Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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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. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk.

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Page curation

Articles, such as September, 1914, that were edited redirects or moved from another namespace stop showing the page curation toolbar and the "Curate this article" link on the left side shortly after they were reviewed. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 02:48, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, that's how the page curation software works. Marked as patrolled + more than 60 days old = not displayed in Special:NewPagesFeed. This fact is documented in Wikipedia:Page Curation/Help: "The New Pages Feed instead has an unlimited listing for unpatrolled pages, and a 60 day listing for patrolled pages". It is actually unrelated to redirects, page moves, or any other actions, although some of those actions may cause a page that was previously marked as patrolled to become 'unpatrolled', and thus re-appear in the list until very shortly after they get marked as patrolled again.

The situation has not changed since the last time you posted this information on this page on 4 November. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:07, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

The page should be shown 60 days from the day a redirect was turned into a non-redirect, a page not in the article namespace was moved to the article namespace, or a reviewed article was marked as unreviewed, rather than only for a short amount of time. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 03:35, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Disable link and enable tooltip on location map

Hi there. Could someone help me with this, please? Thanks in advance! Rehman 14:01, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Solved. Rehman 05:28, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Multiple error reports of The Wikipedia Adventure (WP:TWA)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T118823

Greetings, From my watchlist, I see reports of TWA errors at Wikipedia talk:The Wikipedia Adventure (bottom of the page) and at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#The_Wikipedia_Adventure_Getting_Stuck_on_Automated_Messages. From one of the messages, it looks like it may be being worked on.

We've logged this bug and are working to fix it: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T118823 Ocaasi (WMF) (talk) 22:35, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone here at VP needs to get involved, but I thought to at least report it here. Thanks. JoeHebda (talk) 01:04, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

External links in edit summary

Hi all. Been on a long break, learning the ropes again. Have I missed some change, or is there a reason I can't seem to make an external link in an edit summary anymore? I swear it used to be possible. Or perhaps I'm losing my mind. Thanks! Ignatzmice•talk 04:05, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Nope, never was possible. Too much opportunity for mischief. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:11, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Well then. Time to rest my brain for a while, I suppose. Ignatzmice•talk 04:16, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:49, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Chrome's feedback and Watchlist's shortcuts coincide

Has Wikipedia society resolved this? Just in case you don't know a crash report window pops up if you click Alt+Shift+I in Chrome--Dixtosa (talk) 12:27, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, not just Wikipedia. Try it on any other page, pressing that will make it pop up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SireWonton (talk • contribs) 01:14, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Tool for ordering lists

Hello. Some people have the habit of ordering chronological lists top->bottom from the most recent item to the oldest, which is unusual for – say – filmography lists. Has anybody written an alogorithm to turn them upside down? I know it's quite a basic thing in any programming language, but I'm quite rusty with those. :) Thanks for any replies. --Mihai (talk) 13:57, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

What lists? Can you give an example? --Dixtosa (talk) 14:29, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I have found the need to do this on several occasions. However, I think it is relatively easy to do semi-manually:

1. copy list to spreadsheet
2. add an index column
3. sort largest to smallest
4. paste results back to Wikipedia

Suppose an automated tool could make this a little easier, but given how easy it is to do now, I prefer that scarce developer tools be prioritized on other issues.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:47, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Mihai Pitea and Sphilbrick: Here is a function that reverses the lines in the selected text in the text box, you can add it to your common.js file. Unfortunately, adding buttons to the WikiEditor's toolbar is not as simple as it should be [1],[2]. You can call the function from the browser's console instead -- after saving the code to your common.js file, select several lines in the textbox, press F12 to open the console, and enter reverseLines() (or if you didn't save it to your common.js yet, enter the middle 3 lines from the code below). --V111P (talk) 04:01, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

function reverseLines() {
    var $ta = $('#wpTextbox1');
    var text = $ta.focus().textSelection('getSelection').split('\n').reverse().join('\n');
    $ta.focus().textSelection('encapsulateSelection', {pre: text, peri: '', post: '', replace: true});
}

FLL Logo

Can someone explain to me why File:FLLlogo.jpg is showing an older image, even though I just uploaded a brand new picture (since they just re-branded)? The other pictures that I updated (File:FIRST Robotics Competition (logo).png, File:Jr FLL logo.jpg, & File:FIRST Tech challenge logo.png) all changed. Is this a bug or did I do something wrong? Elisfkc (talk) 20:10, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Your computer probably has the old one cached. Try a WP:BYPASS. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:41, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

It wasn't even working when I used Chrome incognito, which usually gets around the cached problem. However, it's correct now so everything is fine. Elisfkc (talk) 20:52, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Image purge

Can someone please purge the image File:Perspective_isometrique_cube_gris.svg in the article Isometric graphics in video games and pixel art? For me at least the graphic is still showing a much earlier version. It is important because the image takes measurements and they are not correct when the image is squished like it is for me now. Thanks. SharkD  Talk  00:17, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

See section above. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:19, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

I am using Chrome, and have been trying to bypass the cache by pressing CTRL+F5. I've also tried purging the page using ?action=purge after the URL in the address bar. Is the image showing correctly for you? SharkD  Talk  00:47, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Your three latest versions at File:Perspective isometrique cube gris.svg#filehistory look identical to me so it's hard to see which one of them is displayed. At Isometric graphics in video games and pixel art#Overview I see a square display of https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Perspective_isometrique_cube_gris.svg/150px-Perspective_isometrique_cube_gris.svg.png. For me it is a 150×150 image with a green 30° to the lower left outside the cube. What do you see? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:01, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

The "latest" .svg on Commons has a 'more narrow' left and right margins (whitespace?, transparent?) than the previous versions have. And on the WP article itself, I doubt I'm seeing a 150×150 rendering (would be square); more like 150×167 here (a rectangle). Can this be more about the use of the dual image template and/or its settings than about chaching? -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:16, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

You describe the 540×600 version uploaded by AnonMoos after my post. There is indeed something wrong now. The article currently displays a 150×150 scaling at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Perspective_isometrique_cube_gris.svg/150px-Perspective_isometrique_cube_gris.svg.png, presumably of the most recent of the 713 × 713 versions by SharkD, but it's stretched to 150×167 in the article. That's the dimensions it should be scaled to if the current 540×600 version had correctly been used to make the scaled version. I have tried all methods at commons:Help:Purge except renaming the file. The generated html of the article says: <img alt="" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Perspective_isometrique_cube_gris.svg/150px-Perspective_isometrique_cube_gris.svg.png" width="150" height="167" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Perspective_isometrique_cube_gris.svg/225px-Perspective_isometrique_cube_gris.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Perspective_isometrique_cube_gris.svg/300px-Perspective_isometrique_cube_gris.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="540" data-file-height="600" />. So MediaWiki knows what dimensions the image should have, and asks the user's browser to display it with those dimensions. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:04, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

@Redrose64: What section? -- Veggies (talk) 12:07, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

#FLL Logo. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:43, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm having problems myself. Thumbnails are not updating even after hard-refreshes, manual-purges, and cache-clears. -- Veggies (talk) 12:07, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Maybe SVG images are immune to purges? SharkD  Talk  02:29, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Beats me. I swapped out the {{Double image}} template for {{Multiple Image}} just in case since it's status is deprecated anyway but I don't see any difference in behavior between the two.

I also tried a "full purge" per the API options available - specifically:

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?titles=File%3APerspective%20isometrique%20cube%20gris.svg&action=purge&forcerecursivelinkupdate=1

... but I'm still seeing the "wrong" rendering regardless (though I beginning to wonder why a 'true' cube viewed dead center on the z axis is anything but equal in height and width; are we sure the base image is was a good one to begin with here?). -- George Orwell III (talk) 06:32, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

It is working properly for me now. I see the correct image in the article. SharkD  Talk  14:06, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting – 200 new overnight

There not actual new, some several weeks old. All seem to be connected to media (TV mostly). Null edit make it go away, nor real edit. – Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Thu 16:53, wikitime= 08:53, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Someone has tried to add remove a reference to a navbox, {{NBCUniversal}}. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:57, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

You're right, I just saw it, small blue writing on a blue background. Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Thu 16:59, wikitime= 08:59, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Fixed it. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:01, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Looking for testers

Hello folks! I've just added two new features to the test version of reFill, a tool that can semi-automatically expand bare references (more information here):

1. The tool can now generate localized templates for Wikipedias in other languages (like this on frwiki). While this shouldn't affect enwiki, I want to make sure that nothing goes wrong as some core parts of the code have been changed. If you edit other Wikipedias and want reFill work there, please let me know!
2. The tool now has the ability to expand New York Times references, by leveraging its API.

If you use reFill and have time to try out the new features, please help test the experimental version. Thanks a lot for your help! Zhaofeng Li [talk ♦ contribs] 12:41, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

By the way, I want to thank User:SyntaxTerror, User:Victor Lopes, User:Frank Geerlings, and all others who have translated the tool into other languages. You guys rock! Zhaofeng Li [talk ♦ contribs] 12:53, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Much prefer this version that using the script via my css.js (or whatever the correct page is). Just used it on this edit and looks good. Will find a few more bare url refs and give them a try. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 19:51, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Did this edit that filled in eight bare URLs. Takes a bit of time (approx. 2 minutes), but does the job. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 20:38, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Blank spaces left when second-level headings follow floating boxes redux

Resolved

is it just me, or is this bug back again? Frietjes (talk) 19:50, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Yep, def. back again. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 19:51, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

that sucks, just added my hack back to my common.js to fix it until someone fixes it elsewhere. Frietjes (talk) 19:57, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

can TheDJ or someone else file a bug report? Frietjes (talk) 20:00, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Blank spaces under level 2 headings

This was reported a week ago, and it's back. I just saw it come back for some reason, on the 2015 Saint-Denis raid. It also appeared on some of the cached articles that I had, where previously, there had been no whitespace. epic genius (talk) 19:52, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, it's definitely back again. I've spotchecked a batch of articles mentioned in the previous discussion and every one of them now displays large expanses of blank space. What problem is this change intended to fix, because it really looks like the "cure" is consistently worse than the disease? The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 20:08, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

phab:T118475 again. We're deploying the fix right now, sorry about this, it's ridiculous. Legoktm (talk) 20:12, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

I notice that at the very same moment that this bug returned (19:49 as near as I can make out), the little notification/talk message counters got smaller and paler. In monobook, anyway. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:14, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this is under "Changes this week" at #Tech News: 2015-47. https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Server_Admin_Log says:

• 19:24 logmsgbot: twentyafterfour@tin rebuilt wikiversions.php and synchronized wikiversions files: wikipedia wikis to 1.27.0-wmf.7

The bug return was also due to the new version. Thanks for the fast fix. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:37, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

+1 - I hope this bug isn't here to stay!. –Davey2010^Talk 20:17, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Stupid bug you go squish now! Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 20:21, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Patch has been deployed, and the bug should be gone (may take ~5min to propagate). Legoktm (talk) 20:26, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Yep, gone. Nice one! Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 20:36, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Seconded. epic genius (talk) 20:47, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanx. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 21:39, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

2 articles with the same name ?

I've just come across List of deceased hip hop artists and List оf dесеаsеd hiр hор аrtists - They have the same title yet the content's somewhat different (The talkpages for both are completely different) so are the names somehow different as I can't spot any differences between the 2... Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 04:31, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

The second version has many Cyrillic letters instead of Latin letters. You can for example copy-paste the name to the "Characters" field at http://r12a.github.io/apps/conversion. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:52, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I marked the second one for speedy deletion using a rationale that seemed reasonable to me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:03, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

PrimeHunter - Bloody hell how on earth did you know that!?, I spent about 5 minutes clicking between the tabs like an idiot trying to figure what on earth I was missing! ,

Jonesey95 - Ah thanks I was gonna tag it after but wanted to find out the issue first,

Well least it's not a bug! :), Thanks for both of your helps, –Davey2010^Talk 05:10, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

If you look at the source of this discussion, you may see a difference in how the characters render. Some fonts will show them as the same, and some will show them as different. Mine uses a monospace font of some sort, which shows the Cyrillic letters as smaller and "thinner", as if they are underfed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:17, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Ah yes the other one has all letters & stuff - I had never even gave it a thought about the Latin stuff, I'm still using the prev 'pedia font so that could be why there wasn't a noticable difference, Ah well thanks for your help :), –Davey2010^Talk 06:05, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Telugu Language

Can anyone help in answering Template_talk:Infobox_Hindu_temple#Telugu?--Vin09 (talk) 04:44, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Watchlist changes

Instead of the links for differemt periods (1 hour, 2 hours, etc.) there is now a drop-down selecion list. That's OK I suppose, but if you use it, your URL gets extra crud in the query string besides ?days=0.5 - why, for example, is &action=submit required? --Redrose64 (talk) 23:02, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Probably something to leave at phab:T50615 which implemented the change. Or possibly @Matma Rex: for comment. --Izno (talk) 00:30, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the "string" expansion was always talking place IF you ticked on either button on the Watchlist page regardless of changing any of the parameters or not in the interim.

I believe the only way a "clean" string comes up for that page is if you open your Watchlist page using the corresponding link for it in your Personal tool-Bar (above the search box on the top right in Vector). I'm pretty sure your WatchList's hours/days setting in your User: preferences needs to be the same as your last (now) drop down menu selection too. -- George Orwell III (talk) 06:42, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Peer review bot down - please help!

Hi technically aware Wikipedia village pump (Technical) denizens, I'm one of the regular peer review mop (non administrator) handlers. We have a crisis brewing... the bot that closes old reviews (PeerReviewBot) has stopped working, last edit June 19. This is a very time-consuming and labourious task to be done manually that was previously easily automated. The bot is owned by CBM who is mostly retired.

Is it possible to either get the bot started again, or create a similar bot that does the same thing? Yours very gratefully, --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:09, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

It might be worth asking at WP:BOTREQ. I notice that the bot's userpage says the code is available on Toolserver SVN, which no longer exists - I wonder if it was backed up somewhere. — This, that and the other (talk) 23:11, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I am retired from running bots. The bot's source code is available on wikimedia tool labs from anyone who has access to the VeblenBot project, i.e. Ruhrfisch and possibly me. Unfortunately, although I have made several public requests for someone to take over the bot, nobody stepped up to take over. If anyone is interested, I can see if I can still log in to email them the bot code. It is not a difficult project to code from scratch, in any case. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:22, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@Fhocutt (WMF): I know you got Citation bot up and running--is there scope for you to poke at this bot also? --Izno (talk) 05:47, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

If there's no one to take over CBM's code, I'll have a go at this. I don't use Perl, so I won't re-use that code, but it's a fairly simple set of tasks. Relentlessly (talk) 17:20, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Notification look change

I'm not sure if this is good or other, at this point. But mentioning it. I have Modern skin. That you-can't-miss-it red notifications now just very subtly changes from a white 0 to white numbers when there are notifications. It's so subtle you don't notice it unless you are looking for it. Maybe that's not all bad. It might have something to do with the latest Tech News mention, "Echo notification icons in MonoBook will look more like other icons in the theme." — Maile (talk) 23:52, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

It needs to be a lot brighter. I'm sure there's an WP:ACCESS issue having it so pale. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 13:46, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I also use Modern skin. I actually acquired five new notifications yesteday at different times without noticing any of them. To me this is bad. I consider my notifications a vital part of my day, since some require response or action, or retaliation. (sigh...this constant tinkering..). Fylbecatulous talk 16:56, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

See WT:Echo#Notification icon colours. The techniques there are only tested in MonoBook, but may work in Modern. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:11, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Disabled checkboxes

The three checkboxes in [3] are disabled. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 04:33, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, go ask User:Σ about it, then. — This, that and the other (talk) 04:36, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Widescreen, default text size, picture madness

I think we can all agree that the wild west days of Wikipedia happened from 2001 to 2006. That's when they shot out the skeletal which became the core then we starting asking questions about quality and format and exactly what Wikipedia should be. Well, most of that was before 16:9 widescreen became the standard. I'm guessing Wikipedia renders at a specified pixel size per text that works well with an old 4:3 VGA monitor (50< pixels per inch (PPI) ), but this is way too small for your standard 16:9 1080p widescreen monitor, and I'm sure is even worse on smaller WQHD (~100ppi) and 4K monitors (28" = 150ppi). Before anyone says that the fault is on monitors have such high resolutions without being scalably larger screen sizes, understand that the pixel density is much too low on primitive tech, not too high on new tech (In fact even 300+ppi "Retina displays" do not even meet visual limits, a field that is plagued by non-science marketing misconceptions and doesn't seem to understand the distinction between being able to "count pixels" and be able to perceive a difference). I have had my browser set for Wikipedia to display at 175% for over a year and do not even think about it anymore. It just looks right. I picked it because at smaller sizes there seem to be scaling issues and any larger pictures look bad and it would be too much anyway. Sometimes, when there are lots of pictures in articles especially when they are pushing sections down, I reduce to 100% just to check it out, and it's often awful. Not only do the pictures push way beyond their sections, but the text is not comfortable to read.

Here is a screenshot at 100% and 175%, notice how the pictures are in the section they should be in, in fact that left picture that looked all by itself in the 100% view majically popped down to the section it was supposed to be in, and that leads to the collapsed garage photo actually being in the collapsed section

480px for closest scaling, but best to view full size

At the very least I am requesting an ability to be able to change your own default text size in your Preferences, though this only benefits users that know about it, much less the general public. Thank you. B137 (talk) 07:11, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@B137: While waiting for an official fix, you can workaround it by adding some custom styling to your common.css:

#content {
    max-width: 800px;
    font-size: larger;
}

This will limit the width to 800px and make the text slightly larger. Zhaofeng Li [talk ♦ contribs] 08:47, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@Zhaofeng Li: Thank you. Wow that's even more obscure than going to Preferences. It helps but is a little clunky, I made it a little wider than that but is there any other keyword than "larger" for the text, perhaps something where you specify the px for vertical text resolution, or maybe just another word? larger1, larger2, largest..etc? B137 (talk) 09:02, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@B137: For font-size you can specify px directly, or use small, medium, large, x-large, xx-large, etc. See MDN for details. Zhaofeng Li [talk ♦ contribs] 09:08, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Or, even better, use percentages, say, 125% or 140%. — This, that and the other (talk) 09:15, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. That once again addresses the issue somewhat for me, but not for the general viewer. B137 (talk) 09:25, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

The 'general viewer' has no account and therefor has no preferences. And the idea of a cookie-based fontsize widget has been explored but not found feasable. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 11:58, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

You say that like they don't matter. And this issue is not something I'm making up. It's already a talking point for HD and ultra HD monitors, and many sites and operating systems are responding. Also, what I meant by "more obscure than preferences" was that even the average wiki user wouldn't be able to utilize that unless it was so pressing that they researched it. You can lead a horse to water and it might not drink, but it's more likely than if you left it altogether. B137 (talk) 12:06, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Actual hardware viewing dimensions for the "general", anonymous or logged-in User: do not seem to be polled or tracked in an formal manner so setting the display/viewport [skin] "defaults" also do not seem to be based in any rational or statistical based formulations either (more like subjective 'beliefs' instead).

In other terms: If all you ever work on is a 17 inch laptop display panel; you're positive your optimal "display" settings are the norm. But if all you ever work on is a 26 inch desktop monitor; you're positive your optimal "display" setting are the norm. And if all you ever work on is done via a Miracast to your 55 inch smart TV; you're positive your "display" setting are the norm too. To round out the illustration, the "higher-ups" setting the current defaults in question seem to fall mainly into one of the three groups rather than be spread across all three groups; thus the "slanted" or "jaded" take frequently voiced regarding this issue.

Lacking the hard data needed to quell such bias, things are not likely to change I'm afraid but good luck if you make the effort. -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:39, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Actually, the ideal solution would be to adopt responsive web design strategies, with the layout adapting to different screen sizes/resolutions automatically. Zhaofeng Li [talk ♦ contribs] 08:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Agreed (though that developmental front is also currently "stalled"). Can't do much about that while the 'content area' is constantly encroached upon by the typical site-logo and side-bar designs. And I don't know why the Winter prototype approach was dropped either - it seemed to be the logical next step after the Vector "refresh". I so hope they didn't drop it just because of a few .css "mistakes" :( ---- — Preceding unsigned comment added by George Orwell III (talk • contribs) 10:31, 22 November 2015

Making a site responsive, especially user authored and edited content with 15 years of history to it, is not simple. Many of these problems are on the radar of multiple teams inside the WMF and of individual volunteer developers. We talk about it all the time. But they are difficult problems to solve correctly. Especially the infrastructure challenge for responsive images is rather daunting, as is the fact that our content allows free usage of CSS to every single editor.

And Winter is not totally scrapped. Winter was a prototype, an experiment and many of its ideas and strategies are used in current development. More of it will trickle down eventually. More of the mobile Minerva skin will merge into Vector and core, more of OOjs UI will become visible in the general interface. And one day, all will be the same, yet totally different... Do keep asking for those improvements however. It's important to make your voice heard. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:11, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes I use old wiki please don't ever make the new mobile style mandatory

I was slightly facetious when I said the css change solved it "good enough for me at least." When I had it set to just "large", the alignment wasn't bad enough to worry about, but that is still much smaller than when I zoom to 175%, and without scrunching the width (which means I am not getting full use of my screen) the images still push down too much. So I changed it to "x-large" and now the alignment is pretty significant: B137 (talk) 03:21, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

image tidy-up

I got into a pickle with File:Men of Men - bookcover.jpg, can someone remove the last two updates ? Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 17:03, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Which is the correct version, GrahamHardy?Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:06, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

the 2nd one up, 3rd one down, can the last two updates just be removed ? Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 17:09, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I've requested the removal. I assume that the current image is the correct one.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Done. Nyttend (talk) 21:00, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

New template

Hey, in WikiProject Equine we kept coming up against the issue of not having an infobox specifically for horse shows and events. So I decided I'd create one. I have it in my sandbox right now (you can view it here) but I've never written a template before and would like somebody to check it out. It's likely not finished, as I'm waiting for some other WPEQ members to check it out and give feedback, but I'd like to know if it's a good start and if it would produce the correct template when moved to mainspace. Thanks. White Arabian Filly (Neigh) 17:44, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

If you mean the current wiki source of User:White Arabian Filly/sandbox#Infobox:Equestrian event then it has nothing to do with source code of a template. You only have code to call a template. Similar code is usually displayed on infobox pages but it is transcluded from a documentation page and not part of the actual template. Click the "Edit" or "View source" tab on an infobox to get an idea how the source code looks. And see Help:Designing infoboxes. Also, infoboxes are not placed in mainspace but in template space, but if you had working code in a user sandbox then it could also be called there by just giving the full name including namespace. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:49, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, PrimeHunter. I have moved it to its own subpage, User:White Arabian Filly/Template:Infobox equestrian event and have added most of the source code. I know I have to add more and do some more work before it's ready to launch, but it's closer now. By my count, there are at least 15 articles the template can be used on once it's complete. This is my first time creating an infobox, so it's a learning process for me. Thanks again. White Arabian Filly (Neigh) 22:52, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Creating a new infobox is ambitious when you haven't made any template before. I have helped you get the some of the basics right [4] so you can now call it with {{User:White Arabian Filly/Template:Infobox equestrian event|...}} to test it. A tip: You can test code changes without saving by placing test calls inside <noinclude>...</noinclude> of the page itself and previewing. The previewed version and not the saved version will be used for rendering your test call. Note how labeln and datan for each integer n are a pair in {{infobox}}, with label usually being a constant string displayed on the left half of the infobox, and data is a parameter set by the caller and displayed to the right of label. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:21, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you again, I am going to test it on Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration, which I created and mostly wrote, so if I mess it up nobody will get mad--I can just revert. White Arabian Filly (Neigh) 23:52, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

You are not combining label and data in a meaningful way. I really suggest you read up on {{infobox}} and make tests by previewing directly on User:White Arabian Filly/Template:Infobox equestrian event as described in my tip. Otherwise you may get a really long cycle of saving template changes and then testing them. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:01, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

.ogg files fail with javascript error

All page that contain an .ogg file, even file description pages (and currently also the Main Page!) fail with the message Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'insertRule' of undefined in Chrome. The error appears after Chrome's native player disappears. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:26, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

It works for me. Chrome 46.0.2490.86 on Windows Vista. A search of your error message shows phab:T118792. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:27, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Unexpected background color around thumb images due to LIGHT BLUE in Monobook

User:Liangent/lightblue and Special:Permalink/691743758 contain a demo: view it in Vector and it shows Wiki.png on pink background; view it in Monobook and some unexpected white/blue area is shown.

We copied those styles to zhwiki and this issue was reported on zhwiki VPT by some other user today; upstreaming it here. Make sure to test both pages (article and non-article) because different styles are used. Liangent (talk) 22:30, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Here is a simplified example:

Vector versus MonoBook shows the difference in rendering. Something apparently happens when Wikipedia:Extended image syntax#none is used in a div with padding. Can you just avoid doing that? PrimeHunter (talk) 23:46, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Monobook.css mistakenly thinks all instances concerning the div.thumb class are always part of a gallery-type of image display when of course that is not always the case. It seems the universally {common] defined background-color: transparent; is being overridden to 'sky-blue' by

div#content, div#p-cactions li a:hover, div#p-cactions li.selected a, div#content div.thumb {
    background-color: #f8fcff;
}

... by design but never gets around to "reverting" back to the "default" for some reason. Basically, the gallery-type instances need more specific selectors in order to differentiate it from the NoN gallery type of image display cases. User:Edokter? -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:58, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Fwiw... I think the above needs to be split into...

div#content, div#p-cactions li a:hover, div#p-cactions li.selected a {
    background-color: #f8fcff;
}
div#content div.thumb {
    background-color: inherit;
}

... but that entire 'sky-blue' section in the .css has caveats defined for certain namespaces/selections/etc. so it would need some vetting first to be sure the changes aren't making things worse elsewhere. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:18, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Are there any real cases where this is a problem, or is this a glitch you stumbled upon? As PrimeHunter said: do you need to use padding? I'm not inclined to fix non-existing problems. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 12:29, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

It was found in {{Location map|caption=x|border=none}} used in some infoboxes with background. I noticed that it was due to class="thumb" in Location map and Location map was just trying to mimic thumb images, so I used thumb image to reproduce the issue here because it looks simpler. Liangent (talk) 22:03, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

X!'s tools for Neelix

On [5], many numbers are wrong. They display zero when they should actually be nonzero. For example, it says that Neelix

• does not have any deleted edits
• has not moved any pages
• has not deleted any pages
• has not protected any pages
• has not blocked any users
• has not uploaded any files
• did not thank any users
• did not review any pending changes
• did not patrol any edits

when in fact, none of the listed statements are true. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 04:08, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Just taken a look at the link and it currently says 12,904 deleted edits, 8,428 pages moved, 1,153 deleted pages, 73 protected pages, 9 users blocked, 914 files uploaded, 197 thanked users, 33,534 patrolled edits.Blethering Scot 20:54, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

I can confirm it said no deleted edits earlier but now I also see 12,904 so I guess the issue is fixed. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:31, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

CSS broken on en Watchlist ?

Is anybody else seeing this ?

Formatting for Special:Watchlist recently seems to have broken, at least using the monobook skin.

Has the CSS recently been changed or something? It seems, at least with monobook, that no CSS at all is being applied? Jheald (talk) 12:30, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Nothing has changed. How is it broken? -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 13:35, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm seeing my watchlist page simply as 1990s-style vanilla HTML, with no CSS applied. It seems only to be the watchlist page, no other pages affected. Jheald (talk) 15:31, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

... and now it's fixed. So I don't know what that was about. Jheald (talk) 16:01, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Misleading expiry time for protection

Follow-up to Category talk:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates#Bot automation on it's way

This does not affect users who have set their local time zone to UTC.

If you protect a page, and instead of selecting a duration you select "other time" and enter a date and time, that is taken as UTC. But if you revisit the "change protection" for that page, and look at the "Expires" item, it says "Existing expiry time" with a date and time that are in your local time zone. If you wish to extend a current protection by, say, 24 hours, you need to be careful how you do it.

Assume a user in New York (UTC-5), they might see "Existing expiry time: 16:00, November 22, 2015". If in the "Other time" box, they enter "16:00, November 23, 2015" and Confirm it, then they revisit the "change protection" for that page, it says "Existing expiry time: 11:00, November 23, 2015" so they actually extended it by 19 hours, not 24. To get a 24-hour extension on the original expiry, they actually need to set "Other time" to "21:00, November 23, 2015". --Redrose64 (talk) 14:55, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

@Redrose64:This should be reported at Phabricator - see Wikipedia:Bug reports and feature requests. I see no reason to discuss this here. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 22:17, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

I know that it's ultimately a phab: thing, but searching phab for existing tickets is a pain. Many people post here initially even when it's a MedaiWiki software issue, since they know that at some point one of the phab regulars will come along and say "ah, that's ticket T987654 which has been open for three years". Saves filing a redundant ticket only to get it closed as "resolved, duplicate" which doesn't help much. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:16, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

More details, Redrose64. I've always had my time set to UTC, but just now I changed it to a random Australian time zone (how did Currie, Tasmania, population 746, end up as the reference point for a time zone area?) and protected a userspace page until 2015-12-15, 23:12. I then unprotected it, changed my time to America/Denver, and added the same protection, and the expiry time was the same. However, the protection log appears differently on the protection page — when I was in Tasmania, the latest log entry was

(change visibility) 07:44, 24 November 2015 Nyttend (talk | contribs | block) protected User:Nyttend/ZIP [Edit=Allow only administrators] (expires 10:12, 16 December 2015) [Move=Allow only administrators] (expires 10:12, 16 December 2015) (Protecting until 2015-12-15, 23:12 with time zone set as America/Denver) (hist | change)

Now that I'm in Colorado, the same line reads

(change visibility) 13:44, 23 November 2015 Nyttend (talk | contribs | block) protected User:Nyttend/ZIP [Edit=Allow only administrators] (expires 16:12, 15 December 2015) [Move=Allow only administrators] (expires 16:12, 15 December 2015) (Protecting until 2015-12-15, 23:12 with time zone set as America/Denver) (hist | change)

If you view the section of my contributions that includes those entries, you'll see the same dates and times regardless of whether your time zone is Dar es Salaam or Yap (I just checked), but the protection log changes with your time zone. This shouldn't be the case, especially given its effect on protection time changes: all the logs should be in UTC, so that everyone sees the same thing in all cases, and so that protection times aren't accidentally changed. Nyttend (talk) 20:54, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

TOC right

Resolved

{{TOC right}} doesn't seem to be working for me. @Funandtrvl: looks like they have tried to fix it recently? I'm on Chrome in case it's a browser issue. GiantSnowman 20:41, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

On which article(s)? In what way is it not working? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:51, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Well it's not displaying. GiantSnowman 12:44, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

E1

It works for me, for example on Alien, both logged in and out, Vector skin, Chrome 46.0.2490.86 on Windows Vista. Please provide the same details. I see a box to the right of this section with E1 above the box and E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 inside the box. Which of this do you see? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:16, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

It's working for me now, but I'm on a different computer/browser. I'll check again when I'm back at home. GiantSnowman 13:22, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm back home and it's displaying fine. Whatever bug it was has been fixed. GiantSnowman 17:56, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Dusty articles

The dusty articles list has not been updated since June. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 23:31, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

It's transcluded from Wikipedia:Dusty articles/List which according to its history is built by SvickBOT (talk · contribs). Have you informed the bot operator, Svick (talk · contribs)? --Redrose64 (talk) 00:02, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

User sandbox appears in google search

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T104797

Got a bit of a surprise just now. When I searched Michael Katovich "Studies in Symbolic Interaction" Volume 33 in google, the seventh of 185 results was the sandbox I'm working in, User:JG66/sandbox White Album reception (where Katovich's article appears as a source). I'm all for transparency on Wikipedia, but – boy, I just didn't expect a sandbox to come up! Is it quite normal, for these to appear in a google search? JG66 (talk) 04:57, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

This isn't new, back in the old days if a page could not stand deletionists I would keep working on the subpage version ha-ha. It takes more for non-main space stuff to show up though. B137 (talk) 05:01, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

There is an outstanding request to change this in the configuration. In the mean time. {{userspace draft}}, that's one of the reasons we have that template. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 06:12, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

JG66, it's quite normal, and you can meet the nicest people that way The {{NOINDEX}} and {{NOINDEX|visible=yes}} templates work nicely too. The visible parameter lets other editors know the page is probably not going to be indexed. These templates are not guaranteed to be effective. PS: Pinging TheDJ too. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 06:41, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to you all for the replies, especially those options, TheDJ and Checkingfax. Still can't get over the shock I got seeing "User:JG66/sandbox …" come up in google – scared the bloomin' life out of me! JG66 (talk) 07:15, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I use {{user sandbox}}, which sets __NOINDEX__ as default; if you want the sandbox page to be indexed, you can override that with |noindex=no --Redrose64 (talk) 10:28, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Redrose64. {{userspace draft}} seems to work, actually. Fingers crossed. JG66 (talk) 11:28, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

The configuration change was finally deployed as well. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:59, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Could we NOINDEX File: namespace pages that have non-free images?

Previous discussion from 2008 (no consensus): Template talk:Non-free media#Adding NOINDEX

In light of the above discussion about NOINDEX, I'd like to present an idea I've had. Currently, Google Images and other image searches search all images hosted on Wikipedia and create thumbnails for them. This is not always the desired behavior on our part, because we host non-free files as non-free precisely not to make them reusable. Our non-free license templates warn the user that: "Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement" (emphasis added). While the end user has the ultimate responsibility if they chose to reuse these images outside Wikipedia, we should not promote reuse by letting search engines index our non-free files. It serves neither the copyright holder nor Wikipedia's purposes.

The technical aspect of it is to add the NOINDEX switch to all non-free license templates (similarly to how it's used in sandbox templates; see above discussion). I'm not technical minded enough to understand what the (dis)advantages would be from that point of view, so I'd like the Village pump to consider those first, before we start thinking about if this is a good candidate for a new policy. Some questions that come to my mind are:

1. There are legitimate reasons for accessing the file page through an external search engine (finding information about why a file is used on Wikipedia; as a principle Wikipedia is mostly open; etc.) and this would be blocked. Then again, some pages are deliberately NOINDEX because of concerns about illegitimate outside use (eg. BLP talk pages)
2. I don't know how image thumbnails on search engines are indexed. Are they derived from the article pages where the images are displayed or from the image description pages, or both? (From both, according to the previous discussion. Opinions as to whether the user should be pointed to image description page that displays the license, or to the article it's used in (which is the result of NOINDEXING) differed. Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 12:21, 23 November 2015 (UTC))
3. None of us know how search engines' algorithms work, so it's not easy to come up with 'negative' search engine optimization (SEO) to hide our images to the best of our ability. If I google "site:en.wikipedia.org/ +bigcompanyname +logo", I'll find the image I want for my hypothetical illegitimate reuse, but I don't know why it was returned in search results.

My understanding is that this is not implemented already simply because no one ever thought of it, not because it would be a bad idea (policy-wise, usability-wise, technically). Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 11:32, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Seems to be totally unnecessary. Google will index any image, presumably under fair use. What they do is up to them. Wikipedia does not have to attempt to control reuse of material, apart from stating that it is not free. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:37, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Graeme Bartlett. To emphasize: I'm not worried about reuse by Google per se (there are court cases that say Google's reuse of images as thumbnails is okay), but of reuse by people who find our hosted non-free images with Google search. "Wikipedia does not have to attempt to control reuse of material", yet for text materials we do. BLP talk pages, drafts and sandboxes are hidden from search engines, even though our license allows the reuse of those materials. As for non-free files, our license does not allow reuse, so I am confused as to why should we make it technically easy. This could also be a legal protection (out of our fair-use claims many are admittedly invalid); compare this with the obvious protection against legal threats concerning libel material that our noindexing of BLP talk pages offers. Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 11:50, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

You're overthinking this. People constantly improperly fork and reuse the actual article content here repeatedly and without a thought as to the copyright violation. Images are just another example and not something that requires extra work to protect. Google books has entire "ebooks" that are literally nothing more than improper Wikipedia quoting which makes it a mess to figure out whether a fact is true or not when people go into circular sourcing. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 11:57, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

The difference is that non-free content we host is not "our content" whereas Wikipedia articles are. If someone illegitimately reuses non-free content they got off Wikipedia they are violating the copyright holder's right and we are 'complicit' in that. If someone reuses Wikipedia article text without proper attributing they are breaching the terms of our CC BY-SA 3.0 license, which is not quite the same thing. It's misguided to think that images are not different; they are and that's why we have the non-free content criteria for files that are different from the non-free content criteria in general (text quotations are fair-use, but we deliberately treat them with less scrutiny, see WP:NFC#Text). Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 12:21, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

If we take the whole site out of Google, we probably don't have a vandalism problem anymore either ! Google indexing is NOT the way to solve problems. If we are so concerned about Fair use images, we should just totally remove them. It's the only way to actually solve the problem of secondary reuse of non-free content. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:09, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Excluding bot edits from watchlist

Help! I am desperately trying to exclude bot edits from my watchlist, which is being flooded with notifications of delivery of a mass message about the Arbcom election. I check the "hide bots" box and click "Go" on the next line, but next time I look the box is unchecked again, and the flood of mass-message notifications continues. It isn't a caching issue, I have tried purging the page. JohnCD (talk) 17:53, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

You can permanently remove bot edits from your watchlist by going into your Preferences, then the Watchlist tab. Look under "Advanced Options". Resolute 18:14, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! It seems that checking the boxes in the "Watchlist options" box on the watch-list only affects the search you immediately do by clicking "Go". I found that confusing: perhaps there should be a note there to say "To permanently change these options, see Watchlist under Preferences". JohnCD (talk) 18:50, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps off-subject here, but I don't think Search is effected in any way by Special:EditWatchlist. — CpiralCpiral 20:37, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-48

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• From 1 December, the MediaWiki API will no longer support the dbg, txt, and yaml output formats. [6]

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20:26, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Usage of template parameters (Tracking)

Is there a (simple) way to track articles by number of used parameters in a transcluded template? For example I have a template like this:

{{Template Alpha
|parameter1 = 
|parameter2 = 
|parameter3 =
|parameter4 = 
|parameter5 = 
...
|parameter20 = 
}}

How to track articles in categories, by number of used parameters of this template (how many parameters of this template have some values)? --XXN, 22:11, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@XXN: Probably the easiest way would be to use a tracking category and change the sort key depending on the number of parameters. Some sample code:

[[Category:My tracking category|{{#expr: {{#if:{{{parameter1|}}}|1|0}} + {{#if:{{{parameter2|}}}|1|0}} + ... + {{#if:{{{parameter20|}}}|1|0}} }}]]

I haven't tested the above yet, but I've seen other code like it in various templates. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:28, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Actually, ignore that - after testing, it doesn't seem to work. The following will, but you need to create as many different categories as there are template parameters.

[[Category:My template transclusions with {{#expr: {{#if:{{{parameter1|}}}|1|0}} + {{#if:{{{parameter2|}}}|1|0}} + ... + {{#if:{{{parameter20|}}}|1|0}} }} parameters]]

Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:49, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Your test code does work when it's actually used.[7] PrimeHunter (talk) 01:44, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Aha, that explains it - thanks for the fix. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for idea, Mr. Stradivarius. I also thought about this, but it's a bit tiresome to write such a function for a template with 20-30 different parameteres +with the same number of aliases for main parameteres names. --XXN, 01:03, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

@XXN: In that case, how about doing it in Lua? There are three ways that I can think of using Lua to do this. The first would be to count the number of all the parameters specified, including ones that the template doesn't recognise. The second would be to make a list of all the valid parameters and count how many of those are specified. And the third would be to use Lua patterns to specify groups of parameters - for example, if you specified the pattern ^parameter%d+$, you would count all the parameters that were specified that consist of the word "parameter" followed by one or more digits. Something similar is already done in Module:Check for unknown parameters. I'll try and write a module that does all three of these so you can choose which one is the most appropriate. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)