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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Parse error

A reader contacted Wikimedia (ticket:2016062410007891) identifying a parsing error in an article.

The article is celestial coordinate system.

The error is:

Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "/mathoid/local/v1/":): {\begin{bmatrix}\cos \delta \cos \alpha \\\cos \delta \sin \alpha \\\sin \delta \end{bmatrix}}={\begin{bmatrix}1&0&0\\0&\cos \varepsilon &-\sin \varepsilon \\0&\sin \varepsilon &\cos \varepsilon \end{bmatrix}}{\begin{bmatrix}\cos \beta \cos \lambda \\\cos \beta \sin \lambda \\\sin \beta \end{bmatrix}} .

and

Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "/mathoid/local/v1/":): \tan A={\sin h \over \cos h\sin \phi _{o}-\tan \delta \cos \phi _{o}}\qquad \qquad {\begin{cases}\cos a\sin A=\cos \delta \sin h\\\cos a\cos A=\cos \delta \cos h\sin \phi _{o}-\sin \delta \cos \phi _{o}\end{cases}}

The reader reported seeing the error in:

• Desktop Google Chrome
• Desktop Mozilla FireFox
• Desktop Internet Explore
• Mobile Internet Explorer

I tried to reproduce, and do not see the error in

• Desktop Google Chrome
• Desktop Google Chrome (Mobile view)

But I do see it in:

• Mobile Android using Wikipedia app

I know the have been some issues with LaTeX, is this one known?--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:42, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

These a remnants from the switchover to the new math renderer a couple weeks ago. Purging the pages should fix it. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:33, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. The person reporting is now seeing it fine - sorry, I should have considered suggesting a purge.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:03, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Interwiki link

Can someone look at this interwiki link to French version which is not linking although the article exists in French: Sir Charles Grandison, or, The happy man: a comedy in five acts

Cheers. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 16:17, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

@Fountains-of-Paris: The {{lang}} template only marks a piece of text as being in a certain language; it doesn't automatically link anything to a different language Wikipedia. Because the title of the page you are linking to is in English, you actually don't need the {{lang}} template at all. To link to the French Wikipedia, you need to do something like this: [[:fr:Sir Charles Grandison, or, The happy man: a comedy in five acts]]. If you want to display just the English text, you need to pipe the link, like [[:fr:Sir Charles Grandison, or, The happy man: a comedy in five acts|Sir Charles Grandison, or, The happy man: a comedy in five acts]], or use the pipe trick. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 17:21, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

That worked on the first try. Cheers. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 17:59, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Editnotices and moves

Some notes and questions:

1. My current belief is that if page "Foo" moves to "Bar", "Template:Editnotices/Page/Foo" should move to "Template:Editnotices/Page/Bar", preferably without a redirect left behind. This is because when "Template:Editnotices/Page/Foo" is a redirect editnotice left over, editing "Foo" the redirect page still uses "Bar's" editnotice, which seems unnecessary.
   • Based on a double-redirected editnotice test I did a few days ago, I conjecture that if "Template:Editnotices/Page/A" is a quintuple-redirect to "Template:Editnotices/Page/E", then page "A" uses "E"'s editnotice.
2. If the target page for an editnotice does not exist, I've been assuming that WP:G8 applies to it, despite the policy not exactly spelling it out. It might make sense to elaborate on the policy.
3. Because an editnotice on top of a redirect seems quite unnecessary, I've occasionally used suppressredirect and invoked WP:G8 (or G6?), especially if the target page has little chance of moving back to the original target page. This sounds reasonble, right?
4. Is it technically possible to have the move dialog include a check box to move a page/group/protection editnotice, if such notices exist? Or does this simply have to be done separately without any prompt of existing editnotices? How much time, or how difficult would this addition be for the devs?

Thanks, and appreciate any feedback. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 06:10, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

To answer the last question. I don't think it will be included in Mediawiki software (editnotices system can change, different system in various Wikipedias etc.). What can be done - create some kind of Twinkle-like gadget for moving pages or create some JS script, that simply adds such checkbox at Special:Movepage. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 06:01, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Putting fr:Modèle:Bibliographie template code into Template:Bibliography produced unexpected results.

Hi, I am at Wikimania 2016 in Esino Lario, so feel free to point me to a knowledgeable person who can handle this issue & also is attending.

I am excited about the possibility of using Wikidata for citations. fr:Modèle:Bibliographie does this, however, when I attempted Anglicizing the code & putting it into Template:Bibliography, I came up with disparate results. The French version produces formated citation data, whereas the English version produces an Infobox Bibliography

Here's the fr:Modèle:Bibliographie code:

<includeonly>{{#invoke:Wikidata/Références|citeItem}}</includeonly><noinclude>{{documentation}} [[Catégorie:Modèle utilisant les données de Wikidata]]</noinclude>

Here's the Template:Bibliography code:

<includeonly>{{#invoke:Wikidata/References|citeItem}}</includeonly><noinclude>{{documentation}}[[fr:Modèle:Bibliographie]][[Category:Templates using data from Wikidata]]</noinclude>

Help!

Peaceray (talk) 06:47, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

@Peaceray: The French Wikipedia has fr:Module:Wikidata/Références, whereas currently, the English Wikipedia does not have Module:Wikidata/References. (See Special:PrefixIndex/Module:Wikidata/. fr:Spécial:PrefixIndex/Module:Wikidata/ has quite a lot more. That would likely involve porting and translating the Lua code over to enwiki / English. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 06:58, 26 June 2016 (UTC) 07:03, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, frwiki Wikidata module's importing to some ther Wikipedia requires importing a lot of modules (if you're not a Lua expert). --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 07:09, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

@Andy M. Wang: & @Edgars2007: thanks!
Anyone who works with modules & can help to import a French modules: see our comments above. We need to import a translated version of fr:Module:Wikidata/Références to Module:Wikidata/References. Alternately, if someone can act as a mentor & review my code, I could probably do it myself. I have done lots of coding, just not in Lua. Peaceray (talk) 07:41, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Good Article count

Hi I was wondering if somebody could find how many female biographies we have as a GA vs male biographies? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:59, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Counting only those, which are marked as "human" and female/male at Wikidata: male: 3711, female: 701. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 06:08, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Good question Dr. Blofeld. Although Wikidata had no attribute for article class (GA, good article), neither has Wikipedia created a subcategory for gender at Category:GA-Class biography articles; otherwise Search could have counted them using its incategory parameter. See {{WikiProject Biography}} about creating such a category. — Cpiral§Cpiral 20:32, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Thankyou Edgars2007 and Cpiral. Regards.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:50, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Mobile-specific link?

We've been having problems at the Refdesk (see [1]) that links from Inputbox were getting truncated for mobile users causing sections to be posted at the top instead of the bottom. There's a request out to fix the bug, but meanwhile at Wikipedia:Reference desk/header/howtoask I just used the plain link to start a section, i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=&editintro=&preloadtitle=&section=new&title=Wikipedia%3AReference+desk%2Fheader%2Fhowtoask&create=Ready%3F+Ask+a+new+question! However, there's a wrinkle, namely that this plain link as written doesn't know if the user is a mobile user or not. (Even so, it is better than having mobile users' new questions get stuck at the wrong spot in a very long page and have to be moved) Is there something I can link to that will redirect for mobile and non-mobile users differently, or some way to have two different links and hide one from the mobile and one from the non-mobile users, or something? Wnt (talk) 00:57, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

It seems to be we still have a bigger problem namely AFAIK none of us actually know how to start a new section on a non talk page on the mobile site. Nil Einne (talk) 13:50, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Actually I'm now even more sure there's probably no solution at this time. While it's possible to add new sections to talk pages from the mobile site, this currently only works for logged in users. So even if there were some way to get it working for non talk pages, it's going to be of limited utility. It's possible there's someway that will work for all editors, but I suspect no. Nil Einne (talk) 14:30, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-26

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

Recent changes

• The ORES service has now moved to a new location. This should make it easier to use ORES. The ORES review service is now available as a beta feature on Wikidata and Persian Wikipedia. ORES is an artificial intelligence system for Wikimedia wikis to help editors. [2]
• The order of wikis in collapsed cross-wiki notifications was different than when the list was expanded. This is now fixed. [3]
• A new category for tracking pages with math errors was added: Category:Articles with math errors. [4]

Problems

• The Wikimedia Etherpad crashed on June 23. Some edits done that day have been lost. They can be found at etherpad-restore.wikimedia.org for another few days. [5][6]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 June. It will be on all wikis from 30 June (calendar).
• The way to mark notifications as read or unread will be changed to be more clear. [7]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 28 June at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Collaboration team at the Wikimedia Foundation will look at developing better tools for edit review. This is because research suggests we scare away newcomers who want to help. [8]
• An e-mail from the Editing Department explains the technical work that is planned and being researched for the future. Items include better wikitext and visual editing, prompts for edits, language improvements, annotations, and meta-data separation. [9]
• The sorting of Notifications into the two fly-out menus is going to change on July 5 to 7. Bundled notifications should be easier to explore and mark as read individually. [10][11][12]
• From 29 June git.wikimedia.org (running Gitblit) will redirect all requests to Phabricator. The vast majority of requests should be correctly redirected. [13]
• Catalan and Polish Wikipedias will have Wikidata descriptions added to articles in the mobile view by default. This is currently a beta option for the mobile versions. This might come to other wikis later. [14]

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

15:42, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

"Your edit was saved"/"The page has been created" message not appearing

I have no idea why, but I just made a number of successive edits and the "Your edit was saved" message does not appear. What happened? In some of these edits, I used the "cite" function which at first I thought was the reason, but I then edited another page without using the cite function, and the message does not appear. For reference, I'm using the latest version of Google Chrome on a Windows 8 laptop. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 07:18, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

In a touch of irony, the "your message was saved" notice appeared when I created this section, although my original concern stands. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 07:19, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

• Are you using any User scripts or Gadgets? If so, disable them and see if the error persists. If so, open your browser's developer tools by pressing Ctrl+⇧ Shift+j, and leave it open whilst editing; when the error occurs, look in the developer console to see if any RED messages appear and report them here. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 09:20, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

False positive reversion

Sometimes, I get a ping notification that an edit has been reverted, although it hasn't been reverted. See for example Special:Diff/727326093. I had previously commented out a non-free image, and then Dan56 responded by inserting a different image on the page. The user's modification to the page was clearly not a reversion of my edit, and the edit summary doesn't suggest so either. Why was I informed that my edit had been reverted here? --Stefan2 (talk) 11:39, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

The notification is triggered by use of the undo or rollback link. With the undo link the user can change the edit and automatic edit summary before saving. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:45, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Oh, so I suppose that the user used the undo button and then made extra changes before clicking on "save", then. Thanks, that explains why I got a notification for that edit. --Stefan2 (talk) 12:04, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

How To Do - Multiple Templates?

IF Possible - is there a better way of adding templates together? - one of my preliminary attempts is presented below - Thanks in advance for any help with this - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 19:36, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

{{multiple image
 | width             = 300
 | image1            = {{Human timeline}}
 | image2            = {{Life timeline}}
 | image3            = {{Nature timeline}}
}}

Output

[[file: Human timeline -10 — – -9 — – -8 — – -7 — – -6 — – -5 — – -4 — – -3 — – -2 — – -1 — – 0 — Human-like apes Sahelanthropus Orrorin Ardipithecus Australopithecus Homo habilis Homo erectus Neanderthal Homo idaltu ← Earlier apes ← Earliest bipedal ← Earliest stone tools ← Earliest exit from Africa ← Earliest fire use ← Earliest cooking ← Modern humans P l e i s t o c e n e P l i o c e n e M i o c e n e H o m i n i n i Axis scale: millions of years. also see {{Life timeline}} and {{Nature timeline}} |300px|alt=]] [[file: Life timeline -4500 — – -4000 — – -3500 — – -3000 — – -2500 — – -2000 — – -1500 — – -1000 — – -500 — – 0 — water Simple life photosynthesis Eukaryotes Complex multicellular life Land animals Land plants Dinosaurs     Mammals Flowers   ← Earliest Earth ← Earliest water ← Earliest life (-4100) ← Meteorite bombardment ← Earliest oxygen ← Atmospheric oxygen ← Oxygen Crisis ← Earliest sexual reproduction ← Earliest land life ← Earliest humans P h a n r z c P r o t e r o z o i c A r c h e a n H a d e a n Axis scale: millions of years. also see {{Human timeline}} and {{Nature timeline}} |300px|alt=]] [[file: Nature timeline -13 — – -12 — – -11 — – -10 — – -9 — – -8 — – -7 — – -6 — – -5 — – -4 — – -3 — – -2 — – -1 — – 0 — cosmic expansion Earliest light cosmic speed-up Solar System water Simple life photosynthesis Complex life Land life Earliest gravity ← Earliest universe ← Earliest galaxy ← Earliest quasar ← Omega Centauri forms ← Andromeda Galaxy forms ← Milky Way Galaxy spiral arms form ← NGC 188 star cluster forms ← Alpha Centauri forms ← Earliest Earth (-4.54) ← Earliest life ← Earliest oxygen ← Atmospheric oxygen ← Earliest sexual reproduction ← Earliest land life ← Earliest humans L i f e P r i m o r d i a l Axis scale: billions of years. also see {{Human timeline}} and {{Life timeline}} |300px|alt=]]

The {{multiple image}} template, as its name suggests, is for multiple images, not multiple templates. Why not make a one-row three-column table instead? --Redrose64 (talk) 19:58, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Thank you for your comments - and suggestion - yes - agreed - the table idea seems to be a worthy consideration - Thanks again - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 20:31, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Code for the simplest table:

{|
|-
| {{Human timeline}}
| {{Life timeline}}
| {{Nature timeline}}
|}

Click show to see result 

Human timeline -10 — – -9 — – -8 — – -7 — – -6 — – -5 — – -4 — – -3 — – -2 — – -1 — – 0 — Human-like apes Sahelanthropus Orrorin Ardipithecus Australopithecus Homo habilis Homo erectus Neanderthal Homo idaltu ← Earlier apes ← Earliest bipedal ← Earliest stone tools ← Earliest exit from Africa ← Earliest fire use ← Earliest cooking ← Modern humans P l e i s t o c e n e P l i o c e n e M i o c e n e H o m i n i n i Axis scale: millions of years. also see {{Life timeline}} and {{Nature timeline}}

Life timeline -4500 — – -4000 — – -3500 — – -3000 — – -2500 — – -2000 — – -1500 — – -1000 — – -500 — – 0 — water Simple life photosynthesis Eukaryotes Complex multicellular life Land animals Land plants Dinosaurs     Mammals Flowers   ← Earliest Earth ← Earliest water ← Earliest life (-4100) ← Meteorite bombardment ← Earliest oxygen ← Atmospheric oxygen ← Oxygen Crisis ← Earliest sexual reproduction ← Earliest land life ← Earliest humans P h a n r z c P r o t e r o z o i c A r c h e a n H a d e a n Axis scale: millions of years. also see {{Human timeline}} and {{Nature timeline}}

Nature timeline -13 — – -12 — – -11 — – -10 — – -9 — – -8 — – -7 — – -6 — – -5 — – -4 — – -3 — – -2 — – -1 — – 0 — cosmic expansion Earliest light cosmic speed-up Solar System water Simple life photosynthesis Complex life Land life Earliest gravity ← Earliest universe ← Earliest galaxy ← Earliest quasar ← Omega Centauri forms ← Andromeda Galaxy forms ← Milky Way Galaxy spiral arms form ← NGC 188 star cluster forms ← Alpha Centauri forms ← Earliest Earth (-4.54) ← Earliest life ← Earliest oxygen ← Atmospheric oxygen ← Earliest sexual reproduction ← Earliest land life ← Earliest humans L i f e P r i m o r d i a l Axis scale: billions of years. also see {{Human timeline}} and {{Life timeline}}

See more at Help:Table. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:09, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter and Redrose64: Thank you for the basic Table code - seems to have omitted some of the wikilinks in the templates - see => User:Drbogdan/sandbox-timelines#Multiple template tests - may have to play further with the table idea (at Help:Table) to see if I can make it work better - in any case - Thanks again - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 21:23, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

BRIEF Followup - seems the wikilinks in the templates (using the basic table code) are omitted and/or substantially misaligned on my Dell Windows xp desktop computer, but are *entirely* OK on my HP Windows xp laptop pc, as well as my Android tablet, for some reason - may be a video graphics problem on the Dell pc - may study this more at my next opportunity - Thanks again for all the comments - they're all *greatly* appreciated - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 01:04, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

WikiEd character sets are gone

I searched the archives here but couldn't find an answer. The character sets are missing in my WikiEd editing window. I checked by preferences and they haven't changed. There was a link to this message board if I was having problems-so here I am. Why don't the character sets and the 'short cut' code appear in my WikiEd edit window. Thank you ahead of time for your answer. I am not very techy so I probably need a plain English answer with no acronyms. What is really weird is that I can see the character sets here on the message board below the editing windows but I don't see them on article editing windows. I am confused, obviously. Best Regards, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barbara (WVS) (talk • contribs) 10:11, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Please describe exactly where you see what you refer to as "WikiEd character sets" and "short cut code". What is your browser and what is your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? PrimeHunter (talk) 10:30, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Pinged without new signature

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T137755

I got a notification that Drbogdan‬ mentioned me in [15]. wikEdDiff (the green triangle in [16]]) shows the edit only added {{-}}, added newlines and changed indentation. There was no new signature but two old signed posts by Drbogdan were interpreted as new lines by the MediaWiki diff. Is this supposed to make a notification possible? Wikipedia:Notifications#Triggering events says: "if the mention is not on a completely new line with a new signature, no notification will be sent". mw:Manual:Echo#Technical details doesn't explicitly say the signature has to be new but I always thought it had to. It does say: "In order for the signature to be recognised, the post must contain the exact same markup that writing ~~~ (and ~~~~) generates." Does the software simply test whether the diff looks like a signed post but ignore whether the timestamp is many hours old and no tildes were used? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:33, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I also have had such notifications, so it's not a one-time bug. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 14:34, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Me too, for the same edits. See phab:T137755 and WT:Echo#Retriggered notification for mention. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:28, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Looking at my old notifications, I was also notified in your own example [17]. It seems my guess was right: The software ignores the age of the signature when it decides whether to notify. If you edit old posts in a section where you already pinged somebody then you risk repeating the ping if the diff thinks you are adding the line it's in. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:21, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Linking issue in image metadata again

I have posted here about a similar issue before, but I forgot the interface page that is responsible for displaying the image metadata, so here I am again. On File:Tiniposter.jpg, the software is shown as "GIMP 2.8.16", a redlink – that should point to just GIMP. nyuszika7h (talk) 21:26, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

uselang=qqx shows there are different interface messages for each metadata field. The software link is made with MediaWiki:Exif-software-value which currently just says [[$1]] to link the value. It should be possible to check for an apparent version number and remove it with a piped link if it would give a red link, or change the link completely if it needs disambiguation. Do we want to use resources on that? commons:MediaWiki:Exif-software-value does the same as us, except it says [[w:$1|$1]] to make an interwiki link to the English Wikipedia. MediaWiki:Exif-make-value is more advanced. It's used in a "Camera manufacturer" field and has a switch to correct the link in many cases. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:54, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

You beat me to it :P. Is this a common metadata value (i.e. program and version number)? If not, a redirect could suffice. If so, no super easy solution springs to mind. That said, it could be possible to implement a proper fix in MediaWiki itself: looking at the relevant source code, I think the software name and the version could be treated separately. Bit of a bother though. —  crh ₂₃  (Talk) 22:06, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

The default MediaWiki message makes no link but just displays the value. It's only an issue here because we customize the message to make a link. I don't know Exif metadata standards but if it's one field in the file then I doubt the MediaWiki developers want to split it. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:24, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I think that phab:T57977 is closely related to this. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:02, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

MediaWiki does use a different message when the software metadata is an array: MediaWiki:exif-software-version-value. That can be customized to link only the name of the software. But that message isn't used in this case, because the metadata in question doesn't use the version array. Reach Out to the Truth 00:29, 30 June 2016 (UTC)