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).

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All pages header

Hi, I'm looking for another help. I see an interface page pi:मीडियाविकि:Talkpageheader, which transcludes it's text on all talk pages in this project. Is there a interface page that transcludes the same text as header/footer on all pages, subject space and talk space? Thanks! ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 23:04, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

@CX Zoom: I know of one, though not really a "header": pi:MediaWiki:Tagline. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 23:10, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Addendum: You can also configure it to make it display different messages on different namespaces using wikitext conditional parser functions, just like in templates. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 23:16, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Struck. That doesn't work. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 06:20, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

@CX Zoom if you really mean "all pages" you can use the MediaWiki:Sitenotice / MediaWiki:Anonnotice to put something on the top of every page. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:43, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Basically, I wanted to put up pi:Template:Edit protection on there, which would automatically sense the edit protection level to show the appropriate protection-level topicon, without having to manually do all of that work. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 00:04, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

@CX Zoom: In which case, have you looked at our Module:Effective protection level? If you don't want the Lua route, you can use {{PROTECTIONLEVEL:type}} where type is one of: create, edit, move, upload (see my post at User talk:RMCD bot#Indication of move protection settings for two examples). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:49, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I took my inspiration from there, and the template I mentioned (pi:Template:Edit protection) uses the same to produce the topicons. I also tested it on pi:मीडियाविकि:Talkpageheader by temporarily protecting a talk page, and it works! But I couldn't find a sitewide equivalent of that MW page. pi:मीडियाविकि:Sitenotice doesn't help at all. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 20:55, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

@CX Zoom, if you want to find all of the potential "messages" on a page, use the mw:qqx trick. Remember that there are some differences per skin. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:44, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Sadly, couldn't find one. Probably such a page doesn't exist yet. If so, where can I request one? Thanks! ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 17:23, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

@CX Zoom, I vaguely remember I've asked about something similar years ago but couldn't find an enjoyable solution. I'd also like it if topicons or something similarly small could show automatically on all protected pages, showing their status, similarly to good and featured articles and their topicons added "manually". But "the closest" I've been able to get to that is by editing 1-2 system messages that are specific for full and semi-protection which appear when you're trying to edit articles in the said protection levels (not before), which I believe you may be already aware of. - Klein Muçi (talk) 17:58, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

@SGrabarczuk (WMF), weren't you telling me something (months ago) about moving the FA stars to a different place? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:44, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, such icons, and more precisely, their templates, should use the indicator tag. Then they are displayed below the page heading (so below the gray line), next to the tagline. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 14:11, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Frankly, enWP is a fairly large project with many editors and bots who can maintain it on a daily basis, but most other projects aren't. Personally, I believe that the protection templates & article quality indicators should be applied by default on all pages, with the help of system messages rather than having to do that manually. The svgs for them can be stored in a MW page. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 17:35, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Fully support that opinion. Maybe that feature can be harder to implement in good and featured articles but I believe with protection levels would be easier to get the specific metadata and correlate them to the needed top icons/indicators. - Klein Muçi (talk) 17:42, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Protection indicators are the subject of phab:T12347, for which it makes sense for core to have some control.

Article quality indicators are not a domain idea known about in core and may have different levels depending on the wiki, so they do not seem to be a good candidate. Izno (talk) 18:05, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Eh, that was my train of thought as well. Even though I kinda think it should be an extension, not in the core because different wikis might have different protection levels beside the so-called semi and full? I may be totally wrong. (Didn't study the task.) - Klein Muçi (talk) 18:39, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

useCSS

I have an idea that the query parameter "useCSS" worked before (for example https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Table&useCSS=MediaWiki:Gadget-DisambiguationLinks.css). Did it, does it, and if so, how do I get it to work now? Utfor (talk) 05:20, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

@Utfor: You mean withCSS? NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 06:17, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you! Utfor (talk) 06:20, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

As a note, this is deprecated now with the release of a similar technology that is supported in the core software. Izno (talk) 06:21, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

User:Izno How can this new method be used? Utfor (talk) 07:24, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

@Utfor: Like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?withgadget=dark-mode with a gadget name in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. For security reasons it only works if the gadget allows it with supportsUrlLoad. We currently only have that in two gadgets – not because the other gadgets are insecure but because it's a new feature and nobody has gone through the gadgets. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:39, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• We do still have Load_JS_and_CSS_by_URL support in common.js; and anyone could put it in to their own user/common.js if they want to; the ?withgadget method is preferred for anything/everything that is "community supported" for a number of reasons - we may eventually remove the load_js* from common.js, but the idea is still useful for certain user-level tests. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:33, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Pushpin map of the world's FAs

If I wanted to create a {{Maplink}} map with a pin for each featured article with coordinates listed, how would I go about doing that? I think it'd be a neat addition to the WP:FA page. (See also, somewhat related query) {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:19, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

How do you pushpin a comedy/news show's monologue? Or elements? Or a mathematical conundrum? —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 01:43, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

This would only be for items that have {{coord}} or coordinate location (P625) on Wikidata. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:14, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

As a basic starting point, you can make a mapframe map based on the Wikidata coordinates of two points using:

{{maplink
 |type=point|id={{get QID|<article name>}}
 |type2=point|id2={{get QID|<article name 2>}}
}}

I'll look into automatically including all featured articles when I have time in a few hours. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:27, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't know how to make it a {{maplink}}, but here's a Wikidata query which gives a map if that's helpful: https://w.wiki/4yrh the wub "?!" 15:36, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Topic map? Donald Albury 01:36, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Pppery and The wub! That query is excellent! Maplink's documentation here says it should be possible to create a map from the query using this approach, but I think I'm doing something wrong, since when I try I get this error:

<mapframe>: Couldn't parse JSON: Syntax error

Any idea of the issue? It seems like we're close. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:17, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

@Sdkb: You forgot to escape quotes. Simply put a backslash in front of each, except for the outermost ones, and voilà! NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 21:41, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

@NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh: Hmm, that resolves the error, but still no points showing up (see right). I feel like "geoshape" might have to be changed, since we're looking for points, not shapes, but I'm not sure what to change it to. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:45, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

@Sdkb: I tried a random value and it gaves me some nice thing about what should be our input. Try geomask. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 21:49, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Okay, that doesn't work either. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 22:15, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

You cannot have comments in map link, because for several reasons, line endings get stripped, which causes all content after the comment to disappear from the query. We should check if we can fix that again, because I think the escaping issue that was the reason for stripping the line endings. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:01, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Other issues, there was no id column, and the ids contained duplicates. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:43, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Apparently the id's still contain duplicates.. I don't know enough about sparql to dedupe ids. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:37, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

This doesn't work. You cannot retrieve coordinates from wikidata and use them in Kartographer, only OSM shapes and lines of wikidata IDs (You could say that the wikidata integration is more an OSM integration, being selected based on wikidata IDs retrieved from a wikidata query). See also mediawikiwiki:Help:Extension:Kartographer#External_data. See also phab:T188291. The good news is that this is one of the things that the German tech team is looking at and determining if it is one of the things in their GeoFocus area that they might look at. They have a survey (it was posted in this page recently, which you should definitely fill in if you want this feature. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:01, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I also tried ignoring map's external data feature and manually computing all of the coordinates in Lua, which ran into a "too many Wikidata entities accessed" error. And ignoring Wikidata and manually scanning the article's wikitext for {{coord}} calls, while theoretically possible, is a mess and likely to hit the Lua time limit. So, conclusion is that I don't see any way of doing this without a bot (and I say this despite strongly preferring automatic generation of things to bots updating reports). * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:43, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Until you get that to work you could use a link to https://osm4wiki.toolforge.org/cgi-bin/wiki/wiki-osm.pl?project=en&article=Category:Featured%20articles Agathoclea (talk) 10:25, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

@Johanna Strodt (WMDE), I think you might be interested in this use case. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:46, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Detect whether a full date was entered

In templates, the text {{#time:j F Y|{{{start-date|}}}}} standardizes the formatting of dates, but only if a full date is entered. If only a year is entered, it returns that year with today's day and month. Is there a way to detect whether the user only entered a year? I want it to display something like "c. 1867" in those cases. Thanks! —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 21:52, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

@Arctic.gnome: Simply remove the j F part. {{#time:Y|1867-09-25}} outputs 1867. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 22:12, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

See also: How to use the #time parser function. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 22:13, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

If I do that, it will always show the year only, even if the user entered a full date. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 22:28, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Not correct answer

@Arctic.gnome: Okay, here's a dirty workaround that may not work in all cases/all the time: {{#ifeq:{{#iferror:{{#time:d-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}|e1|{{#time:d-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}}}|{{#time:d-H-i-s}}|{{#ifeq:{{#iferror:{{#time:m-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}|e1|{{#time:m-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}}}|{{#time:m-H-i-s}}|{{#ifeq:{{#iferror:{{#time:Y-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}|e1|{{#time:Y-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}}}|{{#time:Y-H-i-s}}||{{#iferror:{{#time:d-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:d-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y|{{{1|}}}}}}}}}|{{#iferror:{{#time:m-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:m-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y-m|{{{1|}}}}}}}}}|{{#iferror:{{#time:Y-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y-H-i-s|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y-m-d|{{{1|}}}}}}}}} Theoretically speaking, this won't work if the input date is 100% identical to the time we view it (by "identical" I mean at the very second), but that's definitely not the case, unless you're messing with the future. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 23:11, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I messed up somewhere. Need to rethink a bit. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 23:21, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Some complex thing

{{#switch:{{#iferror:{{#time:r|{{{1|}}}}}|1}}{{#iferror:{{#ifexpr:{{#time:U|{{{1|}}}}}>{{#switch:{{#iferror:{{#time:r|{{{1|}}}}}|1}}{{#iferror:{{#ifexpr:{{#time:U|{{{1|}}}}}>{{#time:U}}|2}}|2}}|1={{#time:r|{{{1|}}}}}|2=|#default={{#ifeq:{{#time:d|{{{1|}}}}}|01|{{#ifeq:{{#time:m|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:m|{{#time:Y-m-d}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#time:Y|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y|{{#time:Y-m-d}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#time:d|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:d|{{#time:Y-m-d}}}}|{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{#time:Y|{{{1|}}}}}|}}|{{#time:Y-m-d|{{{1|}}}}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#invoke:String|len|{{padleft:{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{{1|}}}}}|4}}}}|4|{{#time:Y|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y-m|{{{1|}}}}}}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#time:m|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:m|{{#time:Y-m-d}}}}|{{#time:Y-m-d|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y-m|{{{1|}}}}}}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#time:d|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:d|{{#time:Y-m-d}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#time:m|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:m|{{#time:Y-m-d}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#time:Y|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y|{{#time:Y-m-d}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#invoke:String|len|{{padleft:{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{{1|}}}}}|4}}}}|4|{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{#time:Y|{{{1|}}}}}|}}|{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{#time:Y-m|{{{1|}}}}}|}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#invoke:String|len|{{padleft:{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{{1|}}}}}|4}}}}|4|{{#time:Y|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y-m-d|{{{1|}}}}}}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#time:d|{{#time:Y-m-d}}}}|01|{{#time:Y-m|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y-m-d|{{{1|}}}}}}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#time:m|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:m|{{#time:Y-m-d}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#time:Y|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y|{{#time:Y-m-d}}}}|{{#time:Y-m-d|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#invoke:String|len|{{padleft:{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{{1|}}}}}|4}}}}|4|{{#time:Y|{{{1|}}}}}|{{#time:Y-m-d|{{{1|}}}}}}}}}|{{#time:Y-m-d|{{{1|}}}}}}}}}}}}} For archives: Special:Permalink/1078929071

Here it is. There are some false positives but in general it does work. I'm not sure if there is a more precise wikitext way for this problem. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 02:24, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Woah, fancy! Thanks! I didn't know about the string|len command you used, and I have to ask: could I use that command to simply say that if the input is four characters long, display it as a year, otherwise display it as a date? That might be less precise, but it would be a lot shorter. Alternatively, could your code be used to make a new template that takes ambiguous inputs and returns correct dates? —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:09, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

@Arctic.gnome: If you assume it's either a year or valid date then the simplest may be to use {{Ifnumber}}: {{Ifnumber|{{{start-date|}}}|c. {{{start-date}}}|{{#time:j F Y|{{{start-date|}}}}}}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:34, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

That's also a useful template to put in my back pocket. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 17:15, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

@Arctic.gnome: The input date is not always written in Y-m-d form. They can also be in Unix timestamp form (1648578402), full date (29 March 2022), ISO 8601 (2022-03-29T18:26:42+00:00), RFC 5322 (Tue, 29 Mar 2022 18:26:42 +0000), or even some abnormal format like 3.14159265359 seconds (2027-04-15 – it means "3:14 AM today, plus 159265359 seconds") (For archives: 2027-04-10) / a potato (2022-03-29 – outputs this very second, minus one hour, with no errors!?).

Weird, but that's how {{#time}} works. Note that I wrapped all {{{1|}}} in it, and while I used {{#invoke:string|len}}, it is not a wise, and pure wikitext, way to detect parameter value with year only. As a counter-example, 00:00:00 March 29 1990 can also be written as 638668800; the "template" above outputs 1990 with 1990 as input, but will give 1990-03-24 with 638668800. Wikitext, as far as I know, can't do such a thing like detecting how precise an input date is with just the date itself. It needs at least a second parameter that tells it how precise that date is. Here's something you might want to try at to Special:ExpandTemplates (see hidden comment, remember to remove {{void|1=): NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 19:20, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Resolved

Use of $ when doing regex intitle searches

Not sure what's going on here: I'm trying to use intitle:/a$/ to look for articles with titles that end with "a", but instead, the search returns all titles that contain the string "a$". I'm a bit familiar with regex, so the "$" symbol should look for the end rather than a literal "$" key (which would traditionally be found with "\$" instead to escape the regex functionality. See Special:Search/intitle:/a$/ for the results; I even tried Special:Search/intitle:/a\$/ (with the "$" escaped), but it provided the same results as the previous search. Is this a known issue, and/or is there a workaround for this? Steel1943 (talk) 22:21, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

This is not a thing in Special:Search. Neither can you search for ^. Nor [\r\n]. But .* does find newlines. Izno (talk) 22:26, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

mw:Help:CirrusSearch#Regular expression searches says that The ^ and $ are not needed. In fact they are badly needed, but not implemented. I've resorted to something like intitle:/a/ -intitle:/a./, but of course that incorrectly fails to match Banana. Certes (talk) 22:28, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Seems to work at grep.toolforge.org, albeit very slowly. Ruбlov (talk) 22:59, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

CSS solution for manual anchors in/near headings

{{anchor}} is a useful template that is used in many articles. However, for alternate IDs for headings, it should ideally be placed directly below the heading, but this has UX implications for readers, so the guideline is to either put it before the heading or subst it inside the heading, which both have UX implications for authors. I'm wondering if there's possibly a CSS solution by now in Template talk:Anchor#CSS solution. Since I've never used anything from the CSS Scroll Snap module, I'm not sure it actually provides a viable and good solution. Therefore, I would like some input from people who have experience in this regard. — Christoph Päper 11:23, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Admin action response time

Hi! I was wondering if there is some page on wiki that keeps track of the average time it takes us to respond to an issue that needs administrative action. For example, if I wanted to see how much faster/slower it takes us to address a report at WP:UAA now compared to last year, is there some place on wiki I can see that? Is this even something that can be tracked? A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 17:41, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

@A. C. Santacruz, I don't know about UAA, but for WP:AIV, Enterprisey had done such an analysis of reports from three months in 2020 and 2021. Hemantha (talk) 12:37, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Desktop Improvements: project update and invitation to our office hours

Play media

Hello. I want to give you an update about the Desktop Improvements project. The Wikimedia Foundation Web team has been working on it for the past few years now, and it's almost finished! Learn about our recent activities, give us feedback on our latest prototype, and join us in our upcoming office hours!

The goals of the project are to make the interface more welcoming and comfortable for readers while keeping the utility for advanced editors. The project consists of a series of feature improvements. The changed interface makes it easier to read and learn, navigate within the page, search, switch between languages, use page tabs and the user menu, and more.

The changes apply to the Vector skin only. Monobook or Timeless users are not affected. Those who prefer to keep Vector without our changes are (and will be!) able to do so.

The newest features

• Page tools - We have been exploring ways to make different menus more intuitive by visually separating the actions and tools for individual pages (like Related changes) from those of site-wide nature (like Recent changes). Try out the prototype we have built and give us feedback on what you like and what could be improved.
• Table of contents (ToC) - Our new ToC is easier for readers and editors to reach, gain context of the page, and navigate throughout the page without needing to scroll all the way to the top. We are finishing the development on the ToC and plan to deploy it to folks who have already been using the Desktop Improvements by the end of March. Check out the latest prototype of the feature.

How to enable/disable the improvements

• Opt-in individually in the appearance tab within the preferences by selecting "Vector (2022)". It is also possible to opt-in on all wikis using the global preferences.
• On wikis where the changes are visible by default for all, logged-in users can always opt-out to Vector legacy 2010. There is an easily accessible link in the sidebar of Vector 2022.

Deployment on English Wikipedia

The improvements are already available by default for readers and editors on almost 30 wikis, including Wikipedias in French, Portuguese, and Persian. We would love to see these improvements become the default for readers and editors across all wikis. We plan on beginning conversations on potential configurations here on English Wikipedia in the coming months, once we complete building all the major changes.

Learn more and join our events

We would like to invite you to our upcoming office hours on 29 March, 19:00 18:00 UTC. We will talk through our latest prototypes as well as the project as a whole. Please come with any questions you may have!

• Join online
• Meeting ID: 82719061969
• Dial by your location

If you would like to follow the progress of our project on your own time, you can subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the pages of the project, check our FAQ, and write on the project talk page.

Thank you! On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Web team, SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 21:56, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

The meeting begins in less than an hour. Everyone is invited, particularly those interested in the desktop interface! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Missing section edit links in documentation page

I'm trying to figure out why the documentation part of Template:Citation needed does not show section edit links, while they do appear on Template:Citation needed/doc. I'm assuming it has something to do with the page protection, but if that is the case, why does it affect the documentation which isn't protected? Gonnym (talk) 14:06, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Because protection doesn't know or care about transclusions. There's a reason there's a manual edit link in the protection documentation boilerplate itself. Izno (talk) 16:37, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Column templates

It there a way to have multiple columns float within a page rather than using the entire width? See South Williamsport Area School District for an example of whitespace caused by the current column layout. I have a list of a half dozen or so articles with this problem. I have tried various column templates and couldn't find a solution. A query at the Help Desk got no response. MB 14:43, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I suspect that you need a different template, or possibly a table. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:09, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Try adding |width=auto to the {{col-begin}}. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:51, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

That helped, but the columns weren't aligned between the two different sets. So I tried |width=50% and I think that looks best. Thanks for the assist. MB 00:29, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Watchlist

Hi. Template:OS/doc is on my watchlist but this edit did not appear on it. I think something like this happened to me a few months ago, although I can't 100% confirm that. I currently have 1,066 pages on my watchlist. I have ticked hide bot edits; the only change from the default settings in preferences. --DB1729 (talk) 15:54, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Are you using the js watchlist, and showing all edits - or just the most recent edit (as there was a more recent one, which does appear on my WL). — xaosflux ^Talk 15:59, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Just the most recent. The subsequent, more recent one, is my revert --DB1729 (talk) 16:07, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

If you're wondering how I spotted it at all, I often check recent changes with the template namespace only filter (it's funny how many vandals manage to find document subpages of some of the most obscure templates to mess with). So what happened is I had checked my watchlist, and then I checked template recent changes and was immediately drawn to the edit in question. It was bolded because the page is on my WL, which I found odd because I had just checked it. I went back to my WL and indeed the edit was still not there. I went back to the page and reverted it, issued a warning msg, made a revert on another page and then read through Help:Watchlist to see if there was anything there explaining it. I then posted here because this is the suggested forum for such matters.DB1729 (talk) 16:55, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

If you exclude your own edits and view only the most recent edit, and that last edit is yours, do you see the previous edit or nothing? Certes (talk) 18:55, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

@Certes: My own edits were excluded at the time. I see nothing from that page, which is expected, right? because it is set up to only show the most recent edit (and nothing if the last is my own)? However, after reading your post, I got the idea to change it to allow my own edits to be visible, just as a test, and so now I see my revert on that page. Again, that is as expected, but it doesn't explain why I never saw the IP's edit. At least I now know that I'm getting some edits from that page. Thanks for sparking that idea.

There is another issue with my watchlist I failed to mention. Don't know if it's related. It will not load more than a handful of edits unless I force it to show more by selecting the maximum '500 changes, 30 days' in the dropdown. Even then it will only display edits from the last four to six days (today it was displaying edits from the last six days so it should've picked it up). It was far worse for a while last year when it would only show two or three individual edits. I trimmed my WL from about 1500 to 900 something, and it helped, but it took several days for it to populate to a more normal amount. I've been keeping my WL around a 1000 pages ever since, but I noticed on Help talk:Watchlist a user mentioned they have 55,000 pages on their watchlist, so I gather that 1,000-1,500 WL pages, in and of itself, should not be causing any problems. DB1729 (talk) 19:52, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Certes, I read your post more closely and realized exactly what you wanted me to do. I set my preferences to 'Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent' and 'Hide my edits from the watchlist', and I now see the IP's edit in my watchlist. Maybe it was just a one-time glitch. Thank you. DB1729 (talk) 20:40, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

My WL is about 1700 pages and works fine. However, if a busy page such as AIV gets onto it, I often don't see the full time range because that page has enough edits to fill my quota. Certes (talk) 20:49, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Understood. 99% of the pages on mine are very low traffic. And none of them are anywhere near as busy as AIV or ANI. The busiest I have is probably WT:F1. They are 'most recent' type edits for each page, as that it is the setting I always run. I typically have only 20 to 40 edits displaying over the past few days. That's the absolute maximum I can get it to display and why I have to set it for 30 days. That's only way I can get the damn thing to display more than a handful of edits, even though I really only need it to display the last two or three days. DB1729 (talk) 21:14, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Edit Request Wizard/Protected does not work for non-article main space.

If one type in Template:XXX or Wikipedia:XXX into the wizard, to request edit of a protected page, the wizard will try to take you to talk:Template:XXX or talk:Wikipedia:XXX which, for obvious reason such link doesn't work. Can someone help fix the wizard? C933103 (talk) 23:23, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

C933103, this cannot be fixed without introducing a dependency on the user inserting the correct specific talk page namespace, which I would guess would fail its most prevalent use (that being main space). Possibly, you could add another input box for "if you don't want to change an article"... regardless, I would guess this page doesn't see all that much traffic for requesting edits. Izno (talk) 23:39, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, even the parent page only have ~200 view per month. And that it appears like even fixing the link wouldn't lead to loading the correct request edit template either, since there are several for different namespaces. C933103 (talk) 23:53, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

OAuth applications still work when one is blocked

Hello.

Just earlier, I was autoblocked because of a username policy violating account on the same IP as me.

However, when I tried to revert vandalism using SWViewer, an OAuth application, it apparently still registers edits on my user contributions page.

Is there an error or a technical restriction which allows OAuth applications to still perform edits even when blocked? Thanks. — 3PPYB6 — TALK — CONTRIBS — 15:38, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Probably not a bug; the OAuth edits came from a different IP address which isn't autoblocked. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:43, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

@Pppery—I also tested from a VPN network; that also worked. I suppose it's the same: it comes from a different IP that is not blocked, and when a user is blocked, OAuth applications will know that you are blocked. — 3PPYB6 — TALK — CONTRIBS — 18:23, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Where can I report the bug where Visual Editor sometimes adds huge walls of nonsense code instead of templates?

I made a thread about this on some noticeboard a few months ago, which didn't go anywhere, and I mostly forgot about the issue. However, when clearing up a bunch of malformatted {{cn}} templates today, I found another batch of them -- things like this, where someone attempting to add a {{citation needed}} template somehow managed to pepper the entire paragraph with randomly placed nowiki tags and substed versions of the citation needed template. I had to slog through hundreds of these when I was clearing out the couple thousand bad {{cn}}s earlier -- is there some better place to get the attention of developers responsible for this? jp×g 20:57, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

@JPxG: At WP:VE there is a link to report problems. You can also check it is listed at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Known_problems RudolfRed (talk) 00:37, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

This one is a known issue that the devs have punted on (not even trying to mitigate it). I think Jonesey probably has the task on speed dial at this point. Izno (talk) 04:09, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

One flavor at closed phab:T267747, another flavor closed at phab:T209493, another flavor closed at phab:T166425, one currently open for CX2 at phab:T218420, and I'm not seeing others (I just perused the ones that Jonesey is subscribed to). I believe the core issue is phab:T54091 (from memory of related tasks), which may come soon after Parsoid is the one parser. Izno (talk) 04:26, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I've just fixed about 25 inappropriate nowiki tags, mostly inserted with VE. I suspect most may be user error rather than VE adding them unbidden. Perhaps it's too easy to highlight a random bit of text and enclose it in the tag; it's rarely needed. Certes (talk) 12:57, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Warning: Cynical rant. My understanding of this and similar VE bugs is that when editors use copy and paste in certain ways, VE can insert all sorts of undesirable garbage. The devs appear to have given up on fixing these bugs with VE, so it is currently up to gnomes to clean up after editors who fail to check the useful Preferences box marked "Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta". This throwing up of virtual hands by the devs is the reason that nearly all diffs of CheckWiki's ISBN error list show the page growing over the past year. I used to go through and clean up the garbage in the hopes that the bugs would be addressed, but I gave up tilting and that particular windmill. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:00, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

18(!?) failed attempts to login

Don't known if this is the right place to report it but I've received an alert of 18 (!???) illegitimate attempts to login on my username from English Wikipedia. Are the security settings from Wikimedia correctly set to allow this huge amount? The attempts amount where shown only when browsing on Wikimedia Commons and before I set the notification as read BTW. Lugusto 17:59, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Please do report these to an checkuser. In 2007, bug phab:T11836, Brion (an top developer) said "Captcha already present. Lockout is a DoS vector, unacceptable." It was considered to report it automatically to admins/checkusers, but it was not done. WMF Captcha is known to be really weak. phab:T188184 is about adding an link to the message to checkusers to act on the failed logins.--Snævar (talk) 20:07, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

@555: Basically, somebody knows your username (so do I, it's 555) but they don't know your password (and nor do I). They're trying to log in as you, perhaps by guessing your password, but are not succeeding. This failure shows that security is good. The time to worry is if you find edits in your contributions that you are 100% certain that you didn't make yourself. But whatever is occurring:

• change your password at intervals
• use a strong password
• don't disclose it to anybody
• if logging in outside your own home, check for security cameras that might be aimed at the keyboard
• if you log in on somebody else's device, make sure that you explicitly log out when done and then use the browser's "clear history" (or similar) feature, ensuring that logins and passwords are cleared too

HTH. But don't get paranoid. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:46, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Don't worry about those. Turn your WP:2FA on and feel free to laugh in their face. If you can't turn it on, request for 2FA Tester global flag after reading the guideline. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 21:59, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

When I press a grave accent a line of code is generated

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T304804

Dear all, I am an editor at the Catalan Wikipedia. We have been talking about a problem in the visual editor, but we haven't found any solution for the moment. The case is that when I press the grave accent key ( ` ) in a Spanish keyboard, a <code> is generated, which implies that the text I write next happens to be a line of code. This usually happens when the key is pressed twice, but a few users have it when they press only once, which becomes a problem while writing since Catalan has many words with a grave accent. This is how it looks like:

Això és un missatge per mostrar el problema, gracies.

Thank you very much for your time.Sjoel (talk) 18:23, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this happening makes a little sense because this is the markup for "code" things in markdown. I would recommend filing a task about whether the key can/should be internationalized in some way. Maybe Whatamidoing (WMF) can help. Izno (talk) 19:02, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

@Sjoel: I've opened phab:T304804 for more on this. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:07, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Server problems over past 3 weeks

I continue to have intermittent problems, as previously raised at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 196#Wiki production problems. The problems occur when previewing and saving. I get at least 4 different manifestations - I am using Chrome.

• ERR_HTTP2_PROTOCOL_ERROR
• ERR_CACHE_MISS
• unformatted page (presumably a CSS file failed to load)
• false edit conflict i.e. when there have been no other edits

From about 17th to 25th March the problems seemed to go away but have been occurring again over the last 4 days. The original post in the older thread said that the ops folks were working on problems, but maybe that was a different problem. Anyone else affected? Nurg (talk) 04:18, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, there where three mediawiki updates a week - instead of only once normally - Trainsperiment week, upgrade of the servers to the next version of the operating system - phab:T303171 (links to an en.wikpedia task), and slimming of flaggedrevisions data - phab:T297189. As far as notifications go, they are not going to happen as often, see phab:T303605.--Snævar (talk) 18:41, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Adminstats bar chart

Hello. I attempted to fork {{Adminstats/bars}} and {{Adminstats/bars/percent}} into User:Sdrqaz/statsstyles and User:Sdrqaz/statsstylesstyles respectively. However, there are issues with the bars that I have been unable to resolve (the resulting product is on my base userpage). If there are any solutions (apart from "don't use adminstats"), that would be appreciated. Sdrqaz (talk) 04:23, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Does adminstats even work? The bot hasn't updated Template:Adminstats/Hog Farm in 14 months ... Hog Farm _Talk 04:32, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The bot does update Template:Adminstats/Kusma regularly. Maybe it doesn't notice you are active? —Kusma (talk) 12:25, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I made over 14,000 edits in 2021 and a bit over 2,000 this year, so I would hope it considers me active. I suspect it may not know I'm an administrator - my RFA closed on 21 January 2021, and the bot last updated the adminstats on 25 January 2021. Hog Farm _Talk 13:29, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Cyberbot I seems to update Template:Adminstats/HJ Mitchell daily. Maybe Cyberpower678 knows why yours isn't updating? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:44, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

It's not transcluded anywhere. It only updates if it's transcluded somewhere. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 13:47, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@Cyberpower678: - I had it transcluded at User:Hog Farm/admin stats until the middle of May 2021, so I don't think it was that. I remember finally U1'ing it after it had gone about three months without working. Hog Farm _Talk 13:56, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I can't debug until at least the activation requirements are met. You'll need to transcluyde it somewhere.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 13:57, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Should be re-created now at the same title; maybe the next update run will catch it. Hog Farm _Talk 14:06, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@Sdrqaz: The error is caused by the <span> element that {{Percentage}} returns. (You can go to Special:ExpandTemplates and try something like {{Percentage|50|100|2}} to see it for yourself.) That results in a wacky output when you try to use the output as a CSS parameter, as you're doing at User:Sdrqaz/statsstylesstyles. There's a little bit of background from someone who experienced a similar problem at Template talk:Percentage#Negative percentages... minus sign vs. ndash. Someone created a replacement template, {{Percentage CSS}}, but it was recently deleted at TfD as unused. It sounds like that was just a wrapper for {{#expr:}} anyway, so you may have to fall back on the syntax used at Template:Adminstats/bars. DanCherek (talk) 17:26, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@DanCherek: I finally got it to work, after six tries. Thanks for your help! Sdrqaz (talk) 22:46, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

More than 3 years for page to appear in category?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T304841

User:Bearian/Deletions just showed up in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion over 3 years after being tagged with {{db-user}}. Anyone has an idea why? —Kusma (talk) 10:20, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Was it categorised directly or via a template or other transcluded page which may have changed recently? Certes (talk) 12:03, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The text {{db-user}} was added on 9 July 2018 at 15:32. Template:db-user has been a redirect to Template:db-u1 for more than a decade and has not been edited in forever. I can't see anything in the history of Template:db-u1 that could have caused this to break for three+ years. —Kusma (talk) 12:24, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Based on some digging, Something Ain't Right™ and I've logged a task ~TNT (talk • she/her) 13:28, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The root cause is the same as #Category redirect Foo playing up again. Izno (talk) 18:54, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Indeed per THIS I've been null-editing pages in user space and my bot null-edited user pages with page_links_updated in July 2018 within the past ~24 hours. It's a mystery why the page did not quickly populate Category:Candidates for speedy deletion soon after the page was saved. 99+% of the time the category is populated not long after the page transcluding the template is saved. But in rare cases (caused by sunspot activity?) the category was not populated, and when that happens, it can be a looooonnnnng time before it is. Probably a jobqueue update at the time was lost. My bot's null edit finally populated the category. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:26, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The above-referenced discussion is now at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 196#Category redirect Foo playing up again. Graham87 07:55, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Discovering blocked IPs within a range

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T146628

Special:BlockList tells us of all active blocks affecting an IP address, including range blocks which affect that IP. Is there a way to do the opposite, to take a range and find out whether any individual IP or sub-range is blocked? Better still, is there a way to find out if any have been blocked in the past? Knowing, for example, that a previous administrator placed a smaller range block to target the same individual could be extremely useful in combatting abuse and vandalism. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:38, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

phab:T146628 is open, requesting support for range searches of the logs. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:20, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@HJ Mitchell: For "blocks" specifically, meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Admins and patrollers/Show recent block history for IPs and ranges has this in third place, so it is heavily requested. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:23, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I believe Community Tech is going to work on it this year (it's a bit too soon to say for sure). The main reason it hasn't been worked on over the past few years is that we weren't sure about the future of IPs in MediaWiki. With that now clarified, we can finally move forward with this project. Stay tuned! — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:49, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you both. That's interesting. So I guess there's no way to see if an IP is in a range that has been previously blocked (short of manually searching the logs) ... yet? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:05, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@HJ Mitchell: You could run a SQL query like quarry:query/63446, changing 123. to the prefix of interest. To limit it to ranges which include a specific address, you could add something like AND "7B1234AB" BETWEEN ipb_range_start AND ipb_range_end, where 7B1234AB represents the IP address of interest, which you'll unfortunately have to convert to hexadecimal. Certes (talk) 19:14, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@Certes: Thank you, that looks like a good stopgap. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:28, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Think you can also do some api queries, but not super easy. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:54, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Help with Lua module

• What were you expecting and what was the actual result of your action?: I was expecting to get a Base64 encoding of inputted text Test using {{#INVOKE:Base64|base64.encode(input)|Test}}, but got error Script error: The module returned a nil value. It is supposed to return an export table.
• Where did you encounter the problem?: In sandbox preview
• Would a screenshot help you to describe the problem?: No.
• If you are "on mobile" please specify if you are using the Mobile App or the mobile website: I am using the desktop website.
• What browser and what version of your browser are you using?: Firefox 98.0.2 (64-bit) on Windows 10 version 20H2
• No connection problems.

How do I fix this??? QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 19:26, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I fixed that but ...

{{#INVOKE:Base64|encode|Test}} → VGVzdA==

{{#INVOKE:Base64|decode|VGVzdA}} → Test

Don't know if it works 'properly'; don't know where the stray == come from.

Read WP:LUA

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:03, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The == will be from Module:Base64#L-143, where two PAD characters are appended if the number of bytes (4 for "Test") mod 3 is 1. Certes (talk) 20:38, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of removing the line breaks between the list items from the original message; they created problems with viewing HTML lists which are particularly problematic for screen reader users like myself. Graham87 07:49, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-13

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

• There is a simple new Wikimedia Commons upload tool available for macOS users, Sunflower.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 March. It will be on all wikis from 31 March (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of regular database maintenance. It will be performed on 29 March at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 31 March at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis). [1][2]

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

19:53, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Android related question for developers

Copy-pasted from VPPRO. --Izno (talk) 23:30, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi there,

I've tried to report the issue via Google Playmarket, but since noone reads users' feedbacks there I've decided to use this channel to reach out to developers of the Wikipedia Android app. Please take my apologies if I've misused the channel as I am still new to the Wikipedia community and trying to report such issue for the first time.

Here is a screenshot taken on my Android tablet from the Wikipedia app: https://fastpic.org/view/116/2022/0328/_c78f776bd761029b52ed3631d17bb599.jpg.html

As can be seen from the screenshot, there are some articles that can be viewed from Android app, but can't be saved by some reason. In particular, I refer to the following article in Russian language, which covers the IT companies in Russia as a "category list": https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F%3A%D0%98%D0%A2-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B8_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8?wprov=sfla1

So the question I have to ask here is if there is any way to enable saving such articles from the Android app?

Thanks in advance and best regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.255.2.247 (talk) 15:51, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I believe the "save" feature only works on mainspace pages. In fact what you're seeing is just a rendering of the page using WebView, which is basically an in-app web browser. In other words, the mobile app isn't rendering and styling the wikitext like it does for articles (i.e. if you use dark mode, you'll notice category pages don't use the dark theme), thus the other features you're used to having for articles are not available. — MusikAnimal ^talk 23:45, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

What happened to these logs?

Hi, does anyone know why these logs make no sense? Just curious, thanks https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&offset=20140302000000&limit=100&type=&user=User%3ABabbaQ&page=&wpdate=2014-03-01&tagfilter=&wpfilters%5B0%5D=newusers Mike989 (talk) 09:12, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

They're leftovers from the discontinued article feedback tool. Graham87 09:18, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Hotcat restored a link???

Any idea what happened with Special:Diff/1079976243? In the previous edit, I unlinked "Hebrew Infant Asylum". Then I used HotCat to update a category, and the link came back. I remember HotCat unexpectedly dropping me into an edit dialog asking me to enter an edit summary, but I cancelled out of that, went back to the article link, and re-did the category change. I didn't notice until just now that the links came back. Any clue what might have been going on? Some kind of caching problem, maybe? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:18, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

You effectively edit conflicted with yourself by making an edit, going back to a previous tab where that edit hadn't been made, and then making another edit. The software (by design) ignores self-edit-conflicts and just overwrites the first edit. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:26, 29 March 2022 (UTC)