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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Infobox image border: too light

I was directed here from WP:EIS, so I'll copy and paste my query. The current infobox border, whether invoked using border=yes or {{!}}border, is much too light now. On my LED display it's barely perceptible. This how I'm currently viewing Darkness in a Different Light, and other such use of borders. A year ago that border was a much darker grey, whereas it's barely even there now. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 15:35, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Mac Dreamstate (talk · contribs) was actually directed here from Wikipedia talk:Extended image syntax#Infobox images/borders, and there are some points there that really ought not to be thrown out. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:44, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mac Dreamstate: you refer to infoboxes throughout both your posts, but you started this off on a page concerning images. So, do you mean the infobox border, or the image border? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

The image border within the infobox—the one directly surrounding the album art. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 16:31, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

So not the infobox border at all. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:44, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Just the image border. I realise now that the topic title should be changed to reflect that. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 16:57, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Regardless, there has been a lightening of the border for the <code>...</code> and <pre>...</pre> elements, and hence the <source>...</source> structure, as used here:

code {
  color: #000;
  background-color: #f8f9fa;
  border: 1px solid #eaecf0;
  border-radius: 2px;
  padding: 1px 4px;
}
pre,
.mw-code {
  color: #000;
  background-color: #f8f9fa;
  border: 1px solid #eaecf0;
  padding: 1em;
  white-space: pre-wrap;
}

That #eaecf0 border was definitely darker in the recent past. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:35, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Fixing a broken wikilink

Take a look at my edit fixing it, what was wrong with it in the first place? If so, should I report it to Twinkle? Ugog Nizdast (talk) 02:20, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I assume you saw a red link before. Twinkle edits so quickly that MediaWiki often hasn't registered the AfD page exists so links to the page become red. A purge would have fixed it. It's a known issue which has been reported many times. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:38, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Aah, my bad. The old revision shows it as blue now though, I vaguely recall trying to refresh the page to remove the red...In any case, how I did I even manage to make an edit changing nothing? What is the diff trying to show? some invisible character etc? That's what I thought at first. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 02:44, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

You somehow added a left-to-right mark. Graham87 07:57, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

This often happens if you copy the text from a location in the Wikipedia interface where we enforce directional independence, or by using certain keyboard combinations accidentally. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Showing Wikidata descriptions underneath article title on mobile web

Hello everyone, so as noted earlier on this village pump, almost all Wikipedias now are showing Wikidata descriptions underneath the title on mobile. This has been running on beta on English Wikipedia for around 6 months now. Wikidata is in use and in display on different mobile functionalities and projects, and, if there are no concerns, the Reading team that developed on the feature, would like to enable showing Wikidata underneath the title on English Wikipedia on mobile, as well. Thanks!--Melamrawy (WMF) (talk) 02:15, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I would like two features for editors who want to look out for bad Wikidata descriptions in articles of interest. An opt-in preference to also display the subtitle in the desktop version. And a watchlist setting to show changes to English Wikidata descriptions without showing other Wikidata edits. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:32, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: opt-in preference to also display the subtitle in the desktop version We can probably make a gadget for this. watchlist setting to show changes to English Wikidata descriptions without showing other Wikidata edits I believe phab:T90436 is give-or-take the task for this. --Izno (talk) 12:49, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I think there already was user-script for that (description at desktop version). --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 14:31, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

We can definitely make it into a gadget proper, then. I do have a question, though: would this gadget replace, modify, or exist alongside the current "From Wikipedia […]" tagline element? Izno alerted me to this discussion via MediaWiki talk:Gadget-metadata.js § Some notes; I'm the current maintainer of that gadget and it modifies the tagline to help surface quality assessments while reading. While it also colours the header according to the quality rating found, I consider the tagline text to be the primary output since it's presumably accessible to colourblind or blind users. I'd like to make sure that these gadgets wouldn't conflict with one another. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 16:13, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Tag:2017 source edit

I can't seem to find a place specifically for discussing tags, so I guess here will ahve to do. Can someone tell me what this tag is supposed to mean? Is there any reason I should care when I see it in my watchlist? And so forth? thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:01, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Special:Tags includes "2017 source edit" is an "Edit made using the 2017 wikitext editor". It is claimed to be a modest proposal to replace the wikitext editor and is being discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal to submit blockers on replacing our wikitext editor. Johnuniq (talk) 04:41, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. Beeblebrox (talk) 08:25, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Figuring out what changed in an edit

In an edit like this one, is there any easier way to figure out what has changed other than by manually comparing all of the highlighted lines? I notice that the change increased the article size by 34 characters, but the change in the mayor field didn't increase by that much. And this seems to be happening because the editor reordered the fields during his edit? Is there a common reason why people do this? Thanks. Air.light (talk) 05:29, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

The "wikEdDiff" gadget in your Preferences can help. It shows that the name of the mayor was changed and that |unemployment_rate= was added.

As for the reordering of parameters, the editor did not do it intentionally. It's a Visual Editor bug. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:51, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the information and I've tried that gadget out and it will help on looking at edits like this one. Air.light (talk) 06:41, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Recalling a string from elsewhere in a page

What is the easiest way to define a string in one place on a page, then recall that string for use elsewhere on the page? Thanks! —swpb^T 14:59, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

mw:Extension:Variables can do it, but it's not installed on Wikimedia sites. I believe Lua global variables could also do it, but global variables are generally discouraged, although I was unable to find any Wikimedia coding convention that even mentions them, much less prohibits them. Perhaps a better question is what are you really trying to do that you think you need such a capability? --Unready (talk) 15:29, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

On the article National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, there are a couple of numbers in the infobox that are computed from lists of states which change somewhat regularly. The lists and numbers are used in a few places, but I would like to make it possible to maintain each list in only one place, preferably directly on the article page, and have it referenced elsewhere in the article, to simplify maintenance and prevent contradictory information. —swpb^T 16:05, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

You could store the list as either a tabular Commons file (yes, those exist now) or as a Lua/local json module itself, from how I'm reading that use case. --Izno (talk) 16:45, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Our Lua is from mw:Extension:Scribunto which I don't think can do it in a wikitext page. mw:Extension:Lua has global variables and can do it but we don't use that extension. It's possible but ugly to do it with mw:Extension:Labeled Section Transclusion which we do have here, documented at Help:Labeled section transclusion. It can be done by transcluding a labelled section from the page itself. It's a hack, may confuse editors, use resources, and I don't know whether it has ever been done. I thought about it for this question. See source for how the below test was made. If the value is the result of a computation then it will be computed each time it's used. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:46, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

X is 123, referenced before the definition.

X is defined here: 123

Y is 42, referenced before the definition.

Y is defined here but in <includeonly>...</includeonly> so it doesn't display here.

X is still 123.

Y is still 42.

Perfect! Now, how can I make a labelled section containing an arbitrary number of parameters, and pass each of those parameters to another template? —swpb^T 17:49, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Using {{No spam}}, because it's simple.

{{No spam|{{#section:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|X}}|{{#section:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|Y}}}}

produces 12342. There's a need to be wary, though. There's a limit to how many transclusions/expansions you can have on a page. --Unready (talk) 20:17, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

PrimeHunter's sample above uses mw:Extension:Labeled Section Transclusion. The source is

X is {{#section:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|X}}, referenced before the definition.

X is defined here: <section begin=X />123<section end=X />

Y is {{#section:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|Y}}, referenced before the definition.

Y is defined here<includeonly><section begin=Y />42<section end=Y /></includeonly> but in {{tag|includeonly}} so it doesn't display here.

X is still {{#section:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|X}}.

Y is still {{#section:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|Y}}.

--Unready (talk) 19:52, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I got that. I'm asking if I can extend this to allow the labelled sections to contain several separate parameters to be passed to a template. I have a list of states of dynamic length (like MD|NJ|IL|HI|WA|MA|DC|VT|CA|RI|NY), and I want to be able to pass each state to multiple templates ({{EVs}}, {{NPVIC_passed}}, {{NPVIC_pending}}) using something like {{for loop}}. I can put the states in an {{item}} and retrieve them with {{component}}, but that doesn't allow the number of parameters to vary, as far as I can tell. —swpb^T 20:20, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I got that. I included the source for the benefit of all readers, so they don't have to hit the edit link and read the wikitext it in a textbox. As for passing sections to templates as parameters, it's just wikitext. You can string them together like any other wikitext. Remember that wikitext is not a programming language, despite templates formulated to try to make it one. If you want to do something complicated, Lua is a better alternative. You're still going to have to beware the transclusion limit. --Unready (talk) 20:38, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Could you suggest what that Lua code might look like, for what I'm trying to do? —swpb^T 20:41, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

The question of whether a module can maintain state for a page has arisen somewhere before, and the firm answer was that any hack that allowed some kind of state (such as misusing references to provide state information) would be regarded as a bug and the ability removed. I gather that developers want to be able to take an arbitrary piece of wikitext from a page (for example, when someone edits a section) and process just that piece without having to process the whole page to get any state variables. Johnuniq (talk) 03:42, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

mw:Extension:Labeled Section Transclusion solves the problem of quasi-global values. Now swpb wants to be able to concatenate a variable number of them based on some other parameter and hand the concatenation to a template. That's the job for Lua. --Unready (talk) 15:54, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Adminbot for catgeory history merges

It has been suggested that the cut-and-paste moves done by Cydebot over many years when category moves weren't supported, be fixed by history merge. See the discussion at WP:BOTREQ#Bot for category history merges. 103.6.159.84 (talk) 17:11, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Page Curation toolbar

I can't tell if I'm having a brain fart or not, but I cannot seem to mark pages as patrolled (whether accessed from the NPP or otherwise). Feel like I'm missing something simple... it used to be there, but is no longer. Any tips would be appreciated. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:34, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

You need the new page reviewer right for using that toolbar! 103.6.159.84 (talk) 18:24, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Was under the impression from the curation page that some users are grandfathered in. EvergreenFir (talk) 07:35, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

@EvergreenFir: Certain users were, if they met certain activity criteria: Editors who have made 200 uncontested or unreverted patrols, maintenance, or deletion tags between 1 January 2016 and 06 October 2016 and who have a clean block log since 01 January 2016. If you would like to gain the user right, you can request it at WP:PERM. You probably have sufficient experience to patrol new pages, as your autopatrolled status shows you have experience creating articles. --AntiCompositeNumber (Leave a message) 01:04, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

New user contributions functionality broken

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T155780

If I click on the "contributions" link to see my contributions, and then from there, click on the "show contributions of new users only" radio button, followed by the "Search" button, I get a list of contributions made by "new users" (although I've never been quite sure what the "new user" criteria are). However, having generated that list, if I click on the "Search" button again to refresh this list, I get an error highlighting the User Name field stating that this is a required field. This functionality worked up until a few hours ago (the last time I tried it). WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 20:32, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Definitely a bug. Not sure if it is filed yet, still looking. It's accessible still through Special:Contributions/newbies. The criteria from WP:UCP says, "Users are considered new when they are among the last 1% of registrations, meaning about a few weeks old on Wikipedia, and do not have the 'bot' flag." Killiondude (talk) 20:37, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/newbies works the first time it is linked, but again, the refresh function is broken. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 20:42, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Today is Thursday... --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:02, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Point?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiDan61 (talk • contribs) 21:55, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

New MediaWiki versions are installed on the English Wikipedia on Thursdays: mw:MediaWiki 1.29/Roadmap. The fix is expected to be deployed here Thursday, 26 January. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:35, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

So they broke it today, only to fix it next Thursday? WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 23:15, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, if it didn't destroy Wikipedia or something like that (judgment left to developers) to qualify for the "Unless backported" remark at phab:T155780#2954481 then the deployment of fixes wait for the next regular MediaWiki update. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:08, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Anyone is free to backport a patch to the relevant deployment branch and add it to the next SWAT deployment if they think it's a serious enough issue and they're willing to be on IRC to test the fix. Anomie⚔ 00:35, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

This bug appears to have been resolved as of this time. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 13:42, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

It did wind up being backported after all. Anomie⚔ 16:02, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

DAB solver

This one seems to have given up on me today. Is it me, is it just temporary, or has it moved? Thanks for any help! Cheers, O Fortuna!^{...Imperatrix mundi.} 20:48, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I am also having issues trying to use DAB solver, or any other tools on the site. Cheers - Kyle1278 (talk) 20:57, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Please contact User:Dispenser directly, those are his privately hosted tools —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:18, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Fixed The script for Let's encrypt reloaded lighttpd, it took 11 minutes to shutdown and didn't come back up. The script now checks if a reload is necessary. — Dispenser 03:33, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Dispenser, quick work! O Fortuna!^{...Imperatrix mundi.} 06:36, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, Cheers! Cheers - Kyle1278 (talk) 08:05, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Edit window is too big

Somebody has embiggened the editing window, and it doesn't fit on the screen of my laptop any more. This makes scrolling and manipulating large blocks of text difficult and slow. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 23:39, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Someone has? The edit window still conforms to whatever size I make my browser window, on my laptop. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:44, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Mine is actually a little larger than the browser window, and it was not in the recent past. I have an unsaved document open in a sandbox and there's a noticeable difference in the size of that window (18 lines) and the current edit window (25 lines). I thought there was a way to specify in Preferences the number of lines in the edit window, but I can't find it. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 23:51, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

From the TechNews above on this page: The "Columns" and "Rows" settings will be removed from the Editing tab in Preferences. If you wish to keep what the "Rows" setting did you can add this code to your personal CSS: #wpTextbox1 { height: 50em; } You can change the number 50 to make it look like you want to. --Unready (talk) 23:58, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks so much. That was exactly the facts I needed. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 00:08, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Autocomplete in delete/block form

Today, Wikipedia has started autocompleting the standard deletion reasons in the delete/block forms. Is there a way to disable this functionality? I have always manually entered the deletion or block reasons, and my browser would autocomplete the strings that I have entered. If I wanted to use the standard reason, I'd select it from the menu. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 06:42, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

See § Tech News: 2017-03. When an admin blocks a user or deletes or protects a page they give a reason why. They can now get suggestions when they write. The suggestions will be based on the messages in the dropdown menu. AFAIK, there is no setting to disable it. — JJMC89 (T·C) 20:46, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I tried to hack a Greasemonkey script to set autocomplete on in the edit box, but had no luck so far; either I didn't save the change, or something set it off again. But never mind, they are planning to revert the change. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 08:51, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Note the change has been reverted. Cenarium (talk) 20:51, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Bug in confirm deletion

The confirm deletion page has two reason inputs: "Reason" and "Other/additional reason". The "Reason" input is a pull-down list and is fine. "Other/additional reason" was, until recently, a simple text input field which was fine since my browser would supply me with a list of reasons that I have used in the past. This input has changed and now displays an ill-formatted copy of the list supplied for the "Reason" input and does not let my browser offer me anything. I believe this is the relevant HTML:

<div id="wpDeleteReasonRow"><label for="wpReason">Other/additional reason:</label> <input size="60" maxlength="255" tabindex="2" id="wpReason" class="mw-ui-input-inline" autofocus="" name="wpReason"/></div>

Do I have to take this to Bugzilla or can someone fix it on my say-so here? — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 13:18, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

#Autocomplete in delete/block form. And, yes, it's infuriating, not least because - unlike the standard jquery UI autocomplete widget - it isn't practical to disable it after-the-fact. —Cryptic 13:43, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

What is even the point of this? I'm not seeing anything useful to anyone. SpinningSpark 14:31, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

The change has been reverted so this is now resolved. Cenarium (talk) 20:51, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Today's odd question: some pages in categories are now... burgundy?

Sorry, I've tried to find this answer elsewhere, but I just noticed a new colour in the links I see, say in categories or new article lists. I know what various shades of blue are (clicked or unclicked existing links), we all know red... but now I have a new colour! A sort of... burgundy link. I wonder if it means that an article has been reviewed/approved or created by an auto-approved user? Anyone know what I'm talking about? Thanks, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:13, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

@Shawn in Montreal: can you provide a link or two to the pages you are seeing this on, and let us know which entries you are seeing different? — xaosflux ^Talk 21:43, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

You failed to give an example but I guess you have enabled "Threshold for stub link formatting" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:45, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, @PrimeHunter: I did, because I found myself suddenly unable to view stub categories rather than stub articles -- or so it seemed to me at the time? It was odd. But then these burgundy links didn't seem to me to be all stubs. If I could reply on your help a little longer, could you direct me to a WP page that explains the relationship between this threshold and that colour? thanks, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:50, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

If a page is smaller than the chosen threshold at the setting then links to it become brown, whether in categories or elsewhere, and whether or not the page has a stub template. If you think there is something wrong then say what your threshold is and give an example. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:05, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh I see. Thank you. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 22:08, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

It's documented at Help:Preferences#Advanced options. Special:Preferences links to Help:Preferences if you have English as language. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Right. Yes, I wanted to be sure I continued to see all hidden categories, but I had no interest in stub thresholds. I've re-disabled that. thanks again! Shawn in Montreal (talk) 22:16, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

It works! But now it shifts the viewport...

And I need to find a way to shift the viewport back.

I'm speaking about the script User:The Transhumanist/anno.js

The hot key is Shift-Alt-a.

This script works on bulleted lists.

Many list items have an annotation, that is, the list item is followed by a description. These descriptions are useful, but they may obscure the items in the list that they describe. Sometimes, it is useful to look at the bare list, without the annotations.

This script turns those descriptions on and off. It provides a tab menu command and a hotkey for doing so. So...

When you don't need to see the descriptions, turn them off. When you need more detail, hit the toggle again, and the descriptions return.

The script stores its status so it doesn't start over between pages. (When annotations are turned off, they are off for all pages).

The current problem I'm trying to solve is this:

Hiding or showing annotations affects the position of the viewport, so unfortunately, the reader is jolted away from what he was reading. This is very bad.

I'd like the material that was in the viewport to stay there, which means the viewport must be repositioned each time the toggle is activated.

But I'm stumped on how to do this. The Transhumanist 01:59, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Developer Wishlist Survey: propose your ideas

At the Wikimedia Developer Summit, we decided to organize a Developer Wishlist Survey, and here we go:

mw:Developer Wishlist

The Wikimedia technical community seeks input from developers for developers, to create a high-profile list of desired improvements. The scope of the survey includes the MediaWiki platform (core software, APIs, developer environment, enablers for extensions, gadgets, templates, bots, dumps), the Wikimedia server infrastructure, the contribution process, and documentation.

The best part: we want to have the results published by Wednesday, February 15. Yes, in a month, to have a higher chance to influence the Wikimedia Foundation annual plan FY 2017-18.

There's no time to lose. Propose your ideas before the end of January, either by pushing existing tasks in Phabricator or by creating new ones. You can find instructions on the wiki page. Questions and feedback are welcome especially on the related Talk page.

The voting phase is expected to start on February 6 (tentative). Watch this space (or even better, the wiki page) - SSethi (WMF) 03:08, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

User compare report broken?

Hi! Never used this before so I'm not entirely sure how it's supposed to work, but when I clicked on the "User compare report" link on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ダルメーター I got a pink and purple erro message with text including <type 'exceptions.UnicodeEncodeError'> [...] Python 2.7.6: /usr/bin/python Sat Jan 21 03:14:34 2017 [...] A problem occurred in a Python script. Here is the sequence of function calls leading up to the error, in the order they occurred. and a whole bunch of code. Is this normal? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:21, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Question about using color

How should I handle a color? Example:

... In doing a problem involving a given mass of some substance, the condition of the substance at any moment can be described by telling what its temperature is and what its volume is. If we know the temperature and volume of a substance, and that the pressure is some function of the temperature and volume, then we know the internal energy. One could say, “I do not want to do it that way. Tell me the temperature and the pressure, and I will tell you the volume. I can think of the volume as a function of temperature and pressure, and the internal energy as a function of temperature and pressure, and so on.”
— Feynman • Leighton • Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume I, Ch. 44-5

Username160611000000 (talk) 12:56, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

For sure, you should absolutely not use <font>, because it's obsolete, not just deprecated, but all the way wrong. <span style="color:red;"> (or whatever color you want) should work. --Unready (talk) 16:41, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

@Username160611000000: Also, please be careful that you observe both MOS:COLOR and MOS:CONTRAST. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

@Username160611000000: There is also the template {{color}} which can be used. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:08, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Note that using red and blue, in particular, is unhelpful if you don't say "words in red represent X, words in blue Y" because red and blue are our link colors: blue for links to extant pages, and red for non-extant. Someone seeing volume is going to assume that it's a piped link to a page that has been deleted or hasn't yet been created. If you specifically explain your use of colors, that issue won't be a problem, however. Nyttend (talk) 13:07, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Username160611000000: I strongly recommend that you avoid relying on colour. While helpful for some, it can cause content to be inaccessible for the blind and colourblind unless done carefully. I'm not saying "don't use colour", I'm saying "make sure the content is still useful for people who can't see it". For example, to emphasize a single word, consider using something like <em style="font-style: normal; color: red;"> instead of <span style="color:red;">, because the former carries the semantic idea of emphasis from the tag choice while looking superficially the same. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 18:16, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Viewing Page History

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump (technical) § Viewing Page History

 – Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:16, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

At the top of my screen is a link to "Contributions". If I click on this and then click on "Edit Count" and then click at the bottom of the screen, I get a list of pages that I have contributed to (See: https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-ec/?user=BronHiggs&project=en.wikipedia.org.) In the past, I was able to click on the "page history" of an article of interest, and get a neat summary of a page's edit history. For the past week or so, this function has been working erratically - sometimes on and sometimes off and at other times has directed me to a form (See, for example, https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-articleinfo/?lang=en&wiki=wikipedia&page=Advertising_management) which I have not seen before and which, if used, also returns the error message "no revisions found". Over the past four days, this application has not been working at all. After waiting an inordinately long period of time (several minutes), I see a message that says "no revisions to show". The net result is that I have not been able to get a positive result or view any page history. I have only been on Wikipedia for three months, but in that time, this application has worked seamlessly. It has only been in the past week that I have experienced difficulties. Nothing else has changed. I am not using a different browser or operating system and have not changed any of my settings. BronHiggs (talk) 22:08, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

@BronHiggs: xtools-articleinfo is maintained externally, you can report trouble with it here. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:07, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Is there a problem with a search engine or bot, or am I experiencing a PEBCAK error?

Hi! It used to be that I could go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Genetics go to the table "Genetics articles by quality and importance" and click on one of the entries in that table to get a list of the articles in that category. For 2 or 3 days now, when I click, the site just hangs up. I find this on other such tables too. Does the PEBCAK, or are you folks having a problem. please advise. Thanks, DennisPietras (talk) 17:08, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

@BronHiggs: I wonder if this is another manifestation of the problem "Viewing Page History" When in doubt, blame the Russians. DennisPietras (talk) 17:18, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

after waiting long enough, I was finally directed to "502 Bad Gateway" "nginx/1.11.3" at https://tools.wmflabs.org/enwp10/cgi-bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&projecta=Genetics&importance=NA-Class&quality=Start-Class DennisPietras (talk) 20:27, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

May want to ask the primary tool maintainer on that one, w:de:Benutzer_Diskussion:Hedonil. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:12, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• This appears to have been copied from Wikipedia:Help desk#Is there a problem with a search engine or bot, or am I experiencing a PEBCAK error?. @DennisPietras: please see WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:39, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

  @Redrose64:Point taken. I'm a newbie. DennisPietras (talk) 16:09, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• Looks like Hedonil has been gone for a while. Other maintainers listed are: w:fr:User:Kelson and @Theopolisme:. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:34, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

  Pings and other project talk messages left. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:35, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Reporting: tools.wmflabs.org, tools no longer working

Greetings, For several days now, these two tools are timing out.

• https://tools.wmflabs.org/enwp10/cgi-bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&projecta=Catholicism&importance=Unknown-Class&quality=Start-Class 504 Gateway Time-out nginx/1.11.3
• http://tools.wmflabs.org/enwp10/cgi-bin/update.fcgi 502 Bad Gateway nginx/1.11.3

Asking for help here since this is way beyond me. Thanks. — JoeHebda • (talk) 14:59, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

• Duplicate, see above Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Is_there_a_problem_with_a_search_engine_or_bot.2C_or_am_I_experiencing_a_PEBCAK_error.3F. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:30, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Template:Sister project links

Cannot show the correct wikinews. e.g. {{Sister project links |wikt=no |commons=Category:Hurricane Isaac (2012) |b=no |n=Tropical Storm Isaac creates worries across US gulf states |q=no |s=no |v=no}}

For wikinews, it cannot show the target news even I put it in the infobox. Please help. --219.79.226.138 (talk) 04:40, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

|1= is the search parameter, not |n=, which is yes or no. — JJMC89 (T·C) 06:05, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• This appears to have been copied from Template talk:Sister project links#Template-protected edit request on 22 January 2017, contrary to WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:45, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Enhancing PDF output

Hello everyone, there are currently some changes being planned in order to enhance the output of rendered PDFs. Please check the page here in order to learn more, and feel free to add questions or help give headsup in other relevant portals/communities. Thank you.--Melamrawy (WMF) (talk) 19:54, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Rejoice !!!! Thanks WMDE —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:16, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

@Melamrawy (WMF) and Jdforrester (WMF): I am curious--is there some reason why we wouldn't use one of our own projects, Parsoid, to do the rendering? --Izno (talk) 16:56, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

@Izno:, I assume this would imply implementing a whole new solution from scratch, instead of adopting a web based existing PDF service and I would ping @CAnanian (WMF): to further clarify :). Thanks --Melamrawy (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Very minor issue with signature date and time stamps

As the title says, this is something really minor and is really more of a mild annoyance (to me) than a major issue, but I still wanted to bring it up here. If I'm writing a message and submit it at 10:54 AM, for example, it will sometimes show as 10:53 AM after submitting it even though the page history shows 10:54 AM. Using an example from about 23 minutes ago, I started writing this message at 11:59 AM, and then the time changed to 12:00 PM, and when I previewed the message, the time in my signature showed 12:00 PM, but then when I submitted it, the time in my signature showed 11:59 AM, which I fixed with another edit, despite the page history showing otherwise. It seems that if you want the time—and the date as well if you, for example, start writing something at 11:59 PM, but don't submit it until 12:00 AM the next day—to be correct, you have to wait until the seconds are between 20 and 30, such as 12:00:20 PM or 12:00:30 PM. Again, it's only a mild annoyance, but I still don't understand it. I thought about it possibly being because sometimes you may submit something precisely at 12:00:00 PM, for example, but your computer's clock isn't synchronized perfectly at that point; however, if that's the case, the page history would have also shown 11:59 AM, but it didn't. Amaury (talk | contribs) 20:23, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I've noticed this too. It's probably because the server clocks are slightly out of sync with each other. Graham87 09:15, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Or the sign timestamp (~~~~) is taken at a slightly different moment than the es-line (for edit history) is. That small moment interval could be crossing a minute-separation. -DePiep (talk) 09:42, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

This has come up before. I would expect the timestamp in the page text to be equal to or earlier than the timestamp in the page history, but never later. This is because the MediaWiki parser needs to expand those tildes in the course of preparing the text that is to be committed; and the page history timestamp shows the moment that the commit occurred. Nothing can be done after the commit without compromising the integrity of the data files. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:12, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Aha, Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 139#2 minutes difference between time in signature and history. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:07, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Article titles include a line break

Sometime in the past month or so, article titles started rendering a line break at the end. When I highlight an article title, it appears as if there is an extra space at the end. When I copy and paste the article title, I get the expected text with the addition of a line break as if I had pressed enter/return. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and using Google Chrome Version 55.0.2883.87 (64-bit). The line break doesn't happen with Firefox. gobonobo ^{+ c} 20:53, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

If this varies between browsers, I suspect a browser bug/feature, over which we have no control. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:32, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Location map

Can anyone explain me how to create a location map? Xaris333 (talk) 21:50, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean the map image (for example, File:Lancashire UK location map.svg) or the template (for example, {{Location map United Kingdom Lancashire}})? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:15, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Drop down citation templates on RefToolbar 2.0b

Please advise where I should take this issue. Preferably, a page where there is a chance of a fairly quick response. On the drop down citation templates, the one for "cite news" does not have a fill-in blank for "newspaper" I mean...come on...no newspapers? There is "agency" and "publisher". But no "newspaper", even though Template:Cite news specifically lists that option from the get-go. You don't actually see "agency" or "publisher" until farther down the page under "Full parameter set in horizontal format". So if you want your citations to say "newspaper", after you use the template, you then have to manually insert it after dropping the filled template on the page. Where this becomes a major pain is standardizing citations on an existing article when preparing it for a review - and, previous multiple editors not seeing any other options, are guessing and not consistent. "newspaper" should be one of the standard fill-in blanks on that drop-down template. Is there a place I can address this? — Maile (talk) 01:38, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

newspaper is an alias for work. See Template:Cite news#Periodical. Next to "Work" in the cite news form is a "?" with mouseover "Name of journal, magazine, newspaper, periodical or website". PrimeHunter (talk) 02:41, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

And so it is under that mouseover. Thanks for the info. — Maile (talk) 16:12, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Simultaneous editing

Has Wikipedia instituted a system allowing for simultaneous editing of articles? Over the past half-hour I have made several edits to 2017 Women's March, e.g. 18:53, 23 January 2017‎, each one taking about 10 minutes, during which several other edits were made, and somehow there was no edit conflict and the other edits did not seem to be lost. Yet, my final round of edits did have an edit conflict, so I discarded my changes. Has Wikipedia instituted an editing system wherein, upon saving an edit, it detects which paragraphs the user edited, and if there is no conflict in those paragraphs, it merges the user's edited paragraphs into the latest version? Is there an explanation of this? —Anomalocaris (talk) 19:23, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

It detects which section you clicked on the edit for; if no one else used the edit for the whole page, the same section, a parent section or a child section, then there is no edit conflict. Od Mishehu 20:02, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Od Mishehu: My edits today were always page edits, not section edits. Wikipedia is doing something it couldn't do before! —Anomalocaris (talk) 20:11, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Od Mishehu was wrong. Help:Edit conflict#Prevention says: "New since v.1.3 is CVS-style edit-conflict merging, based on the diff3 utility. This feature will only trigger an edit conflict if users attempt to edit the same few lines". mw:Release notes/1.3#Version 1.3.0, 2004-08-11 says: "Automatic merging of edit conflicts that don't directly interfere". It's possible some details are tweaked sometimes but editing different paragraphs in the same section has usually avoided an edit conflict for as far as I can remember. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:24, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

PrimeHunter: Thanks; see my comments at Help talk:Edit conflict#"New since v.1.3" is getting old. —Anomalocaris (talk) 22:21, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I now understand that Wikipedia has had some automatic edit conflict technology for over 10 years, but it still seems to me that it has been improved recently. Is this my imagination, or has automatic edit conflict technology recently improved? —Anomalocaris (talk) 00:52, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-04

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

• You can see a list of the templates on a page you edit with the visual editor. [1]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 January. It will be on all wikis from 26 January (calendar).

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

20:14, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Problem with WP:EMAIL

The sender's [...] email address is disclosed with each email

I was emailed by a blocked user a little while ago, but the "From:" address was just "wiki@wikimedia.org". Last time this happened (54 days ago) the user's email address was disclosed to me, and now when I click on the "Email this user" link I still get a warning that your email address WILL be disclosed to the recipient.

Is something wrong? Did the system change but the wording hasn't been updated yet?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:24, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: Yes something changed. The sender of the email is now only listed as the "Reply-To". That means that the sender still discloses his email address, but the emails no longer appear to be sent directly by the user (this used to triggered spam scores significantly causing some emails never to arrive). When you reply to the user the answer will however still be sent directly to the original user and you can still find out the email address of this user if you don't reply. (You just need to know how to reveal that information in your email client). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:30, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hijiri88 it still is, it is just less obvious. We had to change the "from" address to @wikipedia to prevent all the spam systems out there from blocking us. The send email is in the reply-to field, depending on your email client it may or may not display, but clicking REPLY in most clients should populate it to your to: line. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:31, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. I didn't want to state it directly per WP:BEANS but I was more than a little concerned the system had been hacked. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:36, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Anchor links for section titles?

It's quite common to want to link to a section of a wikipedia article, instead of to the whole article. This is possible by adding the section header's anchor name to the link, but at the moment, it's not super easy. For top-level headers, you can copy the link from the TOC on most pages, but for sub sections, the only way to get the anchor name is to view the page source, and copy it manually. There is a way to add anchor links to section headers with User:Bility/copySectionLink, which provides behaviour similar to what is used in the python docs, but that's not useful for most people, because they won't be able to find it (I only was directed to it because I asked on IRC after searching for quite a while). It would be nice if this script could be added either as a default behaviour, or at least as an option in the preferences/gadgets section. -- naught101 (talk) 01:11, 24 January 2017 (UTC)