content to the clipboard can only be done via JavaScript; lua (as a server-side script) has no access to local clipboards. — Edokter (talk) — 14:55, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's good to know; struck that option. Is JavaScript even allowed on Misplaced Pages pages? VanIsaac_{WS Vex} 15:18, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

JavaScript cannot be used directly in wiki pages. What you can do is write scripts that are loaded on every page you view that modify the loaded page if it contains certain content (e.g. it could add a copy link where it finds <span class="van-copy-link"></span> in the page). You can place JavaScript that only affects yourself in Special:MyPage/common.js. To write a script for other users to use, create a subpage in your userspace with a name that ends .js. Other users can load the script by adding something like importScript( 'User:Yourname/yourscript.js' ); to their own common.js file. See Misplaced Pages:WikiProject User scripts/Guide for more information about user scripts.

Administrators can write scripts that other users can use without needing them to muck around in their common.js file. Admins can create gadgets, which registered users can turn on and off in Preferences. Admins can also edit MediaWiki:common.js to make changes that affect everyone without any option to turn them off (without turning off JavaScript altogether, that is). – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 16:05, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

So I could actually do this completely within my own user space without any special permissions, just make my own JS script, and import it to my common.js, and only once it works would it get included in global files so it works for everyone? VanIsaac_{WS Vex} 16:39, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I think a lot of gadgets start life as a user script. Once other people have had a chance to test it and find that they like it, you can propose that it be added as a gadget at Misplaced Pages:Gadget/proposals. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 16:54, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, that pretty much answers that. Thanks for all your help. VanIsaac_{WS Vex} 17:16, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

The way I do it is click to edit the page and then click anywhere in the edit box. Then press CTRL+A then CTRL+C. This copies the content of the page to the clipboard. Then I go to the new page, put the cursor where I want to add the content and press CTRL+V. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 21:21, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm looking for a bit more functionality than that, so even though it started out as an idea about copying code I store on test pages in my user space, I'm trying to make an interface for editors to copy template parameters from /doc pages. Something along the lines of "Click here to copy the basic infobox code to your clipboard, here for extra code X, here for extra code Y, or here for extra code Z." VanIsaac_{WS Vex} 01:48, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

We do have preloads for page creation and input box. They are limited in functionality, but often enough. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:31, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Bulleted lists and the signpost subscription template

I noticed that the multi-level bulleted list on my talk page we're displaying correctly, level 2 was inline with level 1 (see below, the second "L2. Bulleted list item 2 asterisks" line is not indented, but directly under the L1 line). It seems to have something to do with the signpost subscription template. See below, after the signpost, the two asterisks indentation isn't done, but it is OK before the template.

• L1. Bulleted list item 1 asterisk
  • L2. Bulleted list item 2 asterisks
    • L3. Bulleted list item 3 asterisks

• L2. Bulleted list item 1 colon, 1 asterisk

• L3. Bulleted list item 2 colons, 1 asterisk

• • L3. Bulleted list item 1 colon, 2 asterisks

1. Num list
   1. Num list level 2

15 January 2025
From the editors: Looking back, looking forward Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2024 In the media: Will you be targeted? Technology report: New Calculator template brings interactivity at last Essay: Meet the Canadian who holds the longest editing streak on Misplaced Pages Opinion: Reflections one score hence News and notes: It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me... and I'm feeling free Serendipity: What we've left behind, and where we want to go next Op-ed: Elon Musk and the right on Misplaced Pages In focus: Twenty years of The Signpost: What did it take? Arbitration report: Analyzing commonalities of some contentious topics Humour: How to make friends on Misplaced Pages
Single page Front page About Subscribe Suggestions Archives

• L1. Bulleted list item 1 asterisk
  • L2. Bulleted list item 2 asterisks
    • L3. Bulleted list item 3 asterisks

• L2. Bulleted list item 1 colon, 1 asterisk

• L3. Bulleted list item 2 colons, 1 asterisk

• • L3. Bulleted list item 1 colon, 2 asterisks

1. Num list
   1. Num list level 2

The :* method seems to work OK. No problems with # either. Is there something "wrong" with the template? As a side question, is ** or :* the preferred/recommended way of having an indented bulleted list? The-Pope (talk) 17:38, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

It displays fine for me in regular viewing and breaks only on edit-preview. I don't know what could be wrong. jcgoble3 (talk) 18:40, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I've noticed that any template that uses the MediaWiki's method of short handing Unordered Lists using the MWML shorthand confuses the parser. It has something to do with the wikicore I think... I've been meaning to put in a ticket if one doesn't already exist. I guess I'll make sure to do that tomorrow (I have the same problem with {{Tbullet}}) As far as the sign-post goes, you could probably change the template to use the HTML tags for the bulleted list and prevent the problem spawning from that template (<ul><li>Item content</li><li>Item content</li><li>....</li></ul>) To answer your other question, if you want the bullet indented all by itself without being nested in another list, than you use :*.  ::Examples:

• List
  • Nested list

• • Not nested **

• Not nested but properly indented :*

— User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 21:17, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

This is the issue explained in detail at Template talk:Shortcut#Changing wiki-markup to pure HTML in lists. The proper fix is to correct the wikitext in the template to not result in tag soup. Not that it shouldn't be done, but be aware that filing a bug isn't likely to help. Changing the behavior of wikitext lists would require some fairly drastic parser changes that few are able to do and likely none are willing.

Regarding the "double bullet" effect: Any subitem should begin with the same sequence of characters as its parent item. This is more clear when using numbered lists rather than bulleted:

* Number 1
** Subitem with "**"
* Number 2

# Number 1
#* Subitem with "#*"
# Number 2

* Number 1
:* Subitem with ":*"
* Number 1 again?!

# Number 1
::* Subitem with "::*"
# Number 1 again?!

Using differing "prefixes" causes separate lists to be generated, as can be seen by the resetting of the numbering. Those multiple separate lists are also what causes the "double bullet" effect. Also, I am told, the multiple separate lists can be annoying to screenreader users even when the visible page appears fine. I'm not sure what tangent User:Technical 13 is going off on above. Anomie⚔ 02:50, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Re: Screen readers, see this section of the accessibility guideline. Graham87 07:37, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

• What tangent do you mean Anomie? Technical 13 (talk) 15:54, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

  "if you want the bullet indented all by itself without being nested in another list". Bringing up additional things no one asked about in the middle of a discussion like this tends to confuse the issue. Anomie⚔ 21:30, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• User:The-Pope asked above, " As a side question, is ** or :* the preferred/recommended way of having an indented bulleted list?" I was responding to a question, not going off on a tangent. :) Technical 13 (talk) 00:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Want to block myself from going on Misplaced Pages forever due to addiction to it, tried Wikibreak Enforcer, it isn't working

I set a ridiculously long Wikibreak of 100 years in the Wikibreak Enforcer to make sure I can quit my current addictive behaviour to Misplaced Pages completely. But it is not working, I thought I entered the right material, this is what I entered for the Wikibreak Enforcer here: . Could someone please correct it so that the Wikibreak is in place?--R-41 (talk) 18:46, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I recommend that you use the new Wikibreak enforcer:

/*** BEGIN WIKIBREAK ENFORCER ***/
addOnloadHook(function() {
        /*** Start editing here ***/
        // When you want to end your break?
        // no leading zeroes. (example: 7 - correct, 07 - incorrect)
        var date = { year: 2100, month: 1, day: 1};
        var time = { hours: 0, minutes: 0, seconds: 0 };
        /*** Stop editing here ***/
        var currentDate = new Date();
        var enforcedBreakEnd = new Date(
                date.year,date.month-1,date.day,time.hours,time.minutes,time.seconds);
        if (currentDate <= enforcedBreakEnd) {
                alert("Enforced wikibreak until "+enforcedBreakEnd.toLocaleString()
                        + "\n(now is "+currentDate.toLocaleString()+")\n\nBye!");
                location = "//"+location.host+"/search/?title="
                        + "Special:Userlogout&returnto=Main_Page";
        }
});
/*** END WIKIBREAK ENFORCER ***/

Sorry to see you go. —Theopolisme (talk) 19:03, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

"the crap on this page"

For some reason, Indigenous peoples is displaying with the sentence "please don't fall for the crap on this page" in the lead paragraph--but the wiki text doesn't show this comment when I went in to edit it out. Has a template or something been compromised? Thanks, -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:05, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

There was vandalism of the page, which was automatically reverted by a bot. apparently, bot edits do not trigger purging of the page, so you saw the cached, vandalized version. "Purge" or simply null-edit (i.e., pressing "edit" and then saving without actually changing anything on the page) cures it. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:20, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I got it corrected.by removing the mis-formated ].that had been left there by an IP edit. It was deliberate vandalism, and perhaps some hidden code in what I removed. Cluebot tried to delete it and didn't. — Maile (talk) 21:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

there was no "mis-formatting". you removed a perfectly good internal link - cluebot reverted it just fine. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:34, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I say it was "mis-formatted", because it only had one bracket on the left instead of the double bracket. It WAS...— Maile (talk) 21:54, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Whatever the case, the page is again displaying correctly. Thanks for the fix. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:56, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I just took care of it. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 21:59, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

View count bot

The page Aho–Corasick string matching algorithm has for the past week been experiencing a view count bot. I hope someone can fix this. Pass a Method talk 21:52, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

{{PAGENAME}} in the address bar

Hello. I created a template. If I use articles with one word, it is functioning properly . But if in the title a few words with spaces, template is no longer functioning properly . What should I do to have turned out to use the template and articles whose title contains spaces? Thanks.--Ворота рая Импресариата (talk) 08:09, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

You need to use {{urlencode:{{PAGENAME}}}} in order to replace spaces with underscores for bare urls, like your links to en.wiki. Your code currently interprets the first space in the page name as the end of the URL. VanIsaac_{WS Vex} 08:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Or {{PAGENAMEE}} may be better (depending on situation) -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, he's trying to link to an en.wiki article in another wiki with , which doesn't work when the article name has a space. So the first {{PAGENAME}} needs to get urlencoded with underscores. VanIsaac_{WS Vex} 09:12, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you all!! I'm sorry, but where can I read more about these and similar templates? Up to this point I did not know about their existence. Thanks.--Ворота рая Импресариата (talk) 09:51, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:PF VanIsaac_{WS Vex} 10:58, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I humbly thank you. :-)--Ворота рая Импресариата (talk) 11:27, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

• I agree that would be more efficient than . Just my Template:2c — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 12:39, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

"efficient " - yes; useful - no! Try it with a page containing a whitespace... mabdul 09:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

That is why they are using {{PAGENAMEE}} or {{urlencode: it will change the whitespaces to usable characters for the URL string. On a side note, I went back and looked at your template again and it is possible to have characters that won't work the way you have it now (? & = to name a few)...

• {{PAGENAME}} → Village pump (technical)
• {{PAGENAMEE}} → Village_pump_(technical)
• {{URLENCODE:{{PAGENAME}}}} → Village+pump+%28technical%29
• {{URLENCODE:{{PAGENAMEE}}}} → Village_pump_%28technical%29

I'd use {{URLENCODE:{{PAGENAMEE}}}} instead to make sure that "every" page name was properly converted. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 11:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

If you use that, you'll have incorrect output. {{PAGENAMEE}} for "10 & 6 = 2?" returns "10_%26_6_%3D_2%3F"; your example returns the double-encoded "10_%2526_6_%253D_2%253F". Anomie⚔ 00:18, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Mabdul: Note there is a difference between "{{PAGENAME}}" (with one E at the end) and "{{PAGENAMEE}}" (with two E's at the end). Anomie⚔ 00:18, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• I've also just recently come across {{PAGENAMEU}}, but haven't found documentation on it yet, maybe Anomie can tell us more about it? Village+pump+%28technical%29. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 00:28, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

  {{PAGENAMEU}} is a template, equivalent to {{urlencode:{{PAGENAME}}}}. Anomie⚔ 00:38, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Can someone disambiguate the names affected by tl:sortname?

Some disambig errors are reported at Talk:List_of_Shadowrun_books#Author_links. I tried to fix them, but the article now uses {{sortname}} and I don't know how to tell it to use a red link. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:19, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

{{sortname}} shows documentation. {{sortname|Tom|Dowd}} gives Tom Dowd with the bad link to the disambiguation page. {{sortname|Tom|Dowd|Tom Dowd (author)}} gives Tom Dowd. It's the same syntax whether the link is blue or red. {{sortname|Tom|Dowd|nolink=1}} gives Tom Dowd. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:59, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Bots and the sudden loss of communication

Hello. I ran a bot add_text.py. But his work was terminated error 503. I stopped at the article on the letter E. Tell me, is it possible to continue the action of the script from the page where the failure occurred? If not, then how should I complete the planned my action? Thank you.--Ворота рая Импресариата (talk) 15:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you can use the argument -start:E. —Theopolisme (talk) 00:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I certainly tried, but in one case the bot is still starting from the beginning of the list, in the other - to make transactions in the space of articles, even though I asked to perform tasks in templates, and the third - did nothing.


So, I completed the task with AWB - this program is always less hassle - but what if I need to do something that is not in the standard functional AWB and there is the same error - I do not know. Thanks.--Ворота рая Импресариата (talk) 05:55, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Lua implementation of Template:Portal

I've written a Lua version of Template:Portal at Module:Portal, and I hope it can be rolled out fairly soon. {{Portal}} has more than four million transclusions, though, so I want to make sure it is done right. There are test cases at Template:Portal/testcases and I've outlined the details of the implementation at Template talk:Portal#Lua implementation. If people could take a look over my code and comment over there, I'd be most grateful. — Mr. Stradivarius 19:06, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I have just made the change. If anyone notices any issues, please report them to Template talk:Portal. Thanks — Mr. Stradivarius 13:45, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Error mesage

Just for documentation purposes, I got sent to a page that said the Wiki was having a problem. It was not the normal "Wikimedia error" page that usually appears.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:49, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

We had three outages in the last days, the latest on Sunday 2013-03-31 around 21:20 UTC, and the operations team is aware of it and has fixed them. Are there specific steps to reproduce? Did this happen with any page on en.wikipedia.org, is this still reproducible for you, and if yes what is the exact error message? (Screenshot or copying the text welcome). Thanks & sorry for the problems. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:52, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

It just happened once and I didn't think to do a screen shot.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Convert HTML into an infobox

Can someone convert the HTML at Joel Goffin into an infobox and put his image in the infobox rather than the center of the article? Ryan Vesey 21:46, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Done -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:03, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so much. Ryan Vesey 23:28, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Convert HTML into an infobox Part 2

I'm very active at lowp at the moment and cleaning the complete wiki (only ~850 article at the moment). Would somebody help me and cleaning up the infoboxes and converting them to "wikimarkup infoboxes? Here is a link for them for some . More will likely follow in a few days if I find some in articlespace which aren't covered by this link. If there are still interwiki links, feel free to help there, too. ;-)

Regards,

mabdul 22:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Some more infoboxes: . mabdul 11:42, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Question for those familiar with MediaWiki template parameters / variables

Can I ask anyone who is an expert in this topic to take a look at the question here. Thanks  7  01:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Is there a tool to update an infobox automatically?

I was looking at the infobox at Open Knowledge Foundation. It seems to be using old parts of the syntax such as | Non-profit_name = | Non-profit_logo = | vector_logo = (you can see them in the 2007 version but not in the modern {{Infobox non-profit}}). Is there any tool that could update this in the article replacing old syntax with new or do we have to do this by hand? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

You could either use WP:AWB for that, or request a bot operator to do this at WP:BOTREQ (multiple bots do these kind of replacements and removals on a regular basis). mabdul 04:52, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Bugday today (16:30 - 20:30UTC) on MediaWiki skin and page rendering issues

Hi everybody, today is a Wikimedia Bugday from 16:30-20:30 UTC in #wikimedia-office on Freenode IRC. Everyone is welcome to join, and no technical knowledge needed! Just say Hi and that you're here for the bugday when joining at any time. It's an easy way to get involved in the community or to give something back. This even is part of the QA weekly goals. This information and more can be found on the wiki. There is also more information available on Bug triaging in general. Looking forward to seeing you there! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 14:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to everybody who joined. We will continue this week to triage Skin and page rendering issues, and everybody is welcome to join. I'm andre__ on IRC. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 08:48, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Change in logged-in status

In the past, I'd get a warning that I was not logged in every day or two, while attempting to save an edit, even though I was definitely logged in when I started, as evidenced by the top menus, nav popups, WikEd use, edit settings, etc.

I've noticed that, in the last couple of weeks, this has changed, and I haven't needed to log in again during that time. I generally leave a WP page open in a browser (FFox 15), and generally hibernate the machine between sessions.

I also noticed another change today. I log in and use the https (secure) web interface to WP. When I Google search (i.e. from Google) in another tab or window and click on a link to a WP article, it is usually to the non-secure http page. In the past, even though I am logged in and viewing an https page in another tab/window, the http page I clicked on would not be logged in. If I proceeded to log into that page, I believe (but am not sure) it would log me out of the https page. Now, it seems that has changed. When I click on an http link, it still shows me as logged in (based on the top menu, nav popups, etc.).

If this is a fix, thanks! I thought I'd mention it for the benefit of those who were routinely logging in every day as a (now un-necessary) preventative measure. —— 18:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

If you log-in on HTTPS, you are only logged-in for using HTTPS and will appear logged-out on plain HTTP. If you log-in on HTTP, you are logged-in for using both HTTP and HTTPS. If you log-in on HTTP while already logged-in on HTTPS, the HTTP log-in replaces the HTTPS one, so you appear logged-in on both. (Replacing an existing login like this might cause a "loss of session data" if you were editing a page in another tab. You remain logged-in, and can complete the edit by clicking "Save page" again.)

If you appear logged-in on HTTP, you must have logged-in using HTTP. If you are concerned someone could capture your unencrypted login cookie on HTTP and use it to impersonate you, I suggest you log out then log back in again using HTTPS.

As for remaining logged in for longer, you might have checked the "Remember my login on this browser (for a maximum of 30 days)" check box when logging in. (I'm sure this used to be 180 days, so something's changed here...) Alternatively, your browser might have a function where it regularly deletes HTTPS cookies for security reasons, while keeping the non-secure HTTP ones. Hence, remaining logged-in for longer could be linked to being logged-in on HTTP.

Personally (using Opera 12), I only have to log-in once in a blue moon. I always login using HTTPS and check "Remember my login". I logged out and logged back in just now, and can confirm that I still appear logged out using HTTP (which is how I like it). – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 22:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Classic skin and CSS

The WMF has announced that in two weeks time, it will stop supporting the Classic skin. As per this XKCD strip, this will severely impede my workflow.

I've been told that the majority of Classic's features can be replicated via .css tinkering. However, this would require a skillset I don't have. Can anyone help out?

(I want serif fonts - preferably Times New Roman. I know how to set my browser so that all pages everywhere will be in Times New Roman, but I'd rather it was just all WMF pages. Because those are the pages that are affected by my user skin. This is doable, yes?

(And I prefer the 'toolbox' links to be off to the left side, not the top, and I don't want collapsibles.) DS (talk) 19:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• toolbox on the left: unless you mean something else in "toolbox" than what i think you mean, this is already the default for vector.
• non-collapsible: this is settable from Preferences => Appearance => Enable collapsing of items in the sidebar in Vector skin
• fonts: if you want times all over, add the following to your CSS page

  body { font-family: "Times new roman";}
  

  if you want it for content only, use

  #bodyContent { font-family: "Times new roman";}
  

peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 19:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Although it will only affect a small minority of users, I believe that by making this change, without any form of discussion and only minimal notice, the Foundation is seriously overstepping its mark. This should be fully discussed, on all Wikis, and there should only be change if there is good reason and consensus to do so. Objections to this heavy-handed approach can be made . An optimist on the run!   19:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Ironic that you would call for making objections on that page. The purpose of that Meta page is to get translations for advance notifications to each local community about the reasons for the change, who it will impact and so on. Oliver Keyes and others are working on making sure there are announcements etc., so please assume good faith instead of rushing to get your pitchfork. There will be an opportunity to comment about the change without needing to go to Meta. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Then please tell us where we can make objections, and let us know if such objections will be listened to. An optimist on the run!   20:46, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I let Oliver know over IRC so he can explain the plan. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:49, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Both users have now commented on the meta page provided, which explains the plan - that seems to resolve that :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:30, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• I've seen this brought up somewhere else as well. I'm curious, what "other" skin is "classic" the least different from? I would like to be able to offer an alternative that isn't that different to some of the questions I've seen like "what other skin uses the full page width" that I think was on WP:HD or WP:TH. I'd also like to have available the differences in those two skins so I can quickly offer css they can add to their common.css or skin.css to make it feel like they still are using classic. Any ideas here? — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 23:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
  • I think that Cologne Blue would be the best starting point. --Carnildo (talk) 00:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
    • If you like full width use Vector and a custom css like mine. - Thomas d stewart (talk) 00:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The skins that will remain are

• MinervaNeue (mobile)
• MonoBook
• Timeless
• Vector legacy (2010)
• Vector (2022)

Those in the process of removal are

• ⧼skinname-chick⧽
• ⧼skinname-standard⧽
• ⧼skinname-myskin⧽
• Nostalgia
• ⧼skinname-simple⧽

Click any of the nine links to see what WP:VPT looks like in each skin. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

And how do I get the yellow (hex code FF FF EC) background on all non-article pages? DS (talk) 22:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I think something like this in your common.css will do what you want (untested):

div#content, div#content div.thumb {
    background-color: #FFFFEC;
}
.ns-0 div#content, .ns-0 div#content div.thumb {
    background-color: white;
}

– PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 22:53, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm working out the details with the help of user:Coren; however, he tells me that it will also require modifying the layout, which is a .js issue. Is anyone here sufficiently competent with .js to help me do this? DS (talk) 00:08, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

badly positioned magnifying glass in search bar using Firefox

I have seen a problem with the positioning of the magnifying glass in the search bar using Firefox for a while now (at least about a half a year). I have uploaded a screenshot that shows the problem here. Notice how the magnifying glass is shifted down to the point of being partly outside the search box. Do other Firefox users see this? Not sure if problem here or with Firefox's rendering yet. This is the Linux version of Firefox. That shouldn't but may be important. Jason Quinn (talk) 19:48, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it does seem to be important that it's the Linux version of Firefox. I don't see it in the Windows version. Most likely a bug in Firefox now. Jason Quinn (talk) 20:13, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

There's already a Wikimedia bug report (Template:Bug) regarding the positioning of the icon, although it seems that your case is particularly bad. May I ask which version of Firefox are you running? On my Linux installation, Firefox 19 seems to match the "Epiphany" screenshot. PleaseStand (talk) 20:54, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

It's 19.0.2. Jason Quinn (talk) 21:13, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my Firefox 19.0.2 on Ubuntu 12.10 also has the magnifying glass shifted down slightly, but not so severely as to leave the box. —Remember the dot 01:40, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Watchlist group by section?

I'm playing with the WP api and wondering if a watchlist variant that grouped by section name (when available) as well as by article would be useful. Has this been done already in some user script or extension or something? Just wondering if it would be useful. Mainly for busy pages like VP or teahouse or Jimbo talk. Silas Ropac (talk) 20:27, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

There's probably no such grouping variants in the watchlist as such. You'll likely need to make your own grouped lists of linked articles and use the related changes workaround. Watchlisting in general does have numerous limitations which need some technical attention, e.g. lack of multiple/grouped watchlists, fixing of bugs especially those related to large sizes (not easy to put a watchlist on a diet if both the normal and raw watchlist edits fail, Catch-22). Dl2000 (talk) 23:56, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

So far I'm just doing it with single article histories, not actually using watchlists or even psuedo-watchlists. I figure if it doesn't work nicely with a single article, there is not much point in showing multiple articles. So yesterday Village pump (policy) had 61 changes, but only 6 sections were involved. So rather than look at a flat list of 61 changes mine would present just 6 sections, if you wanted to expand the section with 42 changes you can, but if you don't care about it you can ignore it. So that is the goal anyway. One thing you lose is the overall time ordering. I could still order by time within a section, but if you want to peek at this throughout the day, it would be harder to see what's new. But for someone checking once a day it seems like it would tame the complexity somewhat. I don't know just an experiment. Which is why I was wondering if anyone has done it already, save me some time! Silas Ropac (talk) 15:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Haven't found a solution, although a "section" based watchlisting can be done if a page consists of transcluded pages as sections. For example, Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment lists various sections, but each article is transcluded, such as Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment/Levitsky versus Marshall/1. You could watch the Levitsky versus Marshall sub article to see the action in just that "section". Note that watching the GAR page will not indicate what sections are being added or purged - apparently you would have to watch the transcluded User:VeblenBot/C/Wikipedia good article reassessment for those. As mentioned, watchlisting in general is in need of much fixing and functional upgrading, and section-based watching would be useful. However, drawbacks may involve usability issues and complications with the extended functionality e.g. accidentally setting a watch only a section when the entire article is intended, or vice-versa. Dl2000 (talk) 22:28, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Vector.js not working

For some reason my js page User:Reywas92/vector.js is no longer working. Popups are the default style rather than my variant settings, and the scripts I have imported do nothing. Any suggestions how to fix it? I have refreshed the page several times and javascript is working in my browser, so I don't know what could be causing it. Thanks, Reywas92 22:41, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure. Get rid of all the lines starting with "<!--". Those are not valid JavaScript, those are XML comments. Lupo 22:56, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Replace the <!------> lines with /*<!-------->*/ (note the /* and */ on the ends. I also suggest moving your importScript() lines to the top to make them load first assuming there has been no issues with them in the past. Move them up one at a time and see if they work... If one of them got broken, everything after it linearly in that .js will be broken. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 23:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that worked. I did them all at once, but none of the imported pages have been edited and they all just suddenly stopped a few days ago for me so who knows. Reywas92 01:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

"Blacklisted" page isn't blacklisted

I try to move L 20 α class battleship to L 20 α-class battleship (with hyphen) it says the latter is on the title blacklist. Is it just being racist against Greek letters? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 04:16, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It is probably triggering on the mixed Latin, Greek characters. Werieth (talk) 04:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Super admin powers activate, form of megazordpage moved. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:49, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Changes and queries

Can I show my ignorance and enquire where the discussions are held that lead to changes in editing interfaces, such as the addition of 'user rights management' to the sidebar, and the apparent attempted 'unification' of the American and Brit English admin action screens? (At present, the Brit screen is without the lengthy palaver that the American screen has.) I have noticed as well that in the Brit English screen for general pages I get a button 'edit', while in the American screen it is 'edit this page'. I use a compression thing that changes 'discussion' to 'talk' (don't ask me what it's called), but 'edit this page' remains long (and somewhat unnecessarily so, IMO - is anyone really going to think that while they're on the Ninja Ocelot page, clicking 'edit' will enable them to edit Gertie the Aardvark?). In a discussion continuing my thread above 'Just out of curiosity' (unanswered here except for Kww) over at AN, Kww has raised this point of the location of the discussions that lead to these changes, and I would like to know too. Peridon (talk) 11:07, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Things are discussed in different places. Interface messages made by pages in the MediaWiki namespace are often discussed on the corresponding talk page, for example MediaWiki talk:Blockiptext. Only admins can change user rights so only admins have the "User rights management" link. I don't know whether the addition of the link was discussed, but it's a practical link and I already had it via personal js. Many interface messages at the English Misplaced Pages are customized but usually only for users with the default language setting "en - English" at Special:Preferences. Other languages, including British and Canadian English, get the default MediaWiki messages when there is no customization for that language, for example the default MediaWiki:Blockiptext/en-gb instead of the customized MediaWiki:Blockiptext. For this reason, I once added this to Help:Preferences: "It is not recommended to select the British English or Canadian English language options". I would say this especially holds for admins, not only for their own information but also so they see the same messages as most users they interact with. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Your only personal js page is User:Peridon/monobook.js so I assume you use MonoBook. You import User:Edokter/CompactTabs.js. As it says, it's intended for Vector, but it's activated in all skins. In Vector the page edit tab only says "Edit" by default, so the script has no code to compact it. In MonoBook it says "edit this page" by default. Perhaps "this page" was included to explain the difference from the section edit links. You can change it to "edit" with this in User:Peridon/monobook.js:

$( document ).ready( function() {
    $( 'a', '#ca-edit' ).text( 'edit' );
});

PrimeHunter (talk) 12:22, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I do use Monobook. I'm also opted out of the new colours for diffs. In both cases, I find the older version far easier to work with. (And I keep Windows in Classic view too...) Could you have a look at the comments at the Repost from VP (Tech) thread at AN? Thanks. Peridon (talk) 14:48, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Pink BG Citation needed

As in 2013 Canning riots,, is it a new change? --Tito Dutta (contact) 17:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It's {{citation needed span}}. the wub "?!" 17:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

There's also the similar {{Clarify span}}. These "span" templates are quite nice when used properly. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:59, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Potentially useful side effect of MathJax

In August 2012 there were some discussions about changing the preferred font in class="texhtml". Sysop Edokter declined to make changes in Commons.css on a pretext that

Later I noticed that, when MathJax uploads its fonts, the appearance of "texhtml" (a.k.a. {{math}}) switches to these font, even if they are not installed, if the CSS refers to names of these fonts. This can serve as a cheap improvement of appearance of simple formulae. Namely:

• If a reader uses the low-quality PNG renderer, then s/he will see serif, but if s/he uses this renderer, then the typesetting quality will not be high in any case.
• If a reader enables MathJax (one of available MathJaxes), but the page does not contain any <math>, then the font of class="texhtml" will depend on whether MathJax fonts were previously downloaded (or installed locally). But it is not important to mimic the MathJax appearance with {{math}}, because there are no MathJax formulae on the page.
• If a reader enables MathJax and the page loads it, then the proposed setup will make class="texhtml" formulae uniform with MathJax formulae.

This can encourage editors to use more template formatting ({{math}}, {{sfrac}}, {{sqrt}}, {{radic}}, {{closed-open}}, {{mvar}}, {{vec}}…) which will allow articles to render faster and will diminish other MathJax’s adverse effects (such as page jerks).

Opinions? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:34, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Problematic CAPTCHA

Here someone has reported that they faced trouble with the verification code while creating an account! (you may need an ACC account to view this) --Tito Dutta (contact) 10:42, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Most of us don't have an ACC account. Can you summarize or repost it here? Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:32, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• Here is another one! Both the editors attempted to answer the CAPTCHA (one editor mentioned "more than 10 times") but could not answer correctly no matter what I did I could not get the code word right to create my account . --Tito Dutta (contact) 19:05, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• So it was just that they found it too difficult to read? Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 21:49, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Requesting an account right now. I'll let you know what I find. Technical 13 (talk) 19:04, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• Third one. They also told that they could not create an account for CAPTCHA error! --Tito Dutta (contact) 19:18, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Weekend Testing Americas focusing on the new account creation and login this Saturday

You are invited to join the Weekend Testing Americas session on the new Account creation user experience: Saturday, April 6, 2013 5pm UTC - 1pm EDT - 10am PDT. We will play with the new mw:Account creation user experience for Wikimedia sites and also with the new Login user experience. Check the full test plan. This event is also part of Wikimedia's QA weekly goals. Needless to say, you are also invited to our upcoming activities.--Qgil (talk) 15:21, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Hey everyone. For context: this event is where a group of experienced software QA testers are volunteering their time to help us test the changes our team are building as permanent design changes based on previous testing. (Most recently mentioned here). This testing will be on Labs, not English Misplaced Pages. The next step after that, other than smashing any bugs they identify, is to enable the login and account creation changes on an opt-in basis across the wikis, so editors can try it and help test the localization in the relevant language, etc. If you're fairly technical or willing to give the slightly wonky environment of Labs a try, you're more than welcome to join us for testing this Saturday. :) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:43, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Mediawiki amendment date

How do I find (through bugzilla, gerrit or something else) when a particular change to the MediaWiki software occurred? Specifically, this is no longer a problem, since Media:A-104.jpg now works - a year or so ago, it would be a redlink; so, when was it fixed? --Redrose64 (talk) 17:10, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

A year ago is hard, since some of the practices/infrastructure for tracking this stuff is different now. Searching Bugzilla for the relevant keywords to find if there was a bug is a good start, since that will have dates associated with it. Gerrit is easier to search if you know who made the change and/or to which part of the software (specifically, whether it was to core, a configuration change, or to an extension you know the name of). Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 21:46, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Bugzilla would be easier, but I did it the hard way via a git bisect on a local MediaWiki install. The commit that fixed this -- at least, turned the redlink blue -- was made on 4 November 2011 by Aaron Schwarz. Crossreferencing with SVN, that would be rev:102073. - Jarry1250  22:19, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

November 2011 is odd. It definitely wasn't working in January 2012, which is why I put that bullet into WP:REDIR. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

We weren't on fortnightly deploys at that point, the code would only have been deployed in February/March 2012, bundled into MediaWiki 1.19. Admittedly it took me a few minutes to work that out that I was searching in the wrong timeframe too :) - Jarry1250  22:44, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Back around 2010/2011, the de facto deployment schedule on the Wikimedia cluster for non-emergency issues was around every 3 to 6 months, so it could easily take several months between when a fix was patched in the version control system and when it got into production. Thanks to the effort that WMF has put into improving this area, we are now on a roughly once every two week deployment schedule, so updates are much more rapid. Dragons flight (talk) 22:44, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

HELP WITH SOME BOXES

I made some changes on the WP U2 page but then it chaged its original format. the the Wikiproject box, the Quick links box, the discussion pages box and the Statistics box went to the bottom instead of staying the right where it always were. Please, help me to undo this but keeping the new adds

See, this is where I add and I need to keep it there:

Miss Bono (zootalk) 19:27, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards
• Pages automatically checked for accidental language links
• Misplaced Pages pages with to-do lists